This link has been bookmarked by 26 people . It was first bookmarked on 08 Apr 2008, by Jeremy Price.
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14 Jul 16
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So how do you do these things? The crucial point is that running a blog is a commitment, and has to be understood as part of a larger set of professional obligations. When I first began blogging as an academic, I sought advice from other bloggers. They stressed that it was important to set a schedule for publication for your blog and stick with it. It mattered less whether you blogged once a week or once a day, so long as you were consistent in putting up material. Otherwise, on any given day it would be easy to miss a post. And over a period of time, giving over to that temptation would eventually push you out of blogging altogether. But setting deadlines and developing strategies for generating content during difficult periods insured a level of discipline that would allow one to maintain momentum over time.
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12 Jul 16
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24 Dec 13
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When my blog first went live, a reader compared it with MIT’s Open Courseware project, which makes material from the university’s courses available online to the public. While Open Courseware allowed the public to view the content of an MIT education, the blogs offered a chance to witness the instructional process.
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Having developed a steady readership for such content, we are also able to use our blogs to showcase innovative ideas and research from colleagues around the world
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08 Sep 12
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10 May 12
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03 Mar 11
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In the week after September 11, 2001, the students, faculty members, and alumni of the MIT comparative-media-studies program rallied forces to create a Web site called (http://re:constructions). It was designed to provoke public reflection on the media's role in shaping our responses to national tragedies.
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re:constructions represented a turning point in our conception of the new graduate program, setting up a model for what might happen if we deployed the new technologies we studied as a vehicle for opening up a larger public conversation about media change
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Early on, several students began to create blogs around their thesis projects -- in part to motivate them to write regularly, in part to get feedback on their ideas.
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In each case, their work brought them into contact with key thinkers and professionals.
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younger researchers are using blogs as resources for reputation building, especially in cutting-edge fields that lack established authorities
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While Open Courseware allowed the public to view the content of an MIT education, the blogs offered a chance to witness the instructional process. Day by day the blogs unfold, offering a glimpse into the research culture and the ways we think about current issues in our field.
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13 Oct 09
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18 Sep 08
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25 Jun 08
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16 May 08
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16 Apr 08
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Today the comparative-media-studies home page (http://cms.mit.edu) hosts feeds from seven different blogs affiliated with our various research groups and faculty members. Our site regularly offers podcasts from conferences (like Futures of Entertainment and Media in Transition) and colloquia we hold at MIT. My own blog, Confessions of an Aca-Fan, attracts several thousand readers a day. We also recently made the decision to offer our masters' theses online so they can be read by researchers around the world. These efforts have had an impact on our relations with our current students, prospective students, alumni, faculty members, the news media, the general public, and other readers.
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Ilya Vedrashko, for example, started a blog called the Future of Advertising, which quickly became a favorite among industry insiders and reporters. The blog's visibility opened up new contacts and resources, which supported his research.
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Something similar has happened for subsequent student bloggers, who have gained visibility for their writing about "serious games", hip hop culture, music distribution, data visualization, and media policy. In each case, their work brought them into contact with key thinkers and professionals.
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Running the blog feeds through the media-studies home page means that the site is continually refreshed without much conscious effort on the part of program administrators. Students become accustomed to checking our site daily, which means they are more likely to read other announcements we put up, thus enabling better information circulation.
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Prospective students. A rising percentage of the students we admit list these blogs as the primary way in which they learned about the media-studies program. New students come to us with a much sharper understanding of the strengths of our program and how their interests might align with our continuing research efforts. The blogs thus raise the number and quality of applicants, and may have had some impact on our yield
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Just as we feature student work through our various blogs, blog posts may also emerge from tips from our alumni working in industries.
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Faculty members. The blog posts represent what might be called "just-in-time scholarship," offering thoughtful responses to contemporary developments in the field. Because they are written for a general rather than specialized readership, these short pieces prove useful for teaching undergraduate subjects. We are seeing a growing number of colleagues using blog posts or podcasts as a springboard for classroom discussions and other instructional activities.
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The news media. Our blogs provide a platform from which we not only publicize our research findings and conferences, but also focus news-media interest on issues we think deserve greater attention. Historically, academics have been put in a reactive position, responding to questions from reporters. Blogging places academics in a more proactive position, intervening more effectively in popular debates around the topics they research.
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The general public. Our society is undergoing a phase of prolonged and profound media change, which is having an impact on every aspect of our lives. In this context, there is tremendous hunger for insights into the changing media landscape. As honest brokers of information, academics may be ideally situated to bridge these more specialized conversations. As a consequence, our various blogs attract readerships that extend well beyond the academic sphere
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Readers. I started my own blog a few months before the release of my most recent book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York University Press, 2006). Over time, the blog has become central to the book's success.
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The crucial point is that running a blog is a commitment, and has to be understood as part of a larger set of professional obligations.
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13 Apr 08
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12 Apr 08
Michel Bauwensreview of the advantages and arguments pro, by henry jenkins
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09 Apr 08
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08 Apr 08
Doug AdamsReferenced CHE article: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i30/30b01801.htm
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Tama LeaverHenry Jenkins makes a powerful argument as to why academics - and postgraduate students - should be blogging. Connections, networks, exposure and clarity are among the themes! :)
blog academia university socialsoftware web2.0 digitalculture highered
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