A new paper in the Journal of Science Communication offers a critique of the workings and effectiveness of science bloggers.
Happily for us, the paper is open access, freely available.
The article appears to be from some research for a Ph.D.:
Inna Kouper is a doctoral candidate in the School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University
Bloomington. Her current research interests lie broadly in the areas of language and information; the role
of science in society; and the evolution of information and communication technologies generally
described as social or participatory media (such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc.).
Several bloggers say the paper gets wrong what science bloggers do, and what they should do.
Perhaps — you can read the paper yourself and compare it with the criticism.
I do want to call your attention to a very good feature of the paper. It analyzes postings on 11 of the top science blogs in the world.
1 Pure Pedantry scienceblogs.com/purepedantry
2 Synthesis www.synthesis.cc
3 MicrobiologyBytes www.microbiologybytes.com/blog
4 Wired Science www.wired.com/wiredscienc
5 BioEthics blog.bioethics.net
6 DrugMonkey scienceblogs.com/drugmonkey
7 Scientific Activist scienceblogs.com/scientificactivist
8 Pharyngula scienceblogs.com/pharyngula
9 Panda’s Thumb www.pandasthumb.org
10 ScienceBlog scienceblog.com
11 Cosmic Variance blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance
How can you tell the paper’s serious? The 11 blogs analyzed do not include any of the junk science blogs, like Uncommon Descent or Watt’s Up With That?
If you listen carefully, you can hear Bill Dembski and Anthony Watts stewing.
Stumble It!
Must have been too glancing a stroll! Dembski was obvious on the first glance, but not Watts. Thanks for the re-direct. You left TWO copies of the same comment on my blog, so I deleted one. One good turn in the blogosphere deserves another.
Not if you’re interested in science — accurate science, I should say. Watts has been caught making stuff up, rather seriously. It’s the sort of stuff that makes people sue for libel, and win.
See Open Minds, here, about Watts’s false claims against scientists, and here for the callout to him to make corrections and apologize (which he has so far failed to do).
I’m just grateful for the pointers to all the science blogs listed here, including Dembski and Watts. A glancing stroll through the lot lands me with one definite Follow: Watts.