After all this time…
I’m on leave this year and enjoying catching up with old colleagues and meeting new ones. I was at a reception the other day and was graciously introduced by a famous senior sociologist to a visiting senior sociologist as an “[insert some very kind words] scholar who studies the social aspects of Internet use”. The visitor laughed. No one else laughed though so quickly, smile wiped from his face, he said: “oh, you’re serious.”
Yup, seriously, there is this Internets thing and there are some interesting and important social science questions one can – and *gasp* I will even claim should – ask about it. As shocking as this may be, some places might go so far as to give you tenure if you do it well enough.
So a shoutout to all of my amazingly wonderful mentors and colleagues over the years who’ve supported me in this endeavor, I certainly don’t take that for granted.
September 14th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Wow! I’m amazed that someone could so ill-informed! Do you think some traditional sociologists just don’t understand the value of this work? I took a sociology methods class at Michigan when I was doing my masters and had a very similar reaction to my project (which was about blogs). Except that it lasted the WHOLE semester!
September 14th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Noor, I’m sorry to hear that! It’s frustrating. While the sociological aspect may not be obvious in the case of all projects, you’d think academics would at least be open to the idea of considering that angle.
September 15th, 2008 at 2:40 am
I’m also really startled. Was there no further explanation or was the whole thing just passed over? I can understand not being interested in studying the subject one’s self but I’m baffled one could fail to see that it could be an important subject and rather disappointed (though surprised) that a senior sociologist could be that rude!