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Saturday, August 12, 2006
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Blogoscopy "Blogs have enabled economists," writes The Economist at the end of a recent article about academic blogs, "to turn their microphones into megaphones. In this model, the value of influence is priceless." The writer begins by listing the usual suspects -- Posner and Becker, DeLong, Mankiw -- as well as their impressive daily readership ("Each week 3,000 people" read one economist's blog, "more than bought his last book." He comments: "I certainly have not found a comparable way to get my ideas out. It allows me to have a voice I would not otherwise get." In the case of DeLong, it's "more than 20,000 visitors daily."), and then quotes some of them on what they're doing. DeLong calls it "a place in the intellectual influence game." Becker and Posner use it for "instantaneous pooling (and hence correction, refinement, and amplification) of the ideas and opinions, facts and images, reportage and scholarship, generated by bloggers." I like in particular this comment from Mankiw: "It's a natural extension of my day job - to engage in intellectual discourse about economics." Recall Daniel Drezner's comment (I quoted it a few posts down) about an incompatibility between some elite universities and blogs. The Economist article points to one reason for this, citing a study that suggests "the internet's ability to spread knowledge beyond university classrooms has diminished the competitive edge that elite schools once held. Top universities benefited from having clusters of star professors. ... The faster flow of information and the waning importance of location - which blogs exemplify - have made it easier for economists from any university to have access to the best brains in their field. That anyone with an internet connection can sit in on a virtual lecture from Mr. DeLong means that his ideas move freely beyond the boundaries of Berkeley, creating a welfare gain for professors and the public." Such a person can do more than sit in. She can contribute. The article concludes: "Universities can also benefit from this part of the equation. Although communications technology may have made a dent in the productivity edge of elite schools, productivity is hardly the only measure of success for a university. Prominent professors with popular blogs are good publicity, and distance in academia is not dead: the best students will seek proximity to the best minds. When a top university hires these academics, it enhances the reputations of the professors, too. That is likely to make blogs more popular." Anti-blog types - Ivan Tribbles - ignore serious blogs because of their socially democratic, institutionally reformist energies. Tribbles dislike the look of the emergent intellectual landscape. |