General Thoughts on Blogging

Before I write anything further, I guess I want to provide the blog with a little context.

To me, blogging is an interesting outlet, especially in intellectual settings. Historically, there has been a lot of animosity in academia in particular against blogs. This is in part due to academia's typical rigorous revision process and emphasis on well thought-out, peer reviewed pieces. Blogs contrast with this institution immensely. Blog posts are quickly written, short, pieces that are lucky to make it through the spellchecker, let alone peer review. However, a growing number of well-respected figures in policy circles and academia alike, such as Tufts's Daniel Drezner, Harvard's Stephen Walt, or the Center for a New American Security's (and alum of my high school) Andrew Exum, have created well-respected blogs that have gone a long way toward making their ideas far more accessible to the general population. Blogging finds itself in a position today where it is growing in legitimacy, but increasingly challenged by rapid-output news sources such as Twitter and Facebook in particular. Blog posts were never meant to be journal articles that are rigorously sourced, well argued pieces. Rather, they are supposed to be quick outputs of unrefined (for the most part) thought. Some bloggers have found it easier to move to sources like Twitter to rapidly output brief thoughts of this sort. As a result, blogging has found itself in a limbo where it must provide more depth than a tweet, but far less than a scholarly publication or a policy memo. Thus I come into blogging in a time where its future as a means of conveyance of opinion is in question and its broader pedagogical purpose is in doubt. How should blogging be used? What are the standards that should be established for blogs when, taking into account the fluid, almost stream-of-consciousness nature of their writing, they will never be on the same level as well-sourced works?

I don't really have an opinion on the subject as of now. As a Twitter user, I do not feel as though it can ever supplant blogging with its character limit. It cannot provide the depth that, while limited, can still serve to inform opinions and make those of academia and high-end policy circles far more accessible to a general population that in the day of cable news is in sore need of thinkers instead of demagogues. I hope my posts will be fairly brief, come often, and may be more indicative of my thought process than an academic work may be.