In 2016, there are problably few and few academics wondering what blogging is and why we, as educated people, we should use this medium to share our ideas to the world. Many of my academic friends already experienced at least once the bloggosphere, either as guest writers or as owners of their blog.
However, there are still a lot of misunderstandings and confusions regarding the advantages of blogging for academics and I am here to share some of them.
Let's start with the cons:
- Not every kind of scientifical domain can be easily blogged about. For instance, as a mathematician discovering new formulas, writing a blog post about this, will most probably not reach more than the usual people that are already familiar with your very niche activities. So, why to waste time setting up a couple of sentences about?
- Talking about time...one of the big arguments against blogging among academics is the waste of time. In a highly competitive academic world, where publish or die is still the motto, you better use every dime of time for forwarding your research, apply for academic conferences. If you also have a family, you practically do not have any extra time for scribbling.
- The blog post does not equal the academic article and will not (yet) be considered a reference for applying for a serious permanent academic position.
- It increases the risk of being caught in various commercial traps, especially when various companies or institutions are keen to offer sponsorship and thus, diminish the credibility and independence of the academic individual and research.
- It has the temptation of easy journalism, and may affect the hard polished academic skills which includes precaution and long preparation of the texts as well as cross-referencing.
The advantages are equally noteworthy:
- It offers visibility to ideas developed by academics, by offering a medium to share and discuss. This is particularly available for academics in the field of human sciences and politics.
- It makes academic work transparent and relevant to the public and take back the intellectuals in the agora as parts of the public discussions.
- It help spreading knowledge in parts of the world without a proper educational network. Wherever they are, people can read and get in touch with new ideas.
- Outside the rigid institutional settings, academics are free to express opinions not only about their daily work but on issues of public interest.
- It offers academics important opportunities to collaborate and share ideas. It also offers the chance to find people sharing common interests and researching similar topics, wherever they are.
Probably there are many more things to outline about academic blogging and I will keep writing about this in next posts. As for me, I will always keep telling how grateful I am for being alive these times, with tremendous learning opportunities, many of them for free.
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