The conversation-in-progress about what academic blogs are good for--see Adam Kotso and Dan Green, for example--made me think about the previous electronic frontier of academic conversation: the listserv. On the one hand, anecdotal evidence suggests that even web-attuned academics frequently ignore or deliberately avoid blogs, even though they subscribe to multiple listservs; on the other hand, equally anecdotal evidence also suggests that blogs have been more successful (in a relative, not an absolute sense) at developing a new "republic of letters," so to speak.
Adam argues that blogs are best suited to "gossipy stuff, book recommendations and capsule reviews, calls for bibliographic help, etc. -- that is, the superficial social stuff." This "superficial social stuff," though, strikes me as a fine description of what goes on in the listservs, where the most successful postings frequently consist of cries for useful information. Or, to be more precise, cries for complicated or obscure useful information. (Cries for basic information are frequently the bane of any academic listserv.) It's not clear to me, however, that listservs have proven to be a useful venue for actual arguments. Blogs have gained a warranted and sometimes unwanted reputation for "spontaneity," but even so, many bloggers expend a reasonable amount of care on their postings--not the weeks of polishing one might expect for an article, but perhaps a few days for a lengthy post. E-mail, however, offers a much more seductive (unfortunately so, in many cases) opportunity for rapid response. Moreover, listservs frequently lack what could be called a centralizing consciousness; whereas a weblog has one or more designated authors who, intentionally or not, often establish the parameters for any given debate, listservs are in practice far more free-wheeling--and often hostile to anyone who appears to be "unfairly" monopolizing the discussion. (The eighteenth-century list recently featured some small-scale grumbling about one of its more prolific posters--was he making some sort of power grab?) While the apparently democratic nature of listservs is a virtue--I say "apparently" because various listserv denizens have complained about unspoken academic hierarchies rearing their ugly heads--it now and again devolves, at least on some lists, into a hostility to virtuoso displays of expertise. (Sometimes, the experts in question could be more adept in demonstrating their skill, it's true.) Academic blogs tend to be more friendly to experts arguing about their subject matter, as opposed to offering helpful factoids, although the far more public nature of blogs also means that experts in certain fields will attract cranks and/or trolls at a sometimes unpleasant rate.
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