Sep
11
2008
Why We Blog, Part 4 of 4: Personal Obligation
By: Jed BrubakerFiled in: Technology & Society
Telenovelas, first dates, and fertile ground -- everyone has their own relationship with this defined, yet far from settled, medium. Justin Hall, often considered the first blogger, probably had no clue what he was on to when he first started coding his diary into HTML. The personal journal remains one of the most popular forms of individual blogging, but political, technical, l and news aggregate blogs have entirely reshaped the boundaries and potentials of self-publishing.
So what then is an academic blog? And what does it mean to be an "academic blogger"? Definitions are problematic. When I look through my blog subscriptions in Google Reader for some model to follow, the topics and purposes are as divergent as the titles.
So how about blogs in general? I have always been fond of Robert Scoble's assertion that "blogging is a conversation." In his book entitled Naked Conversations, he describes the exposed honesty of blogging, but also the dedication to the communities of knowledge in which these blogs participate. Blogs allow anyone to participate in a conversation about the topics that are important to them. As Trish said in her post, this is about "bringing everyone to the table in order to create the best solutions."
No where is this more important than in education. Dr. Wesch's recent post on textbooks provides an example of the inevitability of change in education, but not necessarily in the way we might hope. Faced with the high costs of textbooks, it seems many K-12 public schools are restricting the use of textbooks to the classroom. His commenters are quick to judge the academy's relationship with books ("information behind a pay wall", one of his commenters writes), as well as the current "wastfull[ness of] our teaching meathods [sic]". There is, of course, another side to this equation. There is no lack of information out there, and one might argue that limiting face time with academic content will simply result in increased attention with something else.
So why do I blog? Honestly, the blog is just an artifact of my commitment to the various communities with which I participate. As for gnovis, I blog with the hope that the open dissemination of knowledge will add pliability to the nature of academia and education, much in the same way blogs are currently restructuring traditional news media. I strongly believe that the Ivory Tower has an obligation to the global community that makes its very existence possible. Blogging is just one way in which to assist the collaboration and dissemination of knowledge. In this information age, there is no reason that information should be scare or that every voice should not be heard.
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Submitted by Jed Brubaker on Fri, 09/12/2008 - 00:02.
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I did a little googling to
I did a little googling to see some non-gnovis perspectives on "Why We Blog"...
On The Global Sociology Blog I found - surprise, surprise - a sociological exploration of blogging, which touches on many of the same ideas about academic blogging that we've raised in these posts, as well as an interesting bit on "Value-Oriented Rational Action."
Elsewhere, I found a post from pastor Carol Howard Merritt here in DC. I'm not even remotely religious, but I am nonetheless in a bit of awe of the Christian blogosophere - I've been closely following several Christian bloggers ever since we launched the gnovis blog last year, and am frequently impressed by both the quality of the posts and the degree of engagement with and from readers.
There are obvious reasons for this particular blogosphere to thrive: ministry, "witnessing," public prayer, evangilism, real-world communities and connections, and a very popular subject matter. However, I'm more particularly interested in the seemless rise of blogging in the relatively young Emerging/Emergent church movement. From Wikipedia: "Proponents of [the emerging church] movement call it a 'conversation' to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature as well as its emphasis on interfaith dialogue rather than one-way evangelism." Is it even remotely surprising that such a movement would embrace blogging?
This concept of a "developing and decentralized nature" brings me back to our topic: academic blogging. Despite the obviously heavy doors that limit entry to the Ivory Tower, there's no doubt that, once inside, we are all participating in something that is both developing and decentralized. Academics all around the world are wrestling with similar questions and, through the relatively lethargic mechanisms of conferences and publication, participating in a conversation. Though there are certainly restrictive power structures within individual universities and departments, the discourse is nonetheless highly decentralized. And, of course, if it wasn't developing none of us would be here at all.
It seems to me that academia and blogging are a pretty natural fit. So - while some of the reasons are quite obvious - isn't it actually a bit surprising that the academic blogosphere has been so slow to grow?
Maybe we should do another series called "Why shouldn't we blog?"
The Community
Ask "What's the point?"
Or perhaps "Why haven't we started blogging?"
I like the comparison to religion, and it has me thinking about the differences between religious bloggers and academic bloggers:
- Numbers? Academia is certainly good at specialties - who, really, are your colleages? I am sure there are many more people talking about Jesus than, well... craigslist. :)
- Age and Technology Fluency? - did you notice if the religious bloggers were predominantly young?
- Redundancy? When we are talking about "communities", a little something in the back of my head wonders if we are just replicating the types of communities that have been enabled by conferences, journals, and associations.
- Overhead? Academic work (for better or worse) has a high level of overhead to it. Some might call it "Rigour." Blogs then must decide how to relate academic content to their format. Here at gnovis we are choosing the "conversational tone" which some might (rightly or wrongly) suggest leads to a decrease in academic rigour.
Merton (yup, the famous Sociologist) would remind us that science serves a function, and perhaps even more than an attempt to produce "truth", it is a societal need that we are best meeting. As Ian Hacking said in his book The Social Construction of What?, "ask what's the point" (5).www.whatknows.com
why shouldn't we blog?
Good question. Why not blog??? Academia and blogs, conceptually, are a perfect match. In practice, the situation is more complicated. So far in this series, academia and universities have been imagined as safe havens for the creation and sharing of world changing ideas. This is a wonderful idea but in reality academia is a profession where people must compete for jobs and departments must be financially viable. The strongest argument against blogging can be stated in a single word – Tenure.
Tenure is earned based on a variety of qualifications but younger professors and students must carefully watch what they write, in the blogosphere and elsewhere, in order to stay in the good graces of the higher ups. Wikipedia quotes one professor’s perspective: "...tenure has had the exact opposite effect as to its stated goal of diversifying free expression. Instead, it stifles free speech in the formative years of a scientist's academic career, and all but requires a track record in support of paradigms that might have outgrown their usefulness."
Once one has tenure, blogging can be done with greater freedom and honesty. Before one has tenure (and that is a long road) blogging could potentially affect career options. Done smartly, a good blog can really enhance any student or professor’s portfolio. I think the more people who have them the less this will be a problem. For now, academic bloggers must tread lightly. Or is this already changing?
Disciplinary [Blog] Regulation
I know that academic blogging is frequently scrutinized, but I must admit this confuses me. If one is participating in a community and sharing the work he is producing, who would have a problem with that?
This is what concerns me: Academics seem terrified of getting it wrong. We want our mistakes hidden and our criticisms private. When we try to emulate a conversation on a blog, we are largely ignoring the reality that "real world" conversations are private, and quickly blend into the background.
All of this reminds me of a conversation I had with Dr. Tinkcom about the repercussion of my blogging sometime down the road. He suggested that we all need to get better at explaining our pasts. When I shared the concern that some colleague might read a ridiculous 10-year old post he simply told me to say "that is what I believed at the time; but let me tell you what I have learned since then, and what I believe today."
www.whatknows.com
explaining our pasts
Totally agree. I think our increasing cultural amnesia willeventually make this less of a problem. Plus, academics have had to face repercussions for past writing beforeblogs were around. Heideggercontinues to be taught and discussed but the black cloud of his support ofGerman National Socialism in its early days will mar every discussion of his intellectuallegacy.
<!--EndFragment-->the who and how of "community"
Geoff - Thanks for chiming in. I couldn't agree more, but this is also one of our largest challenges, since our most immediate community is relatively small, and the members are often buried in their own academic work. So, two questions:
1) When you say "community" in the context of gnovis, what does that community actually look like, to you, as someone who is more removed from the academy? Who is in this community?
2) Aside from reading your book, what are the most valuable things we could do to make this blog a contribution to that community?
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