RSS feed for comments on this post.
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://poliblogger.com/wp-trackback.html?p=8999
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
0.105 Powered by Wordpress
Dear Steven,
It looks like I said that political science is at the start of blogging and that media and law are way ahead of us.Comment by Mark — Wednesday, December 28, 2024 @ 2:55 pm
[…] ofessor Matthew Søberg Shugart @3:19 pm Steven Taylor has an updated and expanded census of blogging political scientists. I have added a permanent link to the post on F&V […]
Pingback by Fruits and Votes » Blog Archive » Blogging Political Scientists Census — Wednesday, December 28, 2024 @ 4:19 pm
[…] 8 pm
If you are interested in the intersection of academics blogging, check out something I have been working on in regards to blogging political scientists. For a study of blogging law pro […]
Pingback by A Knight’s Blog » Bloggin’ Profs — Wednesday, December 28, 2024 @ 5:58 pm
Will you be doing a census of Graduate Students again, say in the near future?
Comment by Christian Johnson — Wednesday, December 28, 2024 @ 8:56 pm
“If a blog was dead for some time, or if a person only posted a single post, I excluded them from the list.”
I haven’t seen any posts by Alvin since his introduction at Polysigh. Furthermore, Dorian has only posted once, to my recollection.
Comment by Rongos — Thursday, December 29, 2024 @ 4:43 pm
Thanks for that note. On some of the group blogs it is harder to determine how active the bloggers have been.
I need a way to differentiate between types of bloggers, as clearly some are far more engaged in the enterprise than are others.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Thursday, December 29, 2024 @ 5:43 pm
“I would consider the purest form of blogging to be blogs set up and run by an individual and regularly updated. ‘
One question: how does content factor into your analysis? What if a Pol.Sci. Ph.D. blogs on a subject unrelated to his/her training? Are you tracking pol. sci. Ph.D.s who blog on, say, the virtues of Italian wines, Major League Lacrosse, or document their pregnancy?
Furthermore, what about blogs–like yours–which often include information not really related to your professional expertise? Also, how do you define “professional expertise” in such a fragmented discipline as Pol.Sci.? Your blog, for instance, has 2433 posts related to US politics whereas you have only 270 related to Latin America–which I gather from looking at your academic site, is your specialty.
This is not meant as a criticism of you or the blog–I’m just trying to figure out where you’re going with this paper.
I would argue that the “purest form of blog,” in the context of academic blogging, shouldn’t necessarily be measured by the number of posts, but rather by how the academic engages with his/her expertise in the public sphere.
Blogs such as Political Arithmetik, I think, are good models. Charles presents important information directly related to his expertise that one can not easily get from another source.
He may not post everyday, but, frankly, if he filled his blog out with reflections on television shows, sports teams, etc…, I dont think that his position as an academic would matter all that much.
Comment by Rongos — Thursday, December 29, 2024 @ 9:11 pm
These are valid questions, and ones that I have considered.
The simple answer is that the first goal here is largely counting. It is difficult to analyze the issue of blogging political scientists without first accounting for them.
In regards to content, I would argue that the very nature of blogging means that it is highly unlikely that a given blog would dedicated 100% to one’s academic discipline. Charles’ site is perhaps as close as it gets, along with the Harvard group blogs.
Still, the idea that I find intriguing is the ability to have a more casual forum for discussing politics (and life).
For example, Matthew Shugart’s Fruits and Votes has a great deal of very good discussion that focuses on Matthew’s expertise regarding elections and institutions. Yet, he also blogs on baseball and fruit cultivation. Does that detract from the fact that he is a political scientist? No, I don’t think that it does.
In my own case I would say a few things. My core regional expertise is, in fact Latin America. However, my basic are of study is elections and institutions. As such, there is quite a bit in regards to US politics that I am interested in. Further, I have spent the last 8 years in a position where I have to be more of a generalist, which has broadened some of my interests.
Beyond that, I think while Charles’ site is an excellent one, I don’t see it necessarily as the perfect model (although, really, seeking out the perfect model for a blogging professor isn’t my goal). Rather, I think that a discussion of politics that is inclusive of those not in the discipline is probably closer to what I personally would like to see. And throwing some non-politics is rather humanizing, I should think.
In regards to the “purest form of blog” I am contrasting what say Charles, Matthew, or even myself do, versus Jospeh Nye contributing here and again to the Huffington Post or the contributors to the TPM Cafe site.
Back to the content question–I have already been thinking about the issue of what to do with some of the sites, which are not sufficiently “academic”–but of course, I need a measure for that, and I have yet to determine one.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Thursday, December 29, 2024 @ 9:41 pm