danah boyd has written a response to all the conversation generated by her 24 june blog post in which she tried to interpret usage patterns of facebook and myspace in terms of class. i’m not particuarly interested in the original post or her substantive responses but she makes some interesting comments about the difference between traditional academic writing and blogging.

as i see it, danah sadly bends over backward to distinguish the blog post from serious academic writing. she says, “In academic writing, I write for posterity. In my blog, I write to get an issue off my chest and to work things out while they are still raw.” what i find significant though is that this blog post has, according to danah, generated thousands of quotes and references. either the blogosphere is just filled with meaningless back and forth banter or the blog post launched what could be or could have been (if handled better) a significant public debate. for argument sake, let’s assume the latter, in which case, it seems a shame that there is such a strong tendency to devalue a new form of writing which is proving to be such a powerful engine of serious discussion.

yes, blogs are not the same as formal academic papers, but i’m not sure that is the same as saying that they can’t be as valuable within the universe of scholarly discourse.

can we imagine a universe where blogging is not automatically put into a “not-really-up-to-par-for-the-academy” category.

For years now in the humanities, there has been hand-wringing about the value of scholarship published online. The MLA has recommended “multiple pathways” to tenure, and the university press publication model has been described as unsustainable, perhaps even taking subventions into account.

Given these conditions and our enthusiasm about online publication, I’m interested in hearing what you think of internet rabble-rousing as a rhetorical strategy for dealing with this problem, particularly if a well established scholar is denied tenure for choosing to publish in online venues. I’m not saying I doubt it has happened, but I will say that I don’t know of any specific cases in which someone was denied tenure, and the exact, isolable reason was that s/he published in online journals instead of print. That is to say, the scholar was productive and had at least the number of publications the college typically would expect for awarding tenure (say, one book and four articles), and the recommendations were glowing; the only difference was the medium of distribution (print vs. online). I know this situation is not extremely likely; there is, after all, the annual evaluation and third-year review during which these techies may be weeded out, but bear with me.

If a professor were to be denied tenure under these circumstances — tenure would have been a slam-dunk in print, but it was denied due to online work — what would our reaction be? Would some rabble-rousing on our blogs and in the form of letters to Inside Higher Ed, the Chronicle, etc. be pointless? If not, what would be the most productive, awareness-raising response? Have there been cases like these, and I just don’t know about them?

The Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library, in partnership with the Institute for the Future of the Book, has just released an interactive, CommentPress-powered edition of “University Publishing In A Digital Age,” the Ithaka report that in recent weeks has sent ripples through the scholarly publishing community. Please spread the word and take part in the discussion that hopefully will unfold there. It’s especially important that the nascent MediaCommons community make a strong showing here.

http://scholarlypublishing.org/ithakareport/

Here’s the intro from the good folks at Michigan (thanks especially to Maria Bonn and Shana Kimball for taking the initiative on this):

On July 26, 2007, Ithaka released “University Publishing In A Digital Age.” The report has been met with great interest by the academic community and has already engendered a great deal of lively discussion.

Coincidentally, that same week, the Institute For the Future of the Book released CommentPress, an online textual annotation tool with great promise for promoting scholarly discussion and collaboration.

At the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library we have watched both of these developments with keen interest. Our work as online scholarly publishers, our role as publisher of the Journal of Electronic Publishing and our close affiliation with the University of Michigan Press through our joint initiative, digitalculturebooks, directs us to paying close attention to both the conditions and tools of scholarly publishing.

The happy simultaneity of the release of the Ithaka Report and CommentPress prompted us to view the report as ideal material with which to experiment with CommentPress. With the gracious cooperation of the authors of the report, we have created a version of “University Publishing In A Digital Age” which invites public commentary and which we hope will serve as a basis for further discussions in our community.

In the words of the authors, “this paper argues that a renewed commitment to publishing in its broadest sense can enable universities to more fully realize the potential global impact of their academic programs, enhance the reputations of their institutions, maintain a strong voice in determining what constitutes important scholarship, and in some cases reduce costs.” We welcome you to engage in that argument in this space.

Welcome to a special Katrina/New Orleans-themed week from In Media Res.

All the pieces this week focus on the after effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and the varied roles that media has played in shaping our understanding and feelings about the city’s future.

A special thank you to Michele White and Joy Fuqua for suggesting this idea.

Please feel free to respond to their comments and add your own thoughts and ideas about the series as well.

So, without further ado, this week’s In Media Res line-up:

Monday, August 13, 2007 – Michele White (Tulane University) presents: “The Aesthetic of Disaster: Live, Broken, and Pretty”

Tuesday, August 14, 2007 – Betsy Weiss (Tulane University) presents: “The Real K-Ville”

Wednesday, August 15, 2007 – Mark Vail (Tulane University) presents: “New Orleans and the Symbolic Politics of Place and Poverty”

Thursday, August 16, 2007 – Marline Otte (Tulane University) presents: “TBA”

Friday, August 17, 2007 – Joy Fuqua (City University of New York, Queens College) presents: “Household: Learning from Leaving New Orleans”

Please check out these wonderful contributions and offer your thoughts via a comment.

Monday, August 6, 2007 – James Daniel Elam (University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill) presents: “It’s Carrboro! Local Pride in a Global Space”

Tuesday, August 7, 2007 – Hollis Griffin (Northwestern University) presents: “Andy Samberg’s D-ck in a Book? Publishing, Publicity, and The Manny Debate”

Wednesday, August 8, 2007 – Amelie Hastie (University of California – Santa Cruz) presents: “TV on the Brain”

Thursday, August 9, 2007 – Sharon Shahaf (University of Texas at Austin) presents: “The promises and challenges of fan-based on-line archives for global television history”

Friday, August 10, 2007 – Alisa Perren (Georgia State University) presents: “The West Coast Wing: How Studio 60 Moved Off the Sunset Strip”

Please check out these wonderful contributions and offer your thoughts via a comment.