on blogging

This post is dedicated to all the socio-bloggers who have mused about quitting lately, as it seems like there are a few. Becoming Dr. Warner seems to be closed down, Radio Free Newport is considering quitting, as is New Soc Prof… and many others have talked about quitting in comments.

You know, when I was trying to figure out what to do my masters thesis on, my adviser injected this little nugget of wisdom into the conversation. She said something like: “…and then, at some point, you just have to ask yourself ‘who cares?’” I imagine she probably had this thought because the things I was throwing out there were about technology - social networking sites, blogging and the like - and although she recognizes how those things might be important in some ways, she herself does research on racism. Racism is something that is obviously important. Blogging, not so much.

But wait! I’m not saying blogging isn’t important. I was saying it isn’t obviously important. You can make a lot of arguments against spending your time researching blogging, but there are not a lot of good arguments against researching racism. Why a social scientist might want to research blogging is not immediately obvious, just as it is not immediately obvious why people blog at all… which brings me to the point of this post. No one seems to really know what the point of blogging is, and trying to figure it out turns out to be a pretty complex question. What is clear, to me at least, is that it has social significance. I think it has to do with community, and with egalitarianism, and with diminished barriers, and with the production of knowledge. I’m not saying that the good outweighs the bad, but I am saying the jury’s still out.

The sociology community online is a good specimen to look at when thinking about this subject. At this point there are too many sociology blogs to read them all every day. I am pleased with this state of affairs, because it means that there is a sizable sociology community online. I think that it’s valuable in that it humanizes a process that is otherwise extremely difficult to navigate, and it creates a community where there wasn’t one before. I think that in many ways, the community of sociology bloggers that has developed is in opposition to elitism in our discipline while still allowing those who are particularly smart/interesting/relevant to bubble up.

But I recognize that it’s a messy issue. Publishing something on the internet for all to see is a weird proposition. Google-ability is problematic for many people. Some people in the academy dislike technology and change in general, and therefor consider blogging a negative thing. Blogging and social software in general challenge and sometimes obliterate long-held norms. Sometimes this norm-breaking process seems to happen simply because of momentum instead of it being a well thought out change. People who blog and/or read a lot of blogs are sort of “in it” and are therefor desensitized, but others may look on in horror at many aspects of social networking online.

I guess the bottom line is that I find the phenomenon of blogging to be interesting, and I think it has social significance. While I flinch sometimes and think that maybe I should stop, I probably will not do so any time soon. I’d rather be an active part of this community than not be a part of it or be a more passive part. That being said, blogging is not for everyone, and I do think that people in academia need to choose their battles. Personally, I am interested in social behavior online as a research topic, and therefor it makes a lot of sense for me to blog and read blogs. If you aren’t so interested in that, then maybe it doesn’t make sense. Still, for those that are willing to put themselves out there, I just wanted to collectively let you know that, for what it’s worth, I appreciate that you all are there and I value the community that we have created!