Two interesting articles from the Olde Paper Presse, on a subject that intrigues me - how will "Knowledge Industry Structures" themselves be dis-aggregated by the New New Media?
Firstly, the Economist
on the impact of Web 2.0 tools on Scientific Journal publishing:
Earlier this month Seed Media Group, a firm based in New York, launched the latest version of Research Blogging, a website which acts as a hub for scientists to discuss peer-reviewed science. Such discussions, the internet-era equivalent of the journal club, have hitherto been strewn across the web, making them hard to find, navigate and follow. The new portal provides users with tools to label blog posts about particular pieces of research, which are then aggregated, indexed and made available online.
Although Web 2.0, with its emphasis on user-generated content, has been derided as a commercial cul-de-sac, it may prove to be a path to speedier scientific advancement. According to Adam Bly, Seed’s founder, internet-aided interdisciplinarity and globalisation, coupled with a generational shift, portend a great revolution. His optimism stems in large part from the fact that the new technologies are no mere newfangled gimmicks, but spring from a desire for timely peer review.
And this one on the future of Think Tanks from
the Grauniad:
Some are now wondering whether the whole thinktank model is bust. The Labour minister Jim Knight suggests on his Facebook page that thinktanks, "ultimately very elitist top-down institutions populated with very bright people who politicians sometimes seem to sub-contract their thinking to", are out of date in an era of online networking, blogs and wikipedia. "Network-enabled policymaking" may replace boring old thinktank reports, he says.
The transmission, testing and collision of ideas in an environment with the immediacy of the web is certainly a huge challenge for thinktanks: but surely an opportunity too. So long as think-tanks can demonstrate real expertise – be "elitist" in the best sense of the term – they should welcome the heat of online debate.
Today, real influence and kudos collection in these networks is still largely concentrated off line in face to face time, this allows the more established dogs to pick at the bones of those lower down:
However, what Dr Bly calls Science 2.0 has drawbacks. Jennifer Rohn, a biologist at University College London and a prolific blogger, says there is a risk that rivals will see how your work unfolds and pip you to the post in being first to publish. Blogging is all well and good for tenured staff but lower down in the academic hierarchy it is still publish or perish, she laments.
Not that different to any other New Media models then...... at least in the Olde Days the student got their name on the paper, or the young 'uns went to see the Think Tank client with the Big Hitter.
But one assumes that will change, however. At the end of the day Think Tanks and Journals are just quality-assured markets for ideas - the blogosphere isn't there yet, there is too much unfiltered / unauthenticated / opinionated cr*p. I'm increasingly interested more in structures that filter and winnow ideas - not so much a River of News but a Stream of Information. So it is quite interesting to think of how "Wisdom of Crowds" type social networks would operate here, as there will no doubt be ways of putting together such trusted / authenticated structures (the
Open RSA movement being an example here, or in its own self-evolving way, the
Tuttle Club).
Or, as the Economist notes:
With the technology in place, scientists face a chicken-and-egg conundrum. In order that blogging can become a respected academic medium it needs to be recognised by the upper echelons of the scientific establishment. But leading scientists are unlikely to take it up until it achieves respectability. Efforts are under way to change this. Nature Network, an online science community linked to Nature, a long-established science journal, has announced a competition to encourage blogging among tenured staff. The winner will be whoever gets the most senior faculty member to blog. Their musings will be published in the Open Laboratory, a printed compilation of the best science writing on blogs. As an added incentive, both blogger and persuader will get to visit the Science Foo camp, an annual boffins’ jamboree in Mountain View, California.
More a think hot-tub than a think tank?
