Public Sociology in the Digital Era

Jessie Daniels, PhD British Sociological Association Meetings

April 24, 2014

Twitter: @JessieNYC#britsoc14

@ 365 Fifth Avenue

public sociology

"Academics are living in a fool's paradise if they

think they can hold on to their ivory tower.

The public is no longer prepared to subsidize

our academic pursuits. 

We have to demonstrate our public worth."

~ Michael Burawoy, 2004

legacy academic scholarship

learning from journalism

pre-21st century, analog, closed, removed from the public

sphere, monastic

“legacy”

This was the only option for publishing.

We typed words & paragraphs on paper.

That technology had some problems.

This was “cut and paste.”

This is where we would go to find & read information.

This is how we looked things up.

Many journals or books not open & accessible.

Measuring “Impact”

How many inches?

expansion of digital technologies

What is ‘digital’ & why does it matter?

changing scholarship

changing knowledge production

peer-review is changing

changing pedagogy

From ‘MOOC’ to ‘POOC’

changing activism

‘Battle of Seattle’

Jena 6 Protests

Occupy Wall Street

Tahrir Square

changing the scholar-activist

2004

Unique Visitors (each month): ~ 200,000Total Visitors (since 2007): 2.7 million

Individual Blog Posts: 1,579Comments from readers: 10,476Subscribers: 9,861Authors: 123

publishing is changing

how we measure success

is changing

‘altmetrics’metrics

Evidence of Reputation

“altmetrics”

21st century, digital, open, connected to the public

sphere, worldly

“digital”

”Disciplinary and subdisciplinary

specialization, and the emphasis on internal

academic communication, peaked

in the late twentieth century. North American

social science is increasingly oriented

outward and focused on pressing public

problems. "

~ Craig Calhoun 2010

digitallegacy

sociopolitical context of academia

funding is changing

democracycommerce

MediaCamp Workshops

for Academics, Activists

The POOC: Opening Education

videos open to anyone

readings open to anyone

Knowledge Streams

activismscholarship

Data Maps

Data Visualizations

Produced 4 e-Books

Infographics

Podcast Series

“metrics that matter”

Changing Landscape of Higher Ed

2004 ASA Presidential Address

zero mentions of “digital” or “Internet”

none in the 10 years since

Twitter: @JessieNYC

Thank you!

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