It is received wisdom within academic circles that it is important to publish. 'Publish and be damned' they trumpet (quoting the 'Iron' Duke of Wellington). In the recent past in Media Studies, this predictable call to action was sometimes interpreted as a rather Fordian production process which often went something like write a - conference paper- conference paper - book chapter - book review - conference paper - peer-reviewed article - conference paper - until you have enough 'material' for a book (with a career power-up and extra possible working life in times of recession). There were, of course, other ways of working but this was taken to be a 'good' model which was passed to me as a wisdom when I was a PhD student. One of the strangest things about this approach was the pace of the process. For example, it could be very slow. Indeed, it still is, on occasions. For instance, I co-edited a book, the End of Journalism, which was published in 2011, but was based on a conference that was held a couple of years previous. Likewise, it was a process that could be quite isolating. It was the 'go away and write it up' school of production, which was broken by the odd chat with colleagues, conference questions or book review.
I am good enough, I believe, at the reading, researching, reviewing and writing thing. I am not very good at the 'going away' bit, however. Indeed, I am not sure that I believe in the 'hiding myself away in the library' mode of working. Instead, I believe that part of the role of the academic is to be present where ever possible; that is to say I believe we have a 'duty' to participate with insight in real-time in the subjects of our expertise. We should listen, think and speak: be part of the dialogue. Of course, it is important to participate in an effective manner by doing the hard work behind the scenes. But is also important not to use the pressure of work as an excuse not to join in at all. Sometimes, we should also discuss what we are doing, whilst we are doing it. To this end I thought I should make public the fact that I am currently working on a project which I have pre-titled 'No Ware: Thinking beyond the Determinism of Pervasive Computing'. It is a media/tech studies project. I hope that it will not be as dull as I have just made it sound.
Broadly speaking, I am interested in the cultural constraints to ubiquitous computing. Broadly speaking, this will involve me in conceptualizing and contextualizing the limits to the digitization of our culture. It will involve the usual suspects familiar to 'media studies' - power, control, access to the means of production and identity - as realized in our negotiation of issues such as politics, property, privacy and our material embodiedness. However, specifically speaking I have yet to speak. That is to say I have yet to think through the delights of my work-in-progress (as I often find out what is wrong with what I am thinking by writing it down and then making some of these thoughts accountable to the wider world by making them public). Of course, I could realize this project in the form of a series of conference papers, but it might also be productive to map it out using this blog as well.
Of course, I don't want to claim originality of approach here. There are any number of academic blogs. Likewise, there were always other models of academic production. Furthermore, there are a host of 'new media' models that further challenge the cartoon of academic publishing I noted above ( I am particularly fond of Michael Wesch' YouTube classic - Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us ). However, I am happy to keep writing (for the moment), which is where this humble blog fits into the equation.
Indeed, I am happy to write whilst researching about the cultural construction of ubiquitous computing, but I am happier still when I write up my research in smaller reflective sections which serve both as an initial communication of ideas and an opportunity to develop and test those ideas in a productive manner. It is also an opportunity to practice what I have been 'preaching' to my students studying 'Digital Cultures' and 'Media and Cyberculture' at the University of Bedfordshire. I have set them the task of writing a reflective blog about what we discuss in class, so I have assigned myself a similar task, by reflecting on my own learning processes. It will be interesting to see what they make of my blog. Similarly, it will be interesting to explore whether this blog will add any value to my writing life and/or contemporary discussions about the digitization of our societies.
