This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2003 at 10:50 PM and is filed under We Are Blog.

So, for

CFP for: Panel on Weblogs
Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association Conference
at San Antonio, April 7-10, 2004

This panel seeks papers from bloggers either analyzing some aspect of
the culture of blogging or presenting critical and informative personal
narratives about blogging. Presenters need not be academics, and
graduate students are welcome.

Please email … a short abstract (one paragraph) and
brief biographical note by November 10, 2003.

I figured I’d submit something. The fact of the matter is, I had so many ideas of things that I was going to blog about, and so many ideas of things to submit, that I couldn’t decide which one to possibly make into an eventual paper (an abstract for now) and which others to just blog about. My hestitation stemmed in large part from a sense that I’d be saving the paper topic for a “slow track” in terms of meme propagation. I say this because what I blog about now, can be read about now and processed now - but what goes to a paper or whatnot for some conference just sits and waits until then - and gets the (smaller?) audience of the attendees, etc…. I arguably get a little bit more prestige out of it, and it becomes something I can put on a “list of published works” (assuming the darn thing gets accepted anyway), but I have a feeling that the prestige and “list of published works” comes at a price of it coming out slower and to what might not necessarily be the most apt audience.

Further more, it is going to be a paper which gives me this ominous sense that it will be “immortalized” in some proceedings or whatnot, and so I’d need to “get it right the first time” because there won’t be a second time. A post in a blog, however, is something that by definition becomes old, and new posts supercede and such. So there’s added stress of a different sort that comes into play.

Of course, I could start into a rant against the academic system (I’ve done it before), but the fact of the matter is, I need to accept things as they are, because I plan on entering academia. So I need to start thinking in terms of what to try to publish in journals/conferences/etc… and what to just write about on my blog.

I also need to consider the nature of when in my work to go write about something. If it is a fledgling idea and I think I might not ever go anywhere with it, it is something perfect to blog about. If it is an idea that is half-way developed and I expect I might be able to make a paper or something out of, I’d better not blog about it lest someone else “beat me to it” in terms of completion/success with a paper. (I’m hesitant about that last one because of an incident I’d prefer not to relate in details lest someone get angry at me because it is easy to read it as an accusation of someone else’s naivity, but we shan’t get into that right now.)

Anyway my abstract and title were accepted (this is one of those conferences where, apparently, the paper/presentation is not expected to be written by the deadline for the CFP). I’m going to put them here, and if anyone has any bright ideas that they’d like to contribute to the paper, I’m game for including them (a permalink to the appropriate post on your blog will be included in the bibliography for the paper when I write it). I must give credit to the chair for suggesting the title. I originally couldn’t decide between “Implications of Viewing The Blogosphere as A System” and “We are Blog; Resistance is Futule; You will be Assimilated”, and the chair suggested “We Are Blog: Implications of Viewing the Blogosphere as a System”. The abstract is as follows:

In this paper the network of blogs (blogosphere) is viewed as a
system. This systemic viewpoint is illustrated through examples such as
the nature of information exchange between the blogosphere and search
engines. As a system for memes (thoughts, ideas, or “units of
imitation”) to propagate, the blogosphere is shown to be superior to
forms of communication such as faxes or books. In viewing the system at
the center, we find the potential of the blogosphere to become an
uncontrolled supra-intelligence phenomenon. In viewing the bloggers (the
humans) at the center, a vision emerges of the blogosphere as the heart
and soul of the essential discussion that is vital to an informed
democracy. Just as we have learned that neither the earth nor the sun
nor the moon is at the center of the universe, so too, I endeavor to
explain that neither is the blogosphere at the center of what is
happening with the blogging phenomena, nor is it exactly the bloggers
that are at the center. My own experiences with how I came to blog help
illustrate some of the appeal of blogging and how this points to what I
contend is at the center of the blogging phenomena.

So, feel free to offer ideas/comments/suggestions and especially trackbacks so you can be listed in the bibliography.

Anyway, now, after that interruption, we will have regular blogging resume - for the most part. There is one tweak that makes it all different now, and so I might not be blogging exactly as I had been. But the explanation for that will be revealed in due time.

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