My First Metablog Posting...aww, how sweet.
I have made it clear that participating in this medium is new endeavor for me and perhaps an experimental one as well. I have enjoyed poking around, reading other people's blogs and being forwarded good stuff from friends. I feel like I have begun to get a sense of the range of uses, conventions and audience. Of course, all this exposure to writing is interesting and enjoyable, but I can't help asking questions about the purpose and implications of a medium that seems to have so few internal constrictions of genre, even across sites that seem to share an audience.
For instance, it seems as though the lines between professional and personal, public and private are regularly blurred. Well, that's not exactly true, there are plenty of people for whom there is no professional in their written presentation, only personal. But, I am interested in how this medium is being used by people who are presenting themselves in their professional persona. (Or at least for academics their 'name' IS their professional persona, no?) It seems that in those spaces, more often than not, the postings regularly cross that faint, but potentially fatal, line between professional and personal (not unlike the crossing of such lines in the space of the department Christmas party - perhaps this is an unfair analogy).
Moreover, in academic writing it is more or less expected that one's voice is constructed to sound objective, without an investment in the topic. Of course that's not true; we are always invested, we just need to sound disengaged. In writing blog postings writers are generally presenting material with a clear sense of engagement and bias. This is interesting, but seems to undermine it being taken seriously as a medium for intellectual work.
Some of the questions I am curious about include:
Are these blogs considered more casual and get used as soap boxes instead of being thought of as 'published'? Meaning, is there a general agreement that what is said is not to be taken so seriously?
How well read are discipline specific sites? Is it only a small subgroups who shares some common expectations who are visiting and reading and sometimes commenting?
In what ways do the ideas presented in this medium get taken up in other areas of professional discourse?
I recognize that I need to do a lot more reading and thinking about this. I also need to find out what people are writing about this, critically. If you have any recommendations for blogs that are, more or less, discipline specific or critical examinations of these questions please send them to me. I'd like to take a look. Thanks.
For instance, it seems as though the lines between professional and personal, public and private are regularly blurred. Well, that's not exactly true, there are plenty of people for whom there is no professional in their written presentation, only personal. But, I am interested in how this medium is being used by people who are presenting themselves in their professional persona. (Or at least for academics their 'name' IS their professional persona, no?) It seems that in those spaces, more often than not, the postings regularly cross that faint, but potentially fatal, line between professional and personal (not unlike the crossing of such lines in the space of the department Christmas party - perhaps this is an unfair analogy).
Moreover, in academic writing it is more or less expected that one's voice is constructed to sound objective, without an investment in the topic. Of course that's not true; we are always invested, we just need to sound disengaged. In writing blog postings writers are generally presenting material with a clear sense of engagement and bias. This is interesting, but seems to undermine it being taken seriously as a medium for intellectual work.
Some of the questions I am curious about include:
Are these blogs considered more casual and get used as soap boxes instead of being thought of as 'published'? Meaning, is there a general agreement that what is said is not to be taken so seriously?
How well read are discipline specific sites? Is it only a small subgroups who shares some common expectations who are visiting and reading and sometimes commenting?
In what ways do the ideas presented in this medium get taken up in other areas of professional discourse?
I recognize that I need to do a lot more reading and thinking about this. I also need to find out what people are writing about this, critically. If you have any recommendations for blogs that are, more or less, discipline specific or critical examinations of these questions please send them to me. I'd like to take a look. Thanks.