Belle Lettre has a post entitled OrgTheory’s Take on the Blogger’s Transformation of Scholarship, which comments on the blogger’s transformation of the academic sphere by Fabio Rojas.
From Rojas:
There is another issue raised by presentation blogging. Traditionally, active researchers belong to an ”invisible college” of fellow scholars working on a topic who certifiy what counts as knowledge in an intellecual niche. The purpose of workshops is to vet your papers before they are submitted to the key journals. One benefit is that fellow researchers get a chance to point out flaws, which is what science is all about. Another benefit is strategic: by responding to comments of likely reviewers, or people in the network subscribing to similar views, an author improves their chances in the review process. The process is not full proof, but in areas with well defined boundaries and dense social ties, workshopping a paper in a few key places greatly increases the chance that your paper will appear competent and plausible to the people assigned to judge it.
And from Belle:
This obviously raises issues for "live-blogging" colloquia and workshops. I enjoy and benefit from live-blogging, even if I can’t do it myself. But I very much appreciate having a virtual seat in other conferences that I can’t attend due to time, money, opportunity. But I do understand what Fabio is saying about how "works-in-progress" conferences are much more delicate to handle. It is one thing to live-blog a conference in which all the papers have been published, or all the panelists know that the session will be podcast, blogged, or otherwise publicly promoted. Indeed, panels on "blogging and scholarship" seem like there should be no expectation of privacy! But for others, particularly research conferences or works-in-progress, I think participants would get nervous about having their drafts discussed in so public a manner.
My rule of thumb is that open conferences (AALS, APSA, APA, Law and Society, etc.) are "open" and live blogging is appropriate. Closed conferences (where attendance is limited to those presenting work-in-progress) are "closed" and live blogging is inappropriate without permission. I’ve been asked by conference organizers to live blog at closed conferences, but even then I think the participants should all be informed in advance.
There is lots more in the posts by Rojas & Belle. Check it out.