Category: Why Blog?

The Chronicle recently published a good column about blogging being “a hazard to a budding academic career.” The author agrees with me–blogging is an activity that helps you understand the new media landscape, as well as that of your students. He offers the following advice:

Be relevant. Rather than try to beat our brave new world, join it. … Embracing technology connects you not only to your students, but also to a world of better research through time-saving and exhaustive online databases.

He tempers this by offering more good advice to be honest, but never negative or slanderous.  I hope this is advice I’ve lived up to, but that if not somebody would call me on it!

It can be tough to hear that blogging might be a strike against a job candidate. I only hope that an active, reflective understanding of how blogging might fit in our media landscape will be seen as an advantage.

I have been a bad blogger lately. Somehow it’s too easy to put a link in my “to blog” folder and too difficult to actually write a post. With more than a dozen stories to blog on “someday,” and so few posts in recent months, it is time for a new personal blogging model. Add in that the fact that my dissertation is finally moving forward, and it’s certainly time for me to write more!

So here’s a re-commitment to blogging–even if it’s just posting a link and a brief, ill-formed thought <grin>.

This story (Students offer Net advice to colleges) as well as the video “aside” below get right at the reason why I blog: to experience the new web, you have to be a part of it. More than that, to be considered an expert in Mass Communication (technology), I would argue that one has to be blogging, uploading videos, and be a part of online communities. Naturally, there has to be moments to step back and reflect (hence this post category), but as the web becomes more experiential an expert has to participate in this social creation of the Net.

CNet summarized the students’ sentiment well:

Despite the fears that kids are leaving permanent digital footprints when they post personal information online, college students think it would be even weirder if someone didn’t exist on the Web.

My preliminary exams were finished last week, and the edits have just been handed in. I’ve been out of the loop for quite awhile as far as news goes, but have had quite a bit of time to think again about why I blog.

After doing so much reading, it’s obvious to me that scholarship is an exercise of communication. Since I’m no longer taking classes or teaching in my department, the only real connection I have to the discipline of mass communication is through reading. Studying for prelims has been a great experience, but in some ways it’s not quite enough: in my position I need some way to think about the issues I’m studying (I find writing the best way) and to possibly get some feedback about my ideas.  Even if nobody ever reads this blog, I find that it is a useful exercise to reflect on both the issues of the day and on broader social issues.

I’m sure catching up on news reading will bring a few belated posts…time for another “slashback.”