The Digitally Connected Academic - Public Scholarship and Activism in the Era of the Internet

Oct 15, 2026

Inspired by a 2017 discussion, this special issue examines how digital communication technologies such as blogs and social media can be used within the academy to shape public scholarship. It questions the roles, purposes, possibilities, and risks of faculty engagement as scholars seek new dissemination methods amid low citation and declining book sales. The issue frames public engagement as both a productive evolution of academic practice and a site where discourse can lack expertise.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time8 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Public scholarship on digital platforms

Evidence gaps and impact metrics

Summary of Individual Articles

Policy landscape and digital engagement

Public intellectuals and post-truth discourse

Connectivism and platform literacy

Epistemic injustice and open-access reach

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| The Digitally Connected Academic: Public Scholarship and Activism in the Era of the Internet | | --- | --- | T. Jameson Brewer, University of North Georgia Julian Vasquez Heilig, University of Kentucky Abstract: Inspired by a lively discussion during the Southeastern Philosophy of Education Society’s annual meeting in 2017, this special issue explores the roles, purposes, possibilities, and caveats of leveraging digital communication technologies (e.g., blogs, social media, etc.) within the academy. As scholars continue to grapple with and integrate new forms of understanding and new methods of disseminating their work, what, then, becomes the role of the public scholar? This issue explores the purposeful engagement of scholarly work and insight in new and traditional media to disseminate knowledge into the public discourse asa potential evolution of academia’s mores. Keywords: public scholarship, technology, public discourse Introduction1 This special issue ofCQIE is dedicated to engaging with questions about what types—and to what extent—professors and instructors should engage in public scholarship across digital platforms. Academics are certainly rewarded for focusing their time and energy on publishing their work in peer-reviewed journals and writing books. However, research on peer review has found that onethird of social science and more than 80% of humanities articles are never cited (Remler, 2014) . Furthermore, while the number of academic books rose by 45%, from 43,000 to 63,000 between 2005 and 2014, the average sales per title fell from 100 to 60 (Jubb, 2017) . Considering that readership and citations are a proxies for impact, should academics evolve the normative conceptions of scholarship to focus additional attention on creating ancillary work derived from their published research to engage in the public? While engagement in evolving communication technologies (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, YouTube, etc.) can serve as mechanisms by which traffic is directed towards academic journals and books, should faculty also view these platforms as neglected spaces where discourse often lacks empirical expertise? How much, how often, and to what ends should public scholarship take advantage of digital platforms? The rise of new forms of technological communication platforms to engage in dialogue have provided ample space for individuals and organizations to promote public discourse about 1. We wish to thank Jessica Heybach and Eric Sheffield for extending the invitation to put this special issue together and for their feedback and patience during the process. We would also like to thank the contributors (and the reviewers) for their important work in expanding the discussion surrounding a phenomenon that, despite our positions, we cannot escape and ignore. education issues (Ravitch, Vasquez Heilig, & Brewer, in press) . For example, market-oriented privatization reforms have expertly leveraged the power of social media to amplify their calls for shifting control of P-20 into the hands of privatizers and profiteers. New communication technologies have provided a space where myths of “failed schools” and “bad teachers” continue to thrive in cyberspace as they often go unchallenged by academics and others with expertise on the subject (Malin & Lubienski, 2015) . In fact, the unchallenged voices of pro-reform groups on social media platforms have afforded those groups the opportunity to create echo chambers of commonsensical rhetoric about the need to reform schools (Brewer & Wallis, 2015) . Considering the potential evolution of the field and ongoing public discourse about contemporary education such as education reform on various technological platforms, the aim of this special issue was to begin—and continue for many—a dialogue exploring both why and how academics should or should not leverage online platforms to share their work and engage in public conversations. There is, of course, a compet

FAQs

What is the purpose of the special issue?

The special issue explores the roles, purposes, possibilities, and caveats of using digital communication technologies within the academy for public scholarship and activism.

Why does the issue question academics’ focus on traditional publishing?

It cites research showing many peer-reviewed articles are never cited and that average sales per book title have declined, raising questions about how impact should be measured and pursued.

How do the included articles differ in their views of digital engagement?

The summaries indicate a range of perspectives, including arguments for aggressively engaging digital spaces for factual solutions, concerns about post-truth effects on public intellectual work, and proposals using connectivism to guide how academics leverage platforms.

Oct 15, 2026

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