Building Community

In “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog,” Miller and Shepherd (2005) wrote:

Schryer’s useful formulation, that genres are “stabilized-for-now or stabilized-enough sites of social and ideological action,” emphasizes that “genres come from somewhere and are transforming into something else.”

This assertion is particularly relevant where academic blogs are concerned. As will be seen, the blog's antecedents can be traced to both the academic journal, and the academic conference. Each of these genres has played an important role in the construction of academic communities. They have also helped to foster the exchange of scholarly ideas. As I noted in an earlier post, “An Initial Attempt to Define the Academic Blog,” the academic blogs I have followed have generally served these same ends. The strategies bloggers employ to build on-line communities, and the ways they use their blogs to critique one another's ideas, provide criteria that can be used to better understand the functions that academic blogs are intended to serve. Given the scope of this subject, I intend to use this particular post to focus on the construction of on-line academic communities.

The blogs I have followed have united graduate students with similar interests and experiences. In this sense, they have reflected what Miller and Shepherd (2005) called genres that “come from somewhere,” and that are “transforming into something else.” Like academic journals and conferences, these blogs have brought graduate students together, and have allowed them to exchange ideas. Unlike its predecessors, however, the blog has done so on a far greater scale.

Like other genres, academic journals have been characterized by certain limitations. Because journals have traditionally been accessible to subscribing members, the scope of the audience for whom scholars have written has been limited. Similarly, the ability to have one’s work published in journals has been subordinate to the decisions of editors. Though reviews of scholarly work have appeared in journals, they, too, have been contingent upon editorial decisions. Though the writers whose work has been published in these journals have entered a community of sorts, it has been one over which they have had relatively little control.

Academic conferences have also played a significant role in structuring communities of scholars. They have allowed writers to present their work in public, and have it critiqued by peers. Like academic journals, the ability to participate in these communities has been characterized by certain limitations. Attending conferences has necessitated the sacrifice of both time and money, neither of which come readily to struggling graduate students. Additionally, these conferences are only hosted periodically. Academic blogs have allowed graduate students to overcome these obstacles in a number of ways.

Given its broad scope, the Internet has allowed academics to construct rather extensive networks of writers and thinkers. It is therefore important to examine the methods these writers have used to achieve this end. Two of the blogs I have followed have provided links to other academic blogs. In many instances these links have been inserted along the blog’s sidebar, though rhetorical choices have often determined the degree of ease with which they have been accessed. “Jenny D.,” for example, chose to arrange her links thematically. As such, her reader encounters a neatly catalogued collection of links assembled under the heading “Academic Blogs.” The author of “Mode for Caleb,” on the other hand, placed his links under a single heading, “Selected Bibliography.” Distinguishing between academic and non-academic blogs is therefore more difficult. The author of “Coffee Grounds” does provide links to scholarly journals and magazines, but not to academic blogs, a fact that suggests that rhetorical strategies are seldom applied universally.

In addition to offering links to other academic blogs, the blogs I have followed have employed other rhetorical strategies . Some have reflected those found in scholarly journals, a fact that further emphasizes the relationship between the two. The author of “Mode for Caleb,” for example, has often referenced the work of other scholars in his posts. In doing so, he has provided direct links to resources, an obvious advantage over the traditional bibliography. On other occasions the author has placed links to academic blogs within the text of his posts, another effective networking strategy. Consider the following passage, excerpted from a post entitled, “Rob On Ivan Tribble:”

Rob Macdougall has a brilliant post on recent debates, sparked by the pseudonymous Ivan Tribble, about the perils of academic blogging. (The post gives his extended answers to Rebecca Goetz's survey of graduate student bloggers.)

The links presented in the above passage carry the reader to blogs hosted by two other graduate students, both of whom attend Harvard University, as well as to the homepage of Chronicle of Higher Education, a scholarly magazine. Visiting these blogs provides access to additional links, a fact that suggests that the communities constructed by bloggers are potentially limitless.

Providing links that carry the reader to other blogs can occasionally prove problematic, however. These links are designed, after all, to point the reader away from the author's work. The author of “Jenny D.” addressed this problem by incorporating another rhetorical device, the use of questions. By posing open-ended questions, she invites her readers to become active participants in her blog. A recent post, entitled “Teaching, Learning, and Other Odds and Ends,” evidenced this fact. Having explored the extent to which sound pedagogical practices influenced students’ academic performances, the author raised the following questions:

At the end of a year, or two, or three, would that child have a higher IQ? Can high-quality teaching improve a child's ability to know, or increase intellectual capability? Or does the quality of teaching not matter much, as long as there's something resembling instruction then kids will develop as their IQ dictates?

At last count the post had received a total of thirty comments. An earlier post, “Suing A School District for Failing to Educate,” employed the same strategy, and received twelve. In some cases the comments these visitors provided directed the reader to still other academic blogs. Questioning strategies appear to provide a valuable tool, one that writers can use to construct a sense of community, and to encourage their audience's participation.

Unlike “Mode for Caleb” and “Jenny D.,” the writer of “Coffee Grounds” has been less concerned with the prospect of community building, a fact that prohibits my drawing generalizations. Though he does provide links to other sites on his sidebar, they are directed toward scholarly journals, rather than academic blogs. One post linked the reader to a survey conducted by a graduate student who hosted her own blog, but this was an exception. The link was presented in the text of the post, a strategy employed by the author of “Mode for Caleb.” Outside of this, few other links to academic blogs have been found. Likewise, relatively few posts have employed the use of open-ended questions. Interestingly, the posts published on this particular blog received significantly fewer comments than did the other two.

Like its predecessors, academic blogs have fostered the construction of virtual communities composed of graduate students (and occasionally professors). That this should be the case is not surprising. Graduate schools can be lonely places. Like journals and conferences, academic blogs have united people with similar interests, and similar experiences. In the process of doing so, they have promoted the open exchange of ideas, and have allowed scholarly work to be evaluated. These topics will be taken up in tomorrow’s post.

Bibliography

Miller, C. R. and Shepherd, D. (2004). Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog. In L.J. Gurak, S. Antonijevic, L. Johnson, C. Ratliff, & J. Reyman (Eds.), Into the blogosphere: Rhetoric, community, and culture of weblogs. Retrieved October 10, 2005, from https://carmen.osu.edu/d2l/orgTools/ouHome/ouHome.asp?ou=87955