Out of touch sociologists = comedy gold!
As the end of my last post might have suggested, I’m in a bit of a cranky online mood this week. However, this Eszter Hargittai post gave me a good laugh, and does point out that even within the expertsphere, there are experts and there are experts: I was at a reception the other day ...
As the end of my last post might have suggested, I'm in a bit of a cranky online mood this week. However, this Eszter Hargittai post gave me a good laugh, and does point out that even within the expertsphere, there are experts and there are experts: I was at a reception the other day and was graciously introduced by a famous senior sociologist to a visiting senior sociologist as an “[insert some very kind words] scholar who studies the social aspects of Internet use”. The visitor laughed. No one else laughed though so quickly, smile wiped from his face, he said: “oh, you’re serious.” In poli sci, the arc of reaction to studying blogs moved very quickly from, "tee hee, you're taking this seriously," to "you might be onto something by looking into blogs" to "gee, your blog essay seems to get cited a lot" was pretty quick, actually -- at least by academic standards.
As the end of my last post might have suggested, I’m in a bit of a cranky online mood this week. However, this Eszter Hargittai post gave me a good laugh, and does point out that even within the expertsphere, there are experts and there are experts:
I was at a reception the other day and was graciously introduced by a famous senior sociologist to a visiting senior sociologist as an “[insert some very kind words] scholar who studies the social aspects of Internet use”. The visitor laughed. No one else laughed though so quickly, smile wiped from his face, he said: “oh, you’re serious.”
In poli sci, the arc of reaction to studying blogs moved very quickly from, “tee hee, you’re taking this seriously,” to “you might be onto something by looking into blogs” to “gee, your blog essay seems to get cited a lot” was pretty quick, actually — at least by academic standards.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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