Online Pests Turn Smart: A Case for Research Blogs

Few things can break the mood–any mood–like the sudden sighting of a cockroach. Whether you are on a make-out session in the adjacent dorm or enjoying dinner at your favorite local restaurant, their presence forces activities to halt, feet to come up, and jaws to drop in disgust until a shoe or heavy object comes whopping down on the hated insect for the inevitable crunch. Killing it, that one cockroach, is never enough to restore confidence: You know there are more where that came from. It’s hard to disagree; cockroaches–by cultural associations and ickiness factor–are disgusting. In 2002, Henry Jenkins, media professor and researcher at MIT, wrote an article about blogs in his monthly column “Digital Renaissance” for TechReview, an MIT publication. The subhead read: “Like cockroaches after nuclear war, online diarists rule an Internet strewn with failed dot coms.”

You can understand the then young blogging community taking offense to the comment. Jenkins also questioned blogs’ possible impact, “It may seem strange to imagine the blogging community as a force that will shape the information environment almost as powerfully as corporate media.” Now, in 2005, that statement sounds awfully near-sighted in contrast to the über-influence that blogs have had in shaping 21st century communications. Soon after, through a student’s blog, Jenkins offered an apology where he blamed his editor for actually writing the offensive intro. Nonetheless, the cockroach analogy is not totally misguided.

Blogs have multiplied at a pace that sexually active cockroaches would envy and, in a sense, they have become a pest–although an epidemic (1) might be a better word choice. There are over 3,500 types of roaches–only twenty-ish are considered pests–and when you consider the ridiculous (2) breadth of topics tackled by blogs the variety of content that has been produced, opined upon and documented in blogs, their multiplicity and variety is as important to the commusystem–you heard it here first–as cockroaches are to the ecosystem.

Blogs have been very well-documented–read scrutinized–by traditional media, initially writing them off as a non-threatening fad, then quickly evolving into serious discussions about the similarities and differences between bloggers and journalists. A consideration and comparison that seemed silly no more than a year ago. A premature–given the medium’s youth–conclusion is that, at their best, blogs are a credible, resourceful and important form of communication. Having gained majority acceptance, one activity currently, albeit dubiously and carefully, joining the fray is academic research. For the most part teachers and researchers have been wary of the blog’s biggest assets: immediacy and accessibility. Meaning, it is easy and tempting to publish unfinished thoughts and ideas for public view simply because it is possible and immediately gratifying. Research, on the other hand, involves long periods of gestation before even a paragraph sees the light of day. And, with the former, any schmoe with an internet connection can “contribute” his/her thoughts and, at worst, disrupt any meaningful dialog. Furthermore, publishing the initial concepts and questions of serious research can lead to plagiarism in competitive fields. Plus, it is hard to swim against decades of tradition where publishing academic papers in respected journals catapulted researchers’ careers; publishing to a blog, in the pessimistic view, garners nothing more than googleability.

Another peril of publishing research through blogs, which becomes apparent when looking at some of their last published entry dates, is that they are more ephemeral than mainstream blogs: research blogs have shorter web life. Research, whether for a thesis or to unveil the meaning of the universe, tends to be practiced in determined bursts of time. A graduate thesis, for example, will span a year and at its conclusion, what purpose is there to maintaining such a theme-specific blog?

But not all is negative. A blog can be infinitely helpful during any point in the timeline of research to open an instant dialog with fellow researchers, academics or even subjects, allowing a flow of information otherwise impossible to achieve in the confines of anyone’s designated quarters. Also, blogs offer an alternate methodology for developing research: By publishing snippets of ideas, findings, rants or data in a chronological, even spontaneous, manner–with the possibility of feedback–can lead to discovering new paths and developments that traditional research can’t. To mention one more pro (as there are others), it is imperative to acknowledge research blogs within their environment and context: the internet. Once online, they become the ultimate, interactive index cards. Where before a researcher traveled hundreds of miles to speak to similarly focused individuals, now all they have to do is type a URL to have access to anyone’s annotated ideas that can possibly lead to yet more, even farther away. Research blogs can be conduits for connection to information previously limited to libraries, teacher lounges or conferences.

Henry Jenkins, despite his original skepticism of the medium, contributes regularly to TechReview’s blog where he comments on new media issues. Fellow MIT professor–and design legend–John Maeda maintains his own blog, simplicity, where he muses on his constant search for simple solutions. Within graphic design, research and academic blogs are also starting to spring: Denise Gonzales Crisp’s thoughts on her decorational theory are well documented in her blog. Graduate students in the design program at Virginia Commonwealth University’s VCUArts have set up a blog where they publish, as a group, ideas about their theses. Errol Saldanha, author of BeyondGraphic, launched BrandingBranding.com where he hopes to further define the meaning of branding. In short, researchers and academics see the potential of blogs as a tool to add depth to their work, cause or interest–infecting, like cockroaches if you will, the internet and, in turn, our culture with their curiosity, drive and knowledge.

Thank you, Mr. Jenkins, for whopping down on blogs with your shoe. And missing.

Footnotes
(1) In the strictest sense, an epidemic is something that spreads and grows rapidly and extensively. As the glass-half-empty humans that we are, we associate epidemics with bad things like AIDS or Ugg boots. Epidemics can be good.
(2) Not so much ridiculous as in silliness or stupidity, rather the overwhelmingly range of topics that garner people’s interest enough for them to maintain a blog.