Why do doctoral researchers blog?
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Presentation at SRHE 2015 of first results of a survey of doctoral blogging practices. It shows commonly perceived benefits and problems.
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Why do doctoral researchers blog?
- 1. Powered by PhD student blogging: an analysis of genre, audience and purpose Professor Pat Thomson, Nottingham University Associate Professor Inger Mewburn, Australian National University
- 2. Powered by Date Created: Sunday, July 05, 2015 279 Total Responses Complete Responses: 254
- 3. Powered by Bio Demographics of respondents Age: Slightly younger than the Australian Cohort Gender: Majority female – in line with usual participation in ‘extras’
- 4. Powered by When did you start blogging? Answered: 272 Skipped: 7
- 5. Powered by At the moment, do you intend to continue blogging? Answered: 273 Skipped: 6
- 6. Powered by How often do you blog? (or how often did you blog, if you have now stopped) Answered: 273 Skipped: 6
- 7. Powered by Do you use social media to promote your blog? If so, how? Answered: 257
- 8. Powered by Why did you start blogging? Answered: 249 To showcase myself and my abilities/research To talk to the world / combat isolation / for my mum to read Interested in blogging as a medium It’s a good medium for thinking It keeps me on track / focused / keep a record It’s therapy / relaxing To help others To have fun To practice writing It’s a group thing Someone suggested it to me To disseminate my research / recruit participants So I can start discussions on my topic
- 9. Powered by What do you blog about? Most common answers Answered: 266 Skipped: 13 Reflect on the experience of study To tell my story Create opportunity to discuss ideas Record ideas To discuss issues raised by my research Share what I have learned about doing a research degree Keep a record of reading To talk about academic life
- 10. Powered by What do you blog about? Least common answers Answered: 266 Skipped: 13 Discuss the impact of study on my private life Create an opportunity for advice or feedback Share tips and techniques from others To discuss the writing process To discuss policy To discuss impact of study on health To discuss blogging To share progress with my academic supervisors and mentors
- 11. Powered by What do you blog about? Additional responses Answered: 266 Skipped: 13 Additional reasons: To promote myself To help myself learn something new To share my passion To experiment with writing in a different format For my own sanity To escape the limitations of academic writing conventions An outlet for my other interests As a political/religious/public education project
- 12. Powered by Why are you uncertain about continuing? Answered: 273 Skipped: 6 Finding it hard to find time and ‘headspace’ There’s no clear reason to blog Not sure what to write about or what the blog is for Started the blog for a specific purpose – which is now done. Worried others (supervisors) might see it and think I am wasting time Not sure if people will be interested “shouting into the void” Worried about publicity Worried about the quality of my writing
- 13. Powered by Have your reasons changed since you started blogging? Answered: 266 Skipped: 13 Many said no. Of those who said yes: • Realised the blog is a ‘business card on the internet’ and can create opportunities • The opposite – personal stuff started coming out. Offered an unexpected ‘escape from academia’. • Addictive: “It sucked me in” / “ego stroke” OR I lost interest because no one was listening. • Discovered blogging was a flexible and useful medium for soliciting feedback, writing productivity and writing for an ‘imagined audience’ • I have changed, so my blog changed (text work / identity work) • My academic panel shut it down / I feel guilty doing ‘non academic’ writing
- 14. Powered by Q15: Have you ever been actively discouraged from blogging by other academics or students? Answered: 260 Skipped: 19
- 15. Powered by If you have been actively discouraged, what did people say? Answered: 102 • Putting your novel ideas at risk / give them away ‘for nothing’ • Takes too much time / Other people might think you aren’t working hard enough • Makes you look self important / pretentious • It makes you look silly / naïve because the ideas are not developed or wrong • It’s not professional / relevant • Others might not like the ideas you put out there, which will limit opportunities • Don’t show others that you struggle with anything / be personal • It will get you in trouble with the university • It encourages ‘bad writing habits’ • No direct criticism, but social learning from others who were • Just told that it is not allowed
- 16. Powered by We have some beginning questions Why is blogging not seen as academic writing? Why might people experience blogging as either front stage or back stage (or both)? Why is the context ‘out of focus’? Why is blogging not used as research method? How is blogging a gendered practice (or not)?
Notes de l'éditeur
- Both been asked to talk about blogging to doctoral candidates Pat – as part of the impact agenda and public outreach Inger - as a part of the career toolkit to ‘get noticed’ Noticed there was a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt around blogging by candidates. Even outright resistance Decided to ask those who were doing it about their practice
- Inspired by Deborah Lupton’s survey which had over 700 responses We put it out on our social media feeds (50,000) Ours got less than half despite our bigger reach.
- Mostly female – could be a collection artifact as it replicates attendance at my workshops and my blog followers on Facebook.
- Larger than expected long term bloggers. Written responses showed a significant portion had begun blogging as part of a prior university course and kept up the practice. 45% of those who had blogged the longest were in the youngest category.
- Those who had blogged the longest were more likely to want to keep blogging (80%)
- As we might expect, most have no set schedule. Surprising number are prolific though. Both of us are regular bloggers and see it as a commitment – but we didn’t ask about this as we intended to interview them Most hits per month: 100,000 (?) next was 5000. Many upwards of 1000, but most 100 or less.
- Me and my work Me and my feelings about work Me connecting with other people Me and my position within research community High level of awareness of digital literacy being ‘important’: “I want potential employers to be able to Google my name” “My colleague suggested it would be a good way for me to say what I have to say without the backlash” Two said it was at the suggestion of a supervisor as part of a research plan.
- Reflection vs reflexivity? Difference between seeing the self as social / discursively constructed Dominance of the ‘reflection’ discourse in education? Partial or limited understanding of the doctorate or the ‘game you are in’ Agency and autonomy / defending the self /emerging/becoming/fragile self from critique/feedback? Lack of layer 3 We start with the personal and use it to ‘travel out’ pedagogically
- Telling people what they are doing Confessional mode / diary mode Not opening it up with their supervisors / not being too exposed? More about ‘me’ putting myself out there Identity work – formation of the sane scholarly self
- We missed out on the affective dimensions – passion, escape, pleasure – and self promotion If we’d asked people about diarying pre-internet we might get the same answers Sense of a private, confessional activity which is actually public Confessional practice – not diary but a situated self (Les Back) NOT seeing a situated self – not about practices, problems or the way work is organised. Escape / too difficult to deal with / oppressive Retreat from institutional pressures are to write and behave in a particular way. To think about things in a particular way. Resistance tactic or coping strategy? Binary or resistance and conforming (shudlereck) Blog as a house in the country / third space – might explain why there is not as much seeking for engagement Reflective practice is a temporary place where you regroup Managing mechanism in a being and becoming space. Edward Soja liminal spaces Female – diary / a room of one’s own. Is there a gendered practice? Yet is in the open / has that illusion of being backstage – when that’s punctured they get scared Other people see it as another front stage (what are the conventions of behaviour) “To avoid most of the above-listed reasons” “A playful writing space, one less judged, more exploratory, one that allows me to get past writers block.”
- Whatever purpose it served in the process of being and becoming it doesn’t have it anymore. Protective instinct about the novelty (novelty as identity work) Only is a risk to the results if you think dominant mode of the academy is ‘legitimate forms of academic publishing’. Not sure what to write about or what the blog is for – mostly confusion about how much / whether to publish research in progress. Publicity “My blog is personal and reflective, because it is not anonymous I sometimes worry that it could hinder rather than help my online presence. “ Specific purpose – for a course, project or for my sanity while studying. Want to create a new identity post PhD
- Some of them have become more reflexive. None of them have made the case that it’s academic writing. ‘Academic writing’ is the dominant discourse / performance metric published journals or books AGAINST which they put blogging. “I learned that when readers don't always understand, there is a gap in my argument. This helps a lot.” “once I saw that people were actually interested it enthused me more. “ “I have stopped the blog because I've felt like it didn't help me. My voice wasn't heard - maybe that's because I didn't have anything special to say - or maybe I didn't know how to reach my audience.” “I got invited to write a book chapter on the strength of my blogging and the one article I had published. “
- Won’t be able to get them published ‘legitimately’: “That it's unprofessional. I might step on toes by 'publishing' things on a blog before a peer reviewed journal with the right authors and references etc.” / “The coin of academia is academic papers, not blog posts. I hope to be an academic” or the ideas might be stolen “Some people think it is silly. Even I think it is a little trite.” “It is a waste of time, it is not serious academic writing, no one will take you seriously if you blog “ Time: “academics who lament the way blogging is become a standard academic practice and 'yet one more thing they have to do’” “wasting time i guess. but my argument is that blogging is better than Netflix right. “
- First pass thematic analysis. Have not really crunched the open ended questions properly. Legitimate writing is metricised / part of the apparatus of the audit (conduit). Not a front stage but a soap box? Nobody is really using them in the way that you might do to get impact Action research and participatory research (about, for and through) Production of the able bodied researcher? Generic