Young academics, blogging and society

Loïc Le Pape(Aix-Marseille University – CNRS Idemec)

Panel : Minor forms of academic communication: revamping the relationship between science and

society?

World Social Science Forum 2013 (Montreal, 13-15 october)

introduction● Quick self-presentation

– PhD, sociology, 2007 – ex OpenEdition – Co-directing a collective research on religious transformations in the Mediterranean

– Talking from my position of young academic– Based on my (little) experience of blogging (since 2009, december)

● Science & society, blogging and young researchers

– Two hypothesis :(1) For a young academic, blogging is a means to liberate oneself

from the rules of the academic world. It offers unrivaled editorial freedom and potential academic recognition.

(2) in turn, this academic liberation emancipates knowledge itself, allowing it to reach sectors and readerships beyond those originally intended.

1. Blogging to liberate oneself from the academic field

1.1 E-reputation. To be known and recognized● French institutions (universities and CNRS) have not judged important to invest in institutional

academic platforms.

● Reaching an academic platform : facility of use and recognition

● Reputation & e-reputation : academic databases, search sites, work of “search engine optimization”. Being better referenced.

● Platforms as Hypotheses or Culture Visuelle are independent from Universities = young academics could belong successively to several institutions.

1.2 Blogging allows distance oneself to academic writing style and publication rules

● a vaster range of writing styles (partiality, humor, moods and feelings)

● the author control the entire process of publication (research, writing, format, publish, etc.)

● How to take into account the time passed to blog?

1. Blogging to liberate oneself from the academic field

1.3 Blogging allows exploration of side roads

– a quasi complete editorial liberty

– write about complex issues : religions & politics in pots-revolutionary Tunisia

– The history of emotions

2. From academic field to public science

By freeing themselves from the academic sphere, young academics impart knowledge, skills and qualities that are useful to everyone

2.1 Open science : research for everyone, constraints to the blogger

Some constraints or reticences from young scholars– destabilizing remark– The fear of being plagiarized– The opportunity of blogging in academia

2.2. Blogging reinforce intellectual and technical explorations– Keep alive the useless documents !– The « littérature grise »

2. From academic field to public science

2.3. Blogging obeys to strict rules in constant evolutionA view from my uses of blogging :

– I became more serious in my posts. – I adapted the length of my posts– I reserved some topics especially for the blog.– I tried to develope a more systematic personal statement

It's a kind of "serious" blog, but this activity have a cost : – Less publications– A long time to think, write and publish a post

ConclusionThe academic blogging is an investment of a wide space,

neglected by scholars institutions

I decided to blog for three reasons  – to improve my e-reputation and to be more recognized as young

academic; – to avoid the classical and writing styles, especially in a moment when

academic publications are rare ; – to put in coherence my research

Results that I can see– The silent conversation is around the blog, not on the blog– A good occasion to discuss IRL– Privileged contacts with journalists

A blog created for recognition, could become a mean of cognition

Thank you for your attention !

Loïc Le Pape, IDEMEC (Aix-Marseille Univ. - CNRS)

– http://politicsofreligion.hypotheses.org

– http://politicsofreligion.hypotheses.org/author

– Twitter : @llepape