Summary so far
1) Blogs can be useful for a variety of reasons
2) But some are just listings of people's awards and papers, and this not much of an innovation. A website or a cv would suffice.
3) A list of blogs to note would be handy. [But also ones to avoid].
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Yes, we do have to discuss blogs in 2011 - the pace of change is rapid. Many of us are not there yet. People like me (late 40s) were undergrads when word processing on PCs was only just coming in (in 1984 in Reading Geog Dept!), and only in the early 1990s was the internet really useable for research and communication. My website is a decade old, and I was one of the first I knew to put all publications online. We got geog gossip from the AAG Newsletter. It is hardly surprising that there is some resistance to blogging right now, only 15-20 yrs after the web. I am fine with it, but currently only use it in a professional role I have http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/environment/.
But is worth reflecting on the power of blogs. The extraordinary events at the LSE, long after I left, surrounding Erik Ringmar illustrate this. Ringmar, a lecturer, was a confirmed blogger. In a posting in 2006, he argued senior staff at LSE were often too busy doing research to teach undergrads, and thus junior staff and PhD students tended to take up the slack. Thus, applicants were disappointed. Pretty obvious statement to anybody who has worked there. But LSE panicked, had little understanding of the blog world, insisted he destroy his blog (which he did not), he took leave and eventually resigned. Ringmar's A Blogger's Manifesto: Free Speech and Censorship in the Age of the Internet relates the story and his argument for uncensored blogging. 4 yrs later, steppling over the line of autocritique seems to happen a fair bit, but with far less comment. Here's one from Clark, for example. http://kiranasher.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-12-20T15%3A33%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=1 <http://kiranasher.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-12-20T15%3A33%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=1> .
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I have bigger problems swimming in the sea of information that has emerged over the last three years - frankly I am now lost, having always tried to keep in touch with many issues and many people. But now the networks are just too dense. Subscribing to Twitter and RSS feeds would push me over the edge, as would having 24 hr access to the internet and email on a smartphone. I dislike the smartphone culture anyway (incessant scrolling and communicating) and there are some good books out on that issue. Rapid tech advance is actually an issue for theorists of capitalism too - we are now beholden to Apple and their ilk for new tech and these gadgets become objects of desire for professionals and academics- on a MUCH shorter cycle than 5 years ago when you might just replace your cell phone and laptop every few yrs. I am unconvinced by activist friends who spend thousands on Iphones, tablets and gadgets - there is some contradiction there, surely .
For the future, there is a major milestone to consider. One will be the possibility (inevitability?) of growing disenchantment with social media - often shallow and too pervasive today, but likely to get worse. Susan Greenfield has been vocal on the psychological issue of 'rewiring' and shortened attention spans that result from it . If she is right, watch for the backlash. Soon. And esp. from parents. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/24/social-networking-site-changing-childrens-brains. we are going about it the right way if we want youth to lack social skills in face to face communication. And particulalry, lecturers are still asking students, and thus some future academics, to write long essays and engage in sustained research and communication (as we ourselves did over the last quarter century) , when actually they are unused to this - hours on a 'mobile device' and in internet world and videogames gives you different 'wiring'.
Dr. Simon Batterbury, Associate Professor, (on research leave) Dept. of Resource Management and Geography, University of Melbourne, 3010 VIC, Australia http://www.simonbatterbury.net/ Director, Office for Environmental Programs (on leave) http://www.environment.unimelb.edu.au
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