Updated: 2:50pm, 6/4/2019
In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Anon writes:
Should I be trying to get people to notice my papers in some way other than just publishing and putting them out there? Cold emailing relevant interlocutors, posting about them in a public Facebook post, something like that?
I think these are great questions, one's I've wondered about on a number of occasions given the visibility the Cocoon provides. Here, in brief, are the conclusions I've come to: some people may look down on promoting one's work – but I think there is nothing to be ashamed of in doing it, and it probably benefits the profession and individuals who do it, at least on balance. Let me explain why.
The other day, I came across this tract by Justin E.H. Smith (University of Paris 7 – Denis Diderot) alleging, in a nutshell, that the 'social media-ification' of academia has corrupted scholarship, turning academic research into a crass popularity contest spurred on by self-promotion. In principle, I get the concern here: that academia should be about the ideas themselves, not who can promote their ideas the best. But, the more that I reflect on the history of science, the less sympathetic I am with the concern. Here's why: the dissemination of scientific research has always depended on the relative capacity for people to get their ideas noticed by their contemporaries. For instance, when I read The Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking, I couldn't help but notice how Isaac Newton "was providentially lucky", needing a patron (most likely Humphrey Babington) to receive recognition and remain in an academic position at Cambridge (p. 20); how Sadi Carnot's groundbreaking work on thermodynamics was "rescued…from what certainly would have otherwise been oblivion…[by] Emile Clapeyron" (p. 49); how Robert Mayer's groundbreaking work on the conservation of energy languished in obscurity until it happened to be noticed by John Tyndall, another professor who became "Mayer's champion" (p. 55-6); and how James Joule's groundbreaking work on heat was roundly ignored by the academic establishment (p. 59) before a young professor of philosophy (!), William Thomson, rose during a talk Joule gave to promote his work (!) to say that Joule had discovered things of extreme importance (p. 65). I could go on. Einstein, for example, often went out of his way to send piles of postcards (!) on his work to influential physics professors while in search for an academic job…a search that in turn lasted eight years while he worked as a patent clerk in Bern (see Isaacson, pp. 58-9, 149).
As we see in these cases and many others, important ideas–indeed, groundbreaking ones–in the history of philosophy and science have often been ignored until someone drew attention to them. Oftentimes, as we see in Newton's and Carnot's work, it was a matter of sheer luck: of the relevant ideas finally ending up in someone's hands who appreciated their importance. Just as often, however (as in Joule's and Einstein's cases), it was a matter of the creator of the work getting out in the world to promote their work–so that, again, it could finally get seen by that one person (or small number of people) who might actually pay attention to it. This, in brief, is why I don't think 'promoting one's work' is a bad thing, or why the 'social media-ization' of academia is a bad thing. The "good old days", when a scholar had to publish their work in journals and hope someone would notice, weren't good old days at all. They were bad old days when the chances of getting one's work noticed was largely a matter of luck and institutional prestige. The internet and social media are, if not 'the great equalizer', at least an equalizer: a way for less-established people, who may have had to publish in less-renowned journals (due, say, to high teaching loads and tenure pressures), to get their work seen by people who might have otherwise never come across it. And what's bad about that? If the work is bad, then people will probably notice that–even when (I'd say especially when) it is the work of people of renown. Conversely, if the work is good, then people will be more likely to notice that as well–at least relative to the days when it was a matter of sheer luck whether anyone even bothered to read your work.
In sum, I'm inclined to think that the 'social media-fication' of scholarship is likely a good thing, at least on balance, both for academic professions (since promotion of work increases its dissemination) and for the individuals who produce that work (as it gives them to power to at least get their work seen, and if it is any good, appreciated and engaged with). Are there costs? Sure. Sometimes bad work gets recognition (at least temporarily) on the basis of (self-)promotion. And sure, some people seem to be great self-promoters but not great researchers. Still, I think the benefits–to individuals and academic disciplines–significantly outweigh the costs. For my part, I've come across a great variety of papers I think are good or important because someone (often enough, their author) drew my attention to them (in some cases, by posting about it on social media). Finally, although some people may look down on people for promoting their work–deeming it "beneath" them or beneath professionalism–I say there is nothing to be ashamed of here. For let's say you worked for several years on that paper or book. And let's say that, in addition to all of the time and energy–and frustrations–you had to go through to produce the work, you think the work you have produced is worth reading (because, let's say, you wouldn't have written and published it had you believed otherwise). In that case, why should you have to rely on luck–or on Fate–for the paper to get in front of the "right person" to notice its value? If I had to choose, on the one hand, between publishing a paper I put my heart and soul into for years, doing nothing, and only five people ever reading it, and–on the other hand–promoting that same paper, having hundreds of people read it, and eventually engage with it…I would do the latter seven days a week, do it without shame, and think I would be right to do it without shame, irrespective of who might look down their nose at it. For that's all that promoting one's work does: draw attention to one's work so that others can decide, on the basis of actually reading it, whether it is worthwhile. And wanting that, I think, is nothing to be ashamed of. In any case, when I see someone announce or discuss their new publication on social media, I don't look down at them. I think, "Good for them"…and then, all too often, I read their paper to see what I think!
Note/update: I think there is a huge difference between promoting one’s work—by announcing new publications on social media or on a blog—and bragging about one’s work. Bragging, surely, is a vice. But that’s not what drawing attention to one’s work involves. Drawing attention to one’s work is just that: trying to make it more visible, enticing people to read it, no more and no less.
But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?
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