The curious chemistry of the blogosphere

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.