After looking through the academic blogs provided in the Ctools folder, I have seen one consistency between all of them: the bloggers are are all self-proclaimed academics. "Bug Girl's Blog" is written by a Bug Girl who has a PhD in Entomology, who was once a Professor. "Observations on film art and Film Art," is written by a Professor of Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, David Bordwell. "A Walk in Words," is written by Lauren Payne, who so discreetly mentions that she has earned an MA in Linguistics and a BA in Journalism. You get the gist...
Although, these blogs are all written by academics, they all do not reflect
the same blog prototype, or necessarily a blog at all in my opinion. My opinion might not matter to you, or to other people who may read this blog, but it is inextricably linked to the idea of blogging. According to Andrew Sullivan, blogs allow a once-private space to be transformed into a public arena that is built on the idea of celebrating expressiveness.
Before I return back to analyzing the academic blogs, I would like to refer to Andrew Sullivan' thoughts on blogging in his article entitled "Why I Blog." According to Sullivan, bloggers live on the edge, in a risque-writing style way. Sullivan writes:
"We bloggers have scant opportunity to collect our thoughts, to wait until events have settled and a clear pattern emerges. We blog now- as news reaches us, as facts emerge."
But, if you compare the academic blogs, not all of them evoke the same timeliness that Sullivan talks about. The "Just Blog It" writing style appears to be the essence of blogging, and it is missing from quite a few of the blogs that I have looked at for today's post.
For example, lets take a look at David Bordwell's blog. Is this a blog at all? Well, first off he has "David Bordwell's website on cinema" as the header of his blog. Controversial? I think so. But, he does
however denote a "blog" tab, so it leaves the reader to wonder what exactly is this massive collection of text? Let's dig deeper.
On his blog, at first glance, there is ridiculously long post that resembles an online encyclopedia versus an online diary aka a blog. There is an inordinate amount of text, which when read is very well put together and thought out. Bordwell didn't merely just conjure up his thoughts and type away, he assembled them in a well-thought out manner.
Switching to "Bug Girl's Blog," it looks nothing like Bordwell's. Bug Girl is obviously into short, quick, and quirky posts that can be read in approximately 2 seconds. She relies heavily on pictures, because her subject of bugs relies heavily on images.
Who is the real blogger? The text-heavy guru or the image crazy Bug Lady or Bug GIRL (I guess she prefers to be youthful?)? I am going to argue that Sullivan's argument of timeliness might not stand as the best detector of what reflects the blog genre. Especially because many subjects require in depth research. Maybe Bug Girl can rattle off quick anecdotes while Bordwell needs more text and more time to elaborate on his points.
One thing for sure is that we do know that these bloggers are academics.
Hi Alex,
ReplyDeleteI see what you're saying about brevity of thought and blog, but I'm not entirely certain that I agree that timeliness is absent from the academic blogs.
For instance, take "A Walk in the Words," one of the other blogs evaluated. When I read it on Thursday, the blogger's most recent post was inspired by a Washington Post article that had run recently, maybe even that day. Similarly, "Josep Colomer's Weekly Blog" addressed the current Israeli-Palestinian situation.
I think Sullivan meant immediate relevance when he said "timeliness" — responding to what's happening now. Granted, an informed opinion can take a lot of research that might inhibit someone from making an immediate academic commentary, but if you're an academic, you don't necessarily need to pause to research because (hypothetically) you already know something about the subject.
Thanks for the interesting post!