Academic Blogging

Steve G, based on a question posed by Janet Stemwedel, raises the eternal virtual question of whether academic blogging ought to be counted as a service. Janet asks this question,

"Will tenure and promotion committees -- especially in the sciences -- come to see blogging as a valuable professional activity? When? What will it take to bring about this change?"

Steve expands the question,

Blogging is one way to be a public intellectual, to participate in wider conversations about topics in which you have training and background and therefore could hopefully make substantive contributions. Scientists are technicians in a largely scientifically illiterate society in which science and technology play more and more central roles. They already have professional obligations to do research and advance their field and to teach students (training some to be the next generation of scientists and teaching the large majority the basic foundations of their field). As it currently stands there is virtually nothing in the professional reward structure to encourage this third service component to the wider society. By virtue of having specialized expertise, do scientists take on a special obligation to be significant contributors to the general discourse around matters that have scientific components? Should we see those scientists who don't so participate as having failed to live up to social expectations? Or are the advances they make to their science and the teaching itself their contribution?...

...Do other occupations, or perhaps all occupations, also come along with moral imperatives to contribute to the broader society? Do philosophers have an obligation to write op-eds on ethical issues?....

I used to think that the answer to these questions was a blanket "yes." I'm not so sure now. What changed?

For one thing, an academic blog risks being a bore for both the reader and the writer. I still like the idea of taking academic discussions out of academia and into the virtual world. Lots of terrific blogs do this (think Steve G himself, Balkinization, Pharyngula, Juan Cole, Mad Melancholic Feminista, Peter Levine). I also think there's an obligation for any academic to communicate potentially important ideas outside of academia as well as to draw problem-solving sustenance from things other than theoretical academic disputes. But I, personally, don't want to be constrained by the topics, rhetoric, and style of academia when it comes to blogging. It's not as if this here blog is terribly iconoclastic. That's not the point. The point is that blogs written by academics ought to be open to being something other than academic blogs. If academic blogging ends up qualifying as a "service," then it will likely be constrained by the expectations placed on academics in the non-virtual life of the academy. If not, what criteria would be used? For example, although I'm an academic (for now), I wouldn't call this blog an academic blog. Sometimes I want to write about academic issues; sometimes I want to write about whatever comes to mind. This is not to say that I have the right attitude about blogging. I probably don't. It's simply to say that if this blog was judged in terms of "service," it probably wouldn't look at all like it does (for better or worse).

The way academia functions has a lot left to be desired anyway. Would we wish blog-service to be considered based on the number of readers, "prestige" of the blog, link ranking, advertising revenue? Much as academics say they dislike the characterization, the quality of work is often reduced to quantities (analogously, everyone disdains GRE scores as a measure of the quality of a student, but every department strives to have higher GRE scores from incoming students - money and prestige are involved). A massive amount of publications, regardless of their quality and importance (and there are well-known philosophers who have made their careers writing essentially the same paper over and over), almost always outweighs a smaller amount of more thoughtful pieces. "Research" and number of publications almost always outweighs influential teaching. A nice fit in the orthodox characterizations of problems and the going discourse almost always outweighs looking creatively at actual problems - academic or not - and to what can be done to alter a moribund discourse. Schmoozing trumps quiet generosity. Fashion almost always trumps creative idiosyncrasy. Money almost always trumps loyalty and commitment.... All of this is pretty much a reflection of society itself, at least for American academia and society. Would we want these factors to determine how academics blog? If blogging was deemed to be a service for the sake of tenure review, wouldn't these factors be precisely how blogs are considered? Out go the moldy fruit photos....

The set of ethical questions Steve asks is indeed broader than the one Janet asks. For philosophers, I think the proof is in the pudding. There are lots of technologies academics are encouraged to use - Powerpoint, Blackboard, etc. Personally, I like the good old chalkboard and an open discussion. Not all technologies are worth using. Blogging is different, however, because ideally it can be an extension of teaching and research or simply a way of encouraging a more intelligent public discourse. Blogging is not about efficiency. And it involves feedback. This puts it on a par with the op-ed, the public lecture, pro bono work, and so on.

Is there an ethical obligation to do this work? You know what I think. But I don't think that there is an ethical obligation to do this work in any particular kind of way, and I'm afraid blogging-as-a-service would be overly reductive and perhaps even further entrench some of the worst current traits of academia.