Scholarship in Abundance: Influence, Engagement, and Attention in Scholarly Networks A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Studies University of Prince Edward Island Bonnie E. Stewart Charlottetown, PE April 17, 2015 ©2015 Bonnie Stewart CC-BY ii   ABSTRACT In an era of knowledge abundance, scholars have the capacity to distribute and share ideas and artifacts via digital networks, yet networked scholarly engagement often remains unrecognized within institutional spheres of influence. The purpose of this dissertation study is to explore the meanings constructed and enacted within the networked practices of 13 scholars actively engaged in both institutional and networked participatory scholarship. Using ethnographic methods including participant observation, interviews, and document analysis, the study investigates networks as sites of scholarship, with the intent of furthering institutional academia’s understanding of networked practices. The three papers that make up the dissertation each articulate a specific thread of intersection between institutional and networked scholarship: the first focuses on what counts as academic influence within networked circles, the second on networks’ terms of value and reward, and the third on the relationships between attention, care, and vulnerability in scholarly networks. Together, the papers conclude that networked scholarly practices of engagement align broadly with those of academia, yet enable and demand scholars’ individual cultivation of influence, visibility, and audiences. Thus networked scholarship rewards connection, collaboration, and curation between individuals rather than roles or institutions, fostering cross-disciplinary and public engagement and a bridging of the personal/professional divide. The study contributes to knowledge by situating networked scholarly practices within the scholarly tradition, while articulating the terms on which knowledge abundance and networked practices open up new spheres of opportunity and vulnerability for scholars. iii   TABLE OF CONTENTS   ABSTRACT  .........................................................................................................................................................  ii   ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS  .............................................................................................................................  v   PREFACE  ............................................................................................................................................................  vii   SCHOLARSHIP IN ABUNDANCE: INFLUENCE, ENGAGEMENT, AND ATTENTION IN SCHOLARLY NETWORKS  ...................................................................................................................  1   Background  ......................................................................................................................................................................  1   Research Papers  ..............................................................................................................................................................  5   Methodological and Theoretical Approaches  .......................................................................................................  6   Findings and Discussions  ..........................................................................................................................................  11   Paper #1  .....................................................................................................................................................................  11   Paper #2  .....................................................................................................................................................................  13   Paper #3  .....................................................................................................................................................................  14   PAPER #1 - OPEN TO INFLUENCE: WHAT COUNTS AS ACADEMIC INFLUENCE IN SCHOLARLY NETWORKED TWITTER PARTICIPATION  ......................................................  18   Abstract  ...........................................................................................................................................................................  19   Introduction  ....................................................................................................................................................................  20   Networked publics and the academy  ................................................................................................................  21   Academic influence and network influence  ...................................................................................................  23   Methodologies and Theoretical Perspectives  .....................................................................................................  26   Methods  ...........................................................................................................................................................................  28   Selection  ....................................................................................................................................................................  28   Participant Observation  ..............................................................................................................................................  31   24-hour Reflection  ..................................................................................................................................................  31   Profile Assessment  .................................................................................................................................................  31   Interviews  ..................................................................................................................................................................  32   Coding and Analysis  ..............................................................................................................................................  32   Rigour  .........................................................................................................................................................................  33   Findings and Discussion  ............................................................................................................................................  34   “She sure has a following” – Metrics matter, but not that much  ............................................................  35   “A rolling stone gathering moss”- Identity at scale  ....................................................................................  37   “Status baubles” – The intersection of network influence with academic prestige  ..........................  39   “I value their work, so value by association” – Commonality as credibility and value  ..................  40   “Being connected with Oxford adds to the reputation” – Recognizability as a way of making sense of signals  ........................................................................................................................................................  41   “A human who is a really boring bot” - Automated signals indicate low influence, especially in the absence of other signals  .................................................................................................................................  43   “My digital networks provide me with some sense of being someone who can contribute” - Identity positions and power relations  .............................................................................................................  44   Conclusions  ....................................................................................................................................................................  46   Acknowledgements  ................................................................................................................................................  47   References  ......................................................................................................................................................................  48   PAPER #2 - IN ABUNDANCE: NETWORKED PARTICIPATORY PRACTICES AS SCHOLARSHIP  ...............................................................................................................................................  53   Abstract  ...........................................................................................................................................................................  54 iv   Introduction  ....................................................................................................................................................................  55   Conceptual Frameworks  ............................................................................................................................................  56   Research Methods  ........................................................................................................................................................  58   Selection  ....................................................................................................................................................................  58   Participant Observation  ........................................................................................................................................  59   24 hour Reflection  ..................................................................................................................................................  59   Profile Assessment  .................................................................................................................................................  60   Interviews  ..................................................................................................................................................................  60   Coding and Analysis  ..............................................................................................................................................  60   Rigour  .........................................................................................................................................................................  60   Research Analysis and Results  ................................................................................................................................  61   Discovery  ...................................................................................................................................................................  62   Integration  .................................................................................................................................................................  66   Application  ................................................................................................................................................................  69   Teaching  ....................................................................................................................................................................  72   Beyond the hierarchy of functions  ....................................................................................................................  75   Conclusion  ......................................................................................................................................................................  78   References  ......................................................................................................................................................................  80   PAPER #3 ATTENTION IN NETWORKED SCHOLARSHIP: TWITTER AS A SITE OF CARE AND RISK  ...........................................................................................................................................  85   Abstract  ...........................................................................................................................................................................  86   Introduction  ....................................................................................................................................................................  87   Conceptual Frameworks of Scholarship and Attention  .............................................................................  88   Methodologies and Theoretical Framework(s)  ..................................................................................................  91   Methods  ...........................................................................................................................................................................  92   Selection  ....................................................................................................................................................................  92   Participant Observation  ........................................................................................................................................  94   24-hour Reflections  ................................................................................................................................................  94   Interviews  ..................................................................................................................................................................  94   Coding and Analysis  ..............................................................................................................................................  95   Rigour  .........................................................................................................................................................................  95   Findings and Discussion  ............................................................................................................................................  96   Practices of visibility and connection  ..............................................................................................................  96   Practices of attention and affinity  ...................................................................................................................  100   Sites of collapse and conflict  ...........................................................................................................................  101   Sites of institutional deviance  ..........................................................................................................................  103   Sites of re-inscription  .........................................................................................................................................  106   The role of Twitter in visibility and risk  ......................................................................................................  108   Conclusion  ...................................................................................................................................................................  110   Acknowledgements  ..................................................................................................................................................  110   Funding  .........................................................................................................................................................................  110   References  ...................................................................................................................................................................  112   CONCLUSION: ONE YEAR LATER  ...................................................................................................  118   Future Research  .........................................................................................................................................................  144   List of Additional References  ....................................................................................................................  147 v   ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to begin by expressing my thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Sandy McAuley, who has been encouraging, patient and supportive since the beginning of this journey, and to Dr. Udo Krautwurst and Dr. Alec Couros, my generous and helpful committee. I am grateful to each of you for helping me to think critically and deeply about my research. Particular thanks for the confidence all of you have shown in my scholarship through your support of this three-paper thesis format. Thanks as well to the current and former Graduate Coordinators of the UPEI Faculty of Education, Dr. Liz Townsend and Dr. Martha Gabriel, and to my Dean, Dr. Ron MacDonald, for enabling me to pioneer this model of dissertation in our faculty. I owe a huge debt of appreciation to the participants and the exemplar identities who made this study a success. Participants offered me not only their time and insights but their ongoing feedback – and in many cases, their friendship – through the participatory research process. I have attempted to do justice to their perspectives and trust here. I also want to express my gratitude for the broader networks I have been privileged to work and think in, whose practices inspired this investigation, and who have in myriad ways expressed support and interest in this research from its earliest days. I could not have done this without the financial support of the Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, and the UPEI BMO Graduate Student Research Scholarship. These two awards made it possible for me to commit time and energy to the pursuit of this research, and I am deeply appreciative. I am that rare and lucky Ph.D. student whose life partner has actually read her thesis. Dave Cormier has supported this endeavour in word and deed throughout, and I thank him for continuing to believe this finish line would come, even when I did not. I also thank my mother, father, stepmother, and parents-in-law for their ongoing support, and for stepping in vi   to offer love and care to my children when I needed time to work and write. I could not have done this without all of you being there for me. Finally, my thanks and love to Oscar and Josephine for sharing their childhoods with the gestation of this rather demanding sibling. This is for the two of you, who make me want to be more. vii   PREFACE This dissertation is an original intellectual product of the author, Bonnie Stewart. The fieldwork reported in papers 1-3 was covered by UPEI Ethics Certificate #6005563. 1   SCHOLARSHIP IN ABUNDANCE: INFLUENCE, ENGAGEMENT, AND ATTENTION IN SCHOLARLY NETWORKS Background This dissertation outlines an ethnographic investigation of the ways in which scholars at a variety of career stages understand and enact scholarly engagement within online participatory networks. Over the last decade, the ways in which people can connect and share ideas online have multiplied dramatically. Social network platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have become commonplace means of communication and interaction. The proliferation of free blog platforms has led to unprecedented self-publishing, and the rise of camera-enabled phones combined with platforms such as Youtube and Instagram has meant that images and videos can be easily shared. Online self-presentation and participation in networked interactions has become a feature of contemporary life. Forms of networked participation are becoming increasingly visible within academia, as well. Networks of scholars and emerging scholars have developed across social networking sites (SNS), blogs, and other platforms, creating a public, participatory sphere wherein scholars can self-publish, share ideas across various platforms, and engage with emergent issues in higher education and society at large. Many scholars build public bodies of work via participatory media, and engage with peers and publics across geographic and disciplinary boundaries. There are multiple platforms available for open scholarly networking. SNS such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate have emerged specifically for scholars, while reference tools such as Zotero and Mendeley have gradually integrated networking capacities for scholars to recommend, share, and tag resources. Google Hangouts are utilized to host informal open 2   discussions and learning experiences, and Facebook groups focused on specific disciplinary and research interests enable real-time public discussion of issues and ideas. Twitter serves as a general communications and resource-sharing platform, as well as the central site of observation in this study: Lupton’s (2014) study of 711 academics active on social media found that 90% reported using Twitter for professional purposes, while nearly 50% used Academia.edu, 40% Facebook, and over 30% personal blogs (pg. 14). However, technological platforms themselves are not the focus of this study. I approach emergent academic practices as a specific subset of participatory culture (Jenkins, 2006). Drawing on Veletsianos and Kimmons’ (2012) assertion that “[s]cholars are part of a complex techno-cultural system that is ever changing in response to both internal and external stimuli” (p. 773), this investigation of what they term networked participatory scholarship (NPS) expands on a tradition stemming back through Rheingold’s (1993) “virtual communities” and Hiltz and Turoff’s (1978) exploration of online work relationships. It examines how influence, engagement, and attention operate within the particular techno- cultural system of scholarly networks, and considers what commonalities, distinctions, and relationships exist between this techno-cultural phenomenon and that of contemporary mainstream academia. The dissertation’s context is that of knowledge abundance, and my own curiosity about its implications for scholarship in the 21st century. Prior to the digital era, scholarly knowledge was organized around the premise that knowledge is scarce and its artifacts materially vulnerable. As Eye’s (1974) seminal article on knowledge abundance asserts, “[M]aterial can be transformed from one state to another but the original state is diminished…materials are exhaustible” (p. 445). Manuscripts and books as knowledge artifacts are exhaustible, and costly to produce and distribute. The origins of the word 3   university indicate these roots in knowledge scarcity; the university, from the Latin “universitas,” meaning “whole” (“University,” n.d.), was the site around which the artifacts and community of knowledge could be gathered and protected. Digital content, however, is persistent, replicable, scalable and searchable (boyd, 2011, p. 46); with the rise of digital technologies, access to knowledge artifacts and channels of distribution has opened up profoundly. As Weller (2011) notes, “with a digital, open, networked approach we are witnessing a shift to abundance of content” (p. 224). Within that shift, tensions around knowledge creation and the role of scholarship in organizing and authorizing specific forms of content as knowledge become visible. Digital knowledge artifacts can be distributed with negligible cost to originator or user, and can generally be shared and re-shared without having to confront exhaustibility or decay. Thus this widespread and increasingly mobile access to digital knowledge artifacts speaks to a “fundamental change in the production of knowledge and our relationship to content” (Weller, 2011, p. 233) that contemporary scholarship must grapple with. The premise of this dissertation is that networked participatory practices have enacted that fundamental change on the margins of institutional academia, creating an overlapping but distinct sphere of scholarly engagement that demands investigation. Both academia and social networks can be said to be “reputational economies” (Willinksy, 2010) in which communications are “the principal mechanism for creating knowledge and establishing reputation” (Hyland, 2003, p. 252). The two spheres have similarities: the user-built growth of the internet as we know it incorporated much from the academic model of knowledge- sharing, and the Google search engine was designed on the same principles as academic citation (Brin & Page, 1998). Terms of entry to the two spheres are not identical, however. While many influential members of participatory scholarly networks are affiliated with