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I'm a celebrity academic ... in the blogosphere
17 September 2009
British universities have been encouraged to embrace the concept of the "celebrity academic" and follow in the footsteps of their "shamelessly" self-promoting peers in North America.
Chris Brauer, lecturer in online journalism at City University London, said academics should be encouraged to use the blogosphere to raise their profiles.
"There has always been a culture of the celebrity academic in North America," he said, adding that famous faculty members were a major weapon in recruitment strategies across the Atlantic.
"A particular academic can make a big difference. They are encouraged to get their name out there, and in many cases shamelessly self-promote. The blog provides an excellent vehicle to do that."
Although some British institutions, notably the University of Warwick, have set up blogging platforms for their academics and students, Mr Brauer's enthusiasm is not shared by all.
John Kay, an economist at the University of Oxford, writes a weekly column for the Financial Times, but he doubts the worth of widespread blogging in the academy.
"I don't think academics want or need the pressure to say things every day, and I don't think people like me should pass instant comment on everything that happens in the world," he said.
He also raised doubts about the quality of the material some might post.
"I think academics do have a responsibility to write for the public and to avoid charlatans filling the gap, but the way one does that is to avoid becoming a charlatan oneself," he said. "If I'm expressing opinions on everything every day, including things about which I may have opinions but very little knowledge, I'm in danger of becoming like them."
Mr Brauer said "group-blogging" could be a way around these concerns, "especially if academics are reticent to go out individually, which they appear to be".
- Lee Bunce
OPAQUE HACKS AND TRANSPARENT SCHOLARS
Brad DeLong, professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, is an enthusiastic blogger.
He argues that scholars are intrinsically better at blogging than journalists.
"One reason that we academics tend to judge journalists harshly is because of their excessive claims of originality," he writes on his blog.
"We tend to believe strongly that situating your work and your contribution in the ongoing discussion is one of the very first duties of a writer - and a duty that is essential to any attempt to inform or educate readers."
Professor DeLong argues that journalists have a deliberately obscurantist approach.
"They try to make their readers as ignorant as they can about where the information is coming from," he says."In my view, this is unethical and ineffective: it tends to lead to great suspicion of American journalists, and a discounting of what they write."
http://delong.typepad.com/.
Readers' comments
I can see John Kay's point about the potential dangers of academic blogging, but his fears seem to be rooted in the assumption that a blog must be updated every day and express an opinion on every subject. It is true that many bloggers do this, but others confine themselves to posting on specific subjects and only then when they actually have something to say. Technology like RSS means it is now quite possible to post infrequently and still keep an audience.
Erik Ringmar blogged and look what happened to him...
I blog, use Twitter, and have an academia.edu page too. I'm careful to distinguish between what I say as an employee of a university and what I say as me. I don't post, tweet, or upload files everyday. I do what I need to do and no more. I'm careful about what I do because I value my own reputation as much as that of the University that I work for. Is there a value to this. Definitely yes. Can I measure it. Definitely yes. I can measure it in new collaborators and collaborations, in enquiries about doctoral work under my supervision, and in requests for reprints. I've also been offered a (really good) job in the US because my web presence led a search committee to my work. So there's sense to doing it well, and carefully too. You never know who will read it or why.
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In the US, there is search committee and their short list means you will be asked to attend an interview and give a presentation. Could you elaborate on this? When did all this happen? If you don't we should conclude that you are very economical with the truth.
See - http://carycooperblog.com/ for an example of a 'blogging' UK academic
This person is really an American , sees things American and is an UK academic in physical existence here. A Psychologist and worked in business school. Sounds like NU Labour.
I really think academics should blog. The world would benefit from their thoughts, experience could be shared. I also think that many journos do a terrible job of reporting academic work, simply because they don't understand their subject. So yes, any academic reading this, goan, give it a go! chris
Students are coming on courses using Twitter to follow legitimate sources; Delicious to bookmark; Facebook to share information; Flickr to share images; Blogs to record development work; and Linked In profiles to promote themselves. Academics need to keep pace with these developments and engage with emerging new methods. I have done this recently as I began to feel like I was slipping behind. So here I am 'shamelessly self-promoting': http://tonypritchard.wordpress.com/