“Blogging is quite simply, one of the most important things that an academic should be doing right now” (Dunleavy, 2014).

How can researchers provide information about their studies in ways that would be useful and interesting to prospective and current participants? With that question in my mind, I began to explore the potential for blogs as a bridge between researchers and participants. As with almost any online exploration, I discovered a much broader potential for blogs in the academic world.

Today’s researchers, scholars, and instructors are finding
many valuable ways to use blogs. I’ve come to realize that blogs play an important part in the publishing cycle and online ecosystem. It is not a matter of either/or: we need to find ways these different communication options fit with our career and research goals.

Blogs and Social Media

Before going any further with this discussion, it’s important to define blogs and to distinguish between blogs and social media.

Blogs, short for weblogs are personal online journals where entries are posted chronologically. Microblogs use the same principle but allow for very short entries. Blogs can be text only or embed or link to images or media. Some are public and others are only seen by subscribers or friend lists. (Salmons, 2016)

Bloggers can choose from a number of free or paid platforms where they can devise their own templates, adapt or use available templates. Popular platforms include WordPress, Blogger and Squarespace. Blogs are very flexible and users can create a wide variety of formats and styles of presentation. Some are very basic with simple narrative posts and others are complex with design features that include both static pages and time-sensitive posts. Bloggers use comment features to invite feedback or to interact with readers. Bloggers may choose to generate revenue with advertising and other promotions.

Bloggers are not limited by proscribed lengths, styles, features or page designs. This flexibility stands in contrast to posts made to social networking sites. Social networking sites are typically run as commercial platforms by large companies. These companies have determined ways to make a profit from user-generated material and are thus invested in allowing certain kinds of posts. Brands are built on the sites’ graphic design and features. Users of sites like Facebook can be surprised to login and find that their pages’ format has changed. They have become accustomed to seeing advertising on their walls, as well as links to other content the company has decided is of interest to users who fit a certain profile. Users of the microblog tool Twitter have become accustomed to the 140 character limitation.

Social networking sites and blogs are typically interconnected. Bloggers use social media in order to build an audience. They create posts that fit within the constraints of the social networking sites, but link back to the blog where they have the freedom to present information in the way they prefer. Bloggers can use social networking to interact with others and use their blogs to present more substantial writings and other expressions. The important point here is that by knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each type of site, we can make better choices about which best meets specific academic purposes.

Table 1: Blogs and social networking sites

Academics and Blogs

I suggest that academics can use blogs in three main ways:

• Researcher-to-Researcher: Sharing and exchange.
• Researcher-to-Participants: Building credibility and “informing” participants
• Researcher-to-Public: Sharing findings, results and practical resources.

Researcher-to-Researcher: Academic bloggers communicate with each other for exchange and networking within or across disciplines. They present information in ways that build upon a shared foundation in the topics under discussion, and a shared understanding of the protocols and expectations for activities such as conducting research or teaching at the college level. They share resources, links to recent publications, calls for papers, or notices about upcoming conferences, or other opportunities of interest to other academics.

Researcher-to-Participants: Academic bloggers communicate with prospective or current participants. They present information in ways the study population will understand. Blogs intended for this purpose can introduce the study, develop the credibility of the researcher, be used to support recruitment efforts, and help to inform participants before and during the study.

Researcher-to-Public: Academic bloggers also communicate with the general public. They present information in ways that anyone would understand and find of interest. The researcher may translate academese or disciplinary jargon into more familiar terms. The researcher may offer recommendations for applying findings in practical ways. This type of blog is designed to share findings and/or to build awareness about the issues and problems under investigation.

Patrick Dunleavy introduced another way to categorize academic blogs, and I think his approach meshes well with mine. He distinguishes between them according to the number and type of all author: solo, collaborative, or multi-author (Dunleavy, 2014). Table 2 is adapted from his model. As an academic with an interest in blogging, you have the choice of either designing and launching your own solo blog, finding a group of like-minded writers who want to begin a collaborative blog, or looking for opportunities to contribute to a multi-author blog in your field. Alternatively, you can look for opportunities to contribute as a guest writer for blogs that focus on your area of interest.

Table 2: Types of blogs identified by Patrick Dunleavy (2014). See the article for additional categories and the full table.

How might these categories inter-relate? A juxtaposition of Dunleavy’s and my categories for academic blogs is illustrated in Table 3. The columns are intended here not as a fixed set of boundaries but more as a continuum between on one end, the individual DIY blogger who is responsible for everything from choosing the domain name, platform, hosting service, and figuring out how to make it all work to a professional operation more comparable to a journal or magazine production.

In another post, I shared a recorded presentation with specific examples (with links) for each of these types. Please share your favorite academic blogs and let me know how you think they would fit into these categories. Do you think the blogger or bloggers achieve their purpose? Why or why not? #AcWriMo is coming up– let’s blog about academic blogging! Share your examples and follow me on @einterview to join the conversation.

Dunleavy, P. (2014). Shorter, better, faster, free: Blogging changes the nature of academic research, not just how it is communicated.

Salmons, J. (2016). Doing qualitative research online. London: SAGE Publications.

Looking for examples? Here are a few to get you started.

• ACRLog is a blog for academic and research librarians. http://acrlog.org
• Discover Society is a blog about social issues and social policy. https://discoversociety.org
• Explorations of Style is a blog about academic writing. https://explorationsofstyle.com
• London School of Economics Impact is a blog about uses of research. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences
• SAGE Methodspace is a blog for the research community. https://www.methodspace.com
• Textbook and Academic Authors Association blog is about writing and publishing. http://blog.taaonline.net