Syrran eller en professor?

Jag vet. Att citera andra som tycker att det är rätt att blogga är som att be syrran skryta om sin brors förträfflighet. Men om en biträdande professor på New York University säger det då?

In a sense, blogs function like peer-review journals do in the academic world, but there's a key difference. The distribution of articles in academic journals is largely controlled by a publishing cartel that charges exorbitant amounts for subscriptions, which are subsidized by the institutions and universities that can afford them. Think of it as the socialist model for informational exchange. This dampens participation (read: supply of ideas and input) and, I would argue, deleteriously affects the level and quality of discussion.

With blogs, however, anybody with an internet connection can engage anybody else. Concepts are presented, attacked, sliced, diced, added to and subtracted from, mangled, massaged and molded until what is left is an amalgam of the finest we as an online society have to offer. For the digitally well-endowed, it's akin to free-market capitalism, with information as its currency. And not only do we all get to watch, we can join in.

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