Well, there are several answers to this question. Perhaps most obvious is that a blog is all about communicating through writing, which seems like a reasonable enterprise for a WAC Program to promote.
Blogs also provide a different kind of space for discussions. Given the frantic rush of our personal and professional lives, due in no small part to the technology that fuels some discernible portion of that frenzy, it is worthwhile to grant ourselves through benefit of this technology some time to read and reflect on topics connected to our work.
Pertinent articles appear before me regularly and many I'd like to share with colleagues. A blog seems a perfect professional development tool in that regard:
• I can link to articles and studies you might not get a chance to see otherwise and you can read them at your leisure.
• I can provide brief commentary on relevant issues and let you know how some of the experts are weighing in on a particular topic, like plagiarism or the impact of social media on writing.
• You can respond to posts if you like and discussions can ensue.
• Posts and comments are archived so you can always get back to them whenever is convenient or desirable.
In short, there is considerable convenience provided by a blog and we'd like to take full advantage of it---a blog seems like the next natural step for our WAC program. For the record and in keeping with our year’s scholarship theme, I've been researching the phenomenon of blogging for the past year and found it to be far more prevalent than I would ever have guessed.
Blogs have also found their way into pedagogy. Many top-notch journalism schools, including the University of Missouri, now offer major coursework in blogging and other emerging media. Through the generosity of a Journalism professor at the University of Kansas, a nationally known journalist on environmental issues, I was able to observe her online service-learning courses over the past year which trained students to blog effectively about environmental concerns in Lawrence.
Previously, I'd clung to an early stereotyped image of blogging that is woefully inaccurate: nerdy politicos in a darkened room lit by the glow of a monitor and huddled over a keyboard pounding out manifestos that only a handful of like-minded folks would read. While that could well account for some blogs, or perhaps earlier iterations of blogging, it's probably now an infinitesimally small number of the estimated 23 million bloggers because I haven't bumped into many that would fit that mold.
The New York Times (3-12-10) reports that a 2009 study by Blogher and its research partners puts the number of people blogging (those who read, write, or comment on blogs weekly) at 23 million---and that’s just women! Blogs have proliferated wildly, widely, exponentially and at the speed of light. They are written on every imaginable topic, reflect every possible world view, and are open to the entire world to read. They can be remarkably thoughtful windows into the mind of someone who has something powerful and insightful to share about life, the universe, and everything.
Then again, they can be gratuitously self-indulgent and vacuous even as they offer up striking or artistic photographs. They can be hilarious or dead-serious, affirming or provocative, somber or sweet. I’ve seen some blogs use questionable ploys to grab an audience and commercial sponsorship. Interestingly, it's not uncommon for smaller-scale blogs to host contests and giveaways or special events, which surprised me a bit but speaks strikingly to the interactive nature of this beast.
There are many genres of blogs and subgenres of blogs. Food blogs, gardening blogs, health blogs, fashion blogs, spiritual blogs, and pet blogs. You name it, it’s out there. However, I never found the kind of WAC blog I was looking for and soon realized that, well, we are just the right college to host it.
I have also learned how much blogs are about establishing and building community. Bottom line: people want to connect with each other in more complex ways than other technologies afford.
The writer/teacher in me is genuinely amazed and heartened by the fact that so many people write completely voluntarily and regularly outside of school: this could be the writing utopia we’ve been wishing for! OK, maybe I am the only one who has actually gone so far as to wish for it…
The rhetorician in me says this entire subject warrants far more investigation than has been done to date, like articles and dissertations probing the genres and subcultures of blogs. Or some exploration of the metaphoric constructs evidenced in discussions about blogging: blog as house or home, blogosphere as neighborhood, blog as a physical/geographic place in cyberspace, the implications of blog titles, and narrative structures in blogs or the lack thereof.
Should you look, you would also notice that blogs are increasingly about the integration of photos and visual imagery, but we'll save the topic of visual rhetoric and our evolving expectations regarding it for another post.
You will be alerted via email to a new post every Wednesday. You can check it out or disregard it. The blog is permanently housed on the WAC website (also see link at the bottom of the screen) so you can easily find previous posts there.
To get things rolling, we'd welcome comments about your own experiences with blogging.
Do you write a blog? Do you typically read any blogs? Did you have any idea that so many people now do?
Have you used blogs in any of your courses? If so, to what effect? How has it worked?
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Mary -
ReplyDeleteAs you're (hopefully) aware, I wrote and maintained the blogs for Longview's last two Common Reading projects: The Plague - http://longviewplague.blogspot.com/ - and Affluenza - http://longviewaffluenza.blogspot.com/
The response, comment-wise, to The Plague was OK, but I was pretty burned out by the end of it and stopped a couple entries short of my goal. The Affluenza blog generated no discussion at all and Candice and I decided to abandon it after 5 weeks so I could put my time and energy into other projects.
I read tons of blogs - librarian blogs, sports blogs, current event blogs, my friends' personal blogs, etc. I'm always in awe of those who have enough 'content' to post regularly and still be worth reading. It seems my own content-well runs dry fairly quickly...
Thanks for pointing me to the NYT/Blogher article, and thanks for this blog!
ReplyDeleteI meta-blog for my mass comm students, who are a captive audience in a subject about which there's something new to say every day. Before this tool was available, it was impossible to address or even remember the pertinent communication issue as they flew past.
David-
ReplyDeleteI wonder if students were less likely to blog about the Common Readings since they were probably doing other writing and discussing of those books within their classes (sometimes more than one!)? I imagine that many students spend more time networking by using social media rather than blogging. I imagine that their use of Facebook in college could easily segue into blogging post college.
David,
ReplyDeleteI read and enjoyed all of the common-reading project blog posts. I would hate to see that part of the project abandoned. Think of the newspaper: How often do you contact the Kansas City Star to let them know you're reading? For most of us, it's never, even though we've read many, many news articles.
I maintain a blog partly in my other life as an aspiring/newly published science fiction writer. What I would say is that blogs are double edged swords. Many of the generalizations listed in this article are accurate, especially the self indulgent aspect of many blogs.
ReplyDeleteThere are days, weeks, sometimes even months when my blog reflects that self indulgent aspect. That said, my blog is meant primarily for me. In many respects it serves as an online post it note reminding me of what I did, didn't do, so on and so forth.
So why bother with one? Especially given that writing the wrong thing could land one in the unemployment line?
As I said, it goes both ways. At my first blog I wrote a brief review of Weapons of Choice, a novel by John Birmingham. It turns out that it was Birmingham's first science fiction novel and he was interested by what I had to say. He was so interested in what I had to say that he hired me on to serve as his military research consultant.
I continue to serve in that role, one that has expanded to include editor, sometimes co-writer, and beta-reader.
My blog has been a source of revenue, a way to find fulfillment as a writer, and it got me a trip to New York City back in 2009. I've been able to network with fellow writers and we encourage each other along in our efforts.
The dangers of a blog, especially for an academic, are pretty clear. I must admit that I am a great deal more circumspect with my content than I used to be. Further, if I wasn't published as a fiction writer when I started teaching in 2007, I probably would have deleted the blog and walked away from the habit.
It can be a mixed bag.
As for reading blogs, I tend to be pretty selective. I read Birmingham's blog as well as the blogs of a couple of writers I respect. Otherwise, I find I do not read blogs regularly.
My two cents.
Respects,
S. F. Murphy