Presentation by Merja Mahrt and mysekf given at the Conference on Science and the Internet (#cosci12), held from August 1-3, 2012, in Düsseldorf.

1. Cornelius Puschmann, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Merja Mahrt, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Form and Function of Digital Genres of
Academic Communication
International Conference on Science and the
Internet (#cosci12)
August 3rd, 2012
Düsseldorf, Germany

2. 1. How do ICTs/the Internet reshape scholarship?
2. How is scholarly communication reconfigured?
3. How do scholarly blogs fit in?

3. Prior research on scholarly blogging
• Mortensen and Walker (2002):
blogs as tools for writing and knowledge management
• Walker (2006): change of usage over time
• Gregg (2009): blogs as a subcultural form of
expression, part of constructing a professional identity
• Bar-Ilan (2004):
aims of scholars inferred from form and content
• Luzón (2009): use of hyperlinks in academic blogs
• Kouper (2010): “virtual water cooler” for experts

4. Why do we care? (Alt)metrics!
• natively digital formats (blogs, wikis, tweets, ...) not part
of formal academic evaluation (though there are
exceptions)
• this may change in the future, as metrics become more
personalized
• output in digitally native formats is likely to increase

11. Issues of defintion
scholarly/science/academic blog
defined by content defined by actor
”a blog with scholarly ”a blog written by a
content” scholar”
...but what makes ...but who exactly is a
content scholarly? scholar and who isn‘t?
Genre as a possible point of convergence?

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13. What are the motives of scholarly bloggers?
• online questionaire among bloggers on the German-
language platform SciLogs (n=44)
• platform is run by popular science publisher Spektrum
der Wissenschaft
• all respondents are regular authors on SciLogs
• majority of bloggers male (73%)
• majority with a natural sciences background (59%)

15. I blog...
because I enjoy writing
to present my field to a general audience
to establish a thematic presence
to raise grievances/controversies
to express myself creatively
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
percentage of respondents who somewhat or fully agree with the statement

16. Important functions of my blog are...
discussion and exchange of ideas
presenting the results of my research
publishing texts written for other purposes
0% 15% 30% 45% 60%
percentage of respondents who somewhat or fully agree with the statement

17. In terms of style, my blog emulates...
it varies from post to post
popular science publications
essays/op-eds
I have my own style
non-scholarly blogs
scholarly publications
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

18. Through my blog, I...
answer the public’s questions
repay a debt to society
0% 15% 30% 45% 60%
percentage of respondents who somewhat or fully agree with the statement

19. SciLogs: one platform‘s take on scholarly blogging
• the SciLog authors blog because they enjoy engaging
with the general public
• blogging is not seen as a replacement for traditional
scholarly publishing
• blogging is also not seen as a replacement for science
journalism
• instead, different blogs occupy different niches between
popular science writing and public discussion of science
• other platforms (Hypotheses.org,
Researchblogging.org) are based on different
sociotechnical conceptualizations and follow different
aims

20. Thank you for your attention!