The Tensions and Conundrums of Public Scholarship

• In Event: Trends and Tensions in Scholars' Social Media Strategies and Formats for Public Scholarship

Abstract

Objectives
Scholars are often encouraged to be public intellectuals – to ‘go online’ and engage with diverse audiences (Mewburn & Thompson, 2013). Yet, scholars’ online activities appear to be rife with tensions, dilemmas, and conundrums. In this paper, I discuss the major tensions and challenges scholars face when engaging networked publics and highlight the uncomfortable realities of being a public scholar. Many of these tensions became visible recently when the Kansas Board of Regents instituted a policy governing faculty and staff “improper use of social media” (Colson, 2014) and when Steven Salaita was “de-hired” from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Reichmann, Wallach Scott, & Tiede, 2015).

Perspectives
This work is grounded in the Networked Scholarship framework. Networked Scholarship refers to scholars’ use of participatory technologies and online social networks to share, improve, validate, and further their scholarship (Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012). However, the evidence describing scholars’ tensions and challenges on these sites is limited and fragmented, and this paper seeks to address this gap in the literature.

Methods
This paper reports on qualitative research intended to identify scholars’ experiences, and perspectives and to understand how they make meaning of their experiences/activities (Crotty, 1998).

Data sources
I draw data from (a) one-to-one interviews conducted with fifteen scholars in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, and (b) an ethnographic journal consisting of observations, reflections, screenshots, and news articles. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) wherein I coded data to note emerging patterns. In particular, data were coded and compared in an iterative manner. Codes were developed to capture similarities and differences between the data. Codes were then compiled into themes.

Results
Many challenges were noted and expressed in the data. For instance, scholars noted time demands and lack of recognition for public scholarship; concerns pertaining to establishing and maintaining personal-professional boundaries; and concerns regarding academic freedom. Increasingly, the most significant issue in these challenges appears to be the fact that (a) contemporary social media collapse personal and professional contexts, and (b) scholars imagined audiences are not always the audiences they encounter online. Context collapse introduces unwanted attention, especially when messages intended for an imagined professional or personal audience end up viral or are exposed to unanticipated audiences.

Significance
Evangelizing public and networked scholarship without acknowledging the existence of tensions is detrimental to the field and misleading to the scholars who may be considering becoming more networked, more public, and more “digital.” Individual scholars and institutions, both networked and otherwise need to evaluate the purposes and functions of scholarship and take part in devising systems that reflect and safeguard the values of scholarly inquiry.

Author

• George Veletsianos, Royal Roads University