Academic Blogging as New Literacy

Here goes nothing. In this, my first-ever blog post, I find myself awakening from a technological slumber to find that I have not only been thrown to the proverbial sharks, but that I wish I had been tossed here a long time ago. As much as I enjoy the look of my own words in print, the concept of blogging, for me, has elicited a lukewarm response, particularly as it pertained to academic pursuits. But now, as I tread water in the blogosphere in pursuit of a life raft, I feel compelled to comment on this phenomenon from the perspective of a virgin blogger who nonetheless swims forth with ardor in the hopes of finding a level horizon.

As someone who had yet to consider blogging a legitimate form of communication, I was naturally awestruck by the possibilities once I began investigating its academic merits. To that end, I can fairly confidently assert that I likely would not have given blogging a second thought if these merits had not been introduced to me in the reading "Academic Blogging as New Literacy." The authors describe the social practice of blogging in general and how blogs serve a dual purpose as a "tool for interpersonal communication and mass communication" (p. 169). In this, any type of blogger has the ability to present him or herself ultimately for the purpose of self-discovery. In the collegiate, "publish or perish" environment of modern academia, blogs can provide an outlet for professors to test the scholarly waters and gain valuable insight from colleagues. In addition, this provides the opportunity for them to learn about what others in the field are working on, practically in real-time.

Without mentioning him by name, the authors invoke the work of the late rhetorical theorist Marshall McLuhan by using his "medium is the message" theory to define the scope of blogging. Even before the days of instant information, the medium through which information is transmitted ultimately controls the message itself. This theory has held true through the advent of telephones, television, and the internet, which gave birth to the blog. The authors describe the "nature and the fabric of the text" (p. 182) and how it effects the relationship between the bloggers, active readers, and "blurkers," a portmanteau for blog lurkers who read but rarely interact. The internet is indeed a tightly-woven web of text which enables users of all fancies to use the medium to their eternal benefit.

So is blogging a new literacy? Has this phenomenon regenerated the concept of what it means to communicate? In a word: absolutely. But one could also argue that previous technologies can also stake a claim in changing how a message is disseminated. Marshall McLuhan made this claim in the 1960s and I believe this to be a perennial idea. The article focuses on "academic blogging" but acknowledges the inevitable overlap between "serious and more frivolous discourses" (p.193). From studying this reading, and now from blogging myself for the first time, I am beginning to understand the inherent value in using the medium as both a teaching and learning approach and may find myself doing things for the purpose of blogging about it!