Tagged "the world's premier forum for debate" Intelligence Squared recently partnered with Google to conduct a debate on hip-hop, featuring almost a dozen scholars, activists, policy analysts, with a couple of MCs thrown in to boot. The debate lasted for about an hour and a half.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3-7Y0xG89Q[/youtube] 

The question ("does hip-hop degrade society?") is problematic and given the site of the lecture makes me think of Stuart Hall's early work on popular culture, moral panics, and conservative politics in Great Britain. 

But I'm not just showing the video for the subject matter. I'm as interested in the technology. Obviously they've got high end producers able to make sure the video pops, and the sound quality is good. But what they're doing could be easily replicated by any good university. All it takes is the will and the imagination. When Google first introduced Google Plus I joined it and wrote a post analyzing its benefits for academics. A post that was, with three other posts, unfortunately eaten. What I was most impressed with though, was the potential of the Google Hangout. I participated in the practice dissertation proposal defense of a University of Chicago student from the comfort of my own office in Baltimore. 

See how it's used in the video above? It takes some of what Mark Anthony Neal has done with Left of Black and extended it. 

I'm going to file this away for later. See what I can do with it.