The curious chemistry of the blogosphere

Recently I discovered that there are hundreds of spelling mistakes and typos on Macquarie University’s web pages. As Vice-Chancellor I was alarmed, and not a little embarrassed, when it was pointed out to me that we frequently misspell our own name and that we also manage to do strange things to words such as student, university, learning, research, technology, as well as old spelling demons such as accommodation and harassment.

The university has about 200,000 web pages to maintain so it is inevitable that errors will creep through. We are only human. But a university consistently spelling “university” incorrectly? It’s not a good look for an institution of higher learning that aspires to be among the world’s best.

To be fair, Macquarie is not the only university to make such errors. The spellr.us annual online content survey found that the websites of many of the world’s high-ranking universities are riddled with spelling mistakes.

It was after reading about this survey that I decided to challenge the readers of my blog to see how many spelling errors they could find on the Macquarie website.

And so it was that the curious chemistry of the weblog worked its magic once again.

Yes, they found mistakes and delighted in pointing them out; there were grizzles and complaints about our standards; and some respondents offered helpful advice on how we might keep the errors at bay.

Then, just a couple of days after I posted the blog, in it came - the solution.

A diligent and innovative staff member spent an entire weekend writing the code for an online spellchecker tailored specifically for Macquarie.

Thanks to his work, we can now put in a page address, and run a spellcheck. As well as checking individual pages, it can be set to check all our domain-name websites.

I’ve been blogging now for almost two years, in which time I’ve written close on 150 posts. This year alone I’ve posted 49 articles comprising around 23,000 words. It’s not a lot compared with what some of the full-time bloggers and online journalists generate, but in the context of my working life - I’m the head of a university with more than 30,000 students and 2,000 staff - it is nevertheless a considerable output.

Topics range from an analysis of the global financial crisis, the cultural impact of Woodstock, the meaning of heroism, the Bradley Review, the meaning and value of higher education, the worth of the humanities, the teaching of history in schools, capitalism and its faults, innovation, what skills students will need in the future, whether students should be compelled to buy their lecturers’ textbooks, and whether researchers should be required to take an oath of ethical behaviour.

The still-unfolding technological revolution is creating new opportunities for communication. At the same time, Web 2 - the world of digital interactivity - is posing enormous challenges for traditional media such as newspapers and free-to-air television. Circulations and audiences are declining, and while I’m a big fan of newspapers - once upon a time I was a journalist myself - today they are not the only game in town.

In contrast to traditional newspaper journalism, blogging generates a more intimate contact with your audience. With a newspaper feature article, for example, the writer may never know what the readers think of it; or indeed how many people actually read it all. Such an article may or may not generate Letters to the Editor; but with blogging readers can and do respond more or less instantly.

Respondents often passionately disagree with your views, and tell you so in no uncertain terms. This in turn may set off a debate within a debate - instead of replying to the original post, respondents may argue with each other.

This is an interesting phenomenon with blogs, the “curious chemistry” I mentioned above: very often a corrective is at work, and balance is shaped by the respondents themselves. Sometimes one respondent will challenge another, taking issue with his or her interpretations.

Blogging can be something of a contact sport. There are a lot of people out there who couldn’t care less about your university, its reputation and goals, and who care even less about you as a Vice-Chancellor, President, or whatever other title you go by. As the veteran blogger Ezra Klein puts it (cited in David Kline and Dan Burnstein, Blog! How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business and culture, New York), there is “an endless army of critics well equipped to carp and stab …”

The Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin (in Rabelais and His World, Indiana), describing the world of the French Renaissance writer Francois Rabelais, came up with a useful word: “carnivalesque”. According to Bakhtin, the carnivalesque world is a subversive, mocking one, where one’s views can be subject to laughter, satire, ridicule and derision. I think it is a very useful word to describe today’s blogosphere.

As just one small example, in a 2008 end of year message to staff and students I spoke of the difficult times ahead but expressed optimism that we would get through it. One reply was blunt: “What a load of codswallop” (see comment No 3).

This comment had one thing going for it: I could understand it. Some of the replies on my blog are, sadly, beyond comprehension.

So why put yourself in a situation where you can be insulted and ridiculed?

Another word Bakhtin coined (in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Minneapolis) to describe the market-place of ideas is polyphony - that is, many voices. The worldwide web is indeed a place of many voices, and, fortunately, not all of them are rude or inane. At its best, the blogosphere is what universities should be about anyway: the exchange of ideas, opinions and information.

I am still exploring the opportunities inherent in blogging, and some of what I do is experimental. For example, to formulate a policy on open access to research I put out a draft for comment, which drew a number of suggestions for improvement.

In this way, the blog became another useful tool, a kind of wiki.

Among other things, the blog has given me the opportunity to express my views on such issues as "the idea of a university today"; the development of a new code of ethics at the university; to ruminate about whether governments can make us happy; and how to develop a fairer higher-education system.

This year I have been exploring ideas about whether universities are partly culpable in the moral and ethical failure that we call the global financial crisis.

These blogs attracted many thoughtful and considered replies.

I have also used the blog for practical purposes in explaining to staff why we have so many large and disruptive building projects underway at the University.

I make clear on my website the parameters for debate - that responses should not be obscene, offensive, defamatory, infringe copyright, or intended to upset others.

An independent moderator (really) makes the decision about uploading replies based on whether or not they are expressed in a civilised manner, not on whether they agree or disagree with me.

To my mind, the benefits of blogging outweigh the negatives, and I will continue to blog. And I hope there are not too many spelling errors in this essay.