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Bloggers are talking together in a kind of global virtual common room, discussing their latest research projects and finding common themes. Photograph: Getty
Bloggers are talking together in a kind of global virtual common room, discussing their latest research projects and finding common themes. Photograph: Getty

Why do academics blog? It's not for public outreach, research shows

This article is more than 10 years old
Blogging is touted as bridge between academia and the world but study finds it functions more like global common room

Academics are now urged to blog. We are told that having to write for ordinary readers will help us to write in plain English, clarify our ideas, enhance our reputations and expand our knowledge as well as our audience. Blogging is presented to us as a way to bridge the apparent divide between academia and everyone else.

We both blog and unlike many of our colleagues we don't need to be convinced that it is worthwhile. However we were less convinced that the academic bloggers we encountered were all in it for reasons of public outreach, or to refine their thinking, and we certainly weren't convinced that they wanted fame. So we set out to have a preliminary look at what was going on in academic blogs.

We had a number of challenges in setting up this small-scale study. We had no funding so interviews were out; we had to rely on published blogs alone. And we had to decide what counted as an academic blog. This was not as easy as you might think, given the growth of professional and managerial roles offered inside universities today, which often involve some kind of research or teaching. We opted for the blogger who stated an institutional affiliation, had some kind of academic purpose and was connected to other academic blogs. We called the bloggers who weren't professors, lecturers or fellows 'para-academics'. We couldn't get a representative sample as there is no handy index of blogs, the numbers change all the time, and frankly, there were just too many. And because we speak English, our choices had to be blogs we could actually read.

By using various online listings of academic blogs, we eventually compiled a list of 100 we could use as a sample set. Of these, 49 were from the UK and 40 from the US, five from Canada and six from Australia. 80 were by teaching and researching academics, 14 from para-academics and six from doctoral researchers.

By analysing and categorising the content of these blogs, we determined that 41% largely focused on what we call academic cultural critique: comments and reflections on funding, higher education policy, office politics and academic life. Another 40% largely focused on communication and commentary about research. The remainder covered a diverse range, from academic practice, information and self-help advice to technical, teaching and career advice.

The vast majority of blogs studies used informal essay formats and straightforward reporting styles of writing, but a significant proportion (40%) also used a formal essay style, not dissimilar to academic journal articles but with less intrusive referencing. Interestingly, given the rhetoric around blogging, 73% of the content we analysed was geared for other academics, while 38% was designed for interested professional readers.

We conclude that, in this sample at least, most academics are blogging for professionals peers, rather than for the public in any general sense. Our results do not coincide with what the loudest advocates of academic blogging suggest we should do. But we think what we saw in our 100 blogs is understandable.

After conducting this small study we have come to think about academic blogging in two ways. Firstly, many bloggers are talking together in a kind of giant, global virtual common room. Over at one table there is a lively, even angry, conversation about working conditions in academia in different parts of the world. In a different corner another group are discussing their latest research projects and finding common themes.

Another table houses a group of senior and early career academics discussing how to land a book contract and write a good CV. There is also a meeting going on about public policy, and this involves a number of public and third sector people, as well as academics, who work in the area.

In our sample of blogs, this common room was, by and large, a friendly and safe space. There was a generosity of spirit that marked many of the blogs we read: information and assistance were freely provided and the usual barriers of disciplines, seniority and higher education ranking effects did not seem to apply, at least in obvious ways.

Secondly, we have come to see blogging as a variation of open access publishing. Academics can get to print early, share ideas which are still being cooked and stake a claim in part of a conversation without waiting to appear in print. On blogs we can offer commentary on the work of others in a more relaxed – or opinionated – way than we might do in conventional journals, where we will be subjected to the normalising gaze of peer reviewers.

More importantly perhaps, thanks to Google and other search engines, other people can find us and connect more easily. Our opinions are out there to be critiqued by our audience – if we let them. In this our ideas can be challenged, extended or affirmed – in almost real time.

There are signs that the kinds of freedoms brought by publishing, and enjoyed by bloggers, may be under threat. Some universities, particular those in the UK, are keen to harness bloggers to their marketing drives and the impact agenda. They want bloggers to use official platforms and confine their discussions to research and nice posts about academic life.

Discussions of higher education policy and performative management won't go down well in such arenas. Other universities – more in Australia than elsewhere – are creating regulations about what academics can and can't say in public, about their universities and their working lives. In this turn blogging is seen to present a reputational risk to the university and its management.

Both these moves assume that blogging is the same as academic appearances in print and televisual media, rather than a publication opportunity with academic freedom of expression similar to that found in more conventional journals and monographs.

We know that we have only just begun to understand academic blogs and bloggers and we do have further research planned. We are interested in talking with other bloggers about their experiences and motivations and also in tracking the corporate moves to contain and control what academic bloggers can do. So watch this (new) space.

Help us update our higher education blogs network, a global directory of HE resources, commentary and analysis. Tweet your blog recommendations to @gdnhighered using the hashtag #heblogs or email claire.shaw@theguardian.com

Pat Thomson is professor of education and director of the Centre for Advanced Studies at the University of Nottingham – follow her on Twitter @thomsonpat. Inger Mewburn is director of research training at Australian National University – follow her on Twitter @thesiswhisperer

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