Bridging the Divide: The Long Tail of Digital Scholarship

Image Credit: Chris Anderson
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One of the most fundamental principles in coming to understand a modern mode of content distribution is that of the "Long Tail." The concept of the Long Tail is built on the idea of a left-skewed statistical distribution for content popularity, and basically, it proposes that providing "tail" content serves in increasing sales at minimal costs while providing for a much richer and more diverse content base. The Long Tail was first introduced in 2004 by Wired magazine's chief editor, Chris Anderson, who at that time applied the Long Tail specifically to the entertainment industry. Since that time, the concept of the Long Tail has expanded to embrace  banking, science, and a host of other areas, scholarship among them. Anderson noted that because songs and other forms of digital content facilitate inexpensive reproduction and distribution, producers and online media marketplaces could offer a much broader selection than could, for example, brick-and-mortar stores, which had to rely primarily on high-grossing, "hit" songs. Even on purely digital platforms, these mainstream songs account for the bulk of revenues, but because hosting and distributing "long tail" content is so inexpensive, digital marketplaces are finding that they can cater to both mainstream and more eclectic audiences. As Anderson notes on his blog, "As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare." For scholars writing on somewhat obscure topics like Anglo-Saxon poetic meter or the use of zeugma in the works of Alexander Pope, this ought to sound at least a little bit enticing.

Bridging the Divide: Ease of Distribution

Digital writing further substantiates the value of the humanities through its ease of reproduction and dissemination. Historically, the sphere of academic publication has been one dominated by scarcity. Publishers want to publish books, and scholars want to share their ideas, but at the end of the day, printing is costly, and there is only so much money to go around. That means that scholarly monographs and journals are limited not only in the number of physical copies that can be profitably produced but also in the overall form--the font size, margin spacing, and use of graphics.

With the onset of digital publication, however, academia has entered an abundance economy. In the past, even integrating black and white images or graphics into a text substantially increased the cost of publication, and widespread distribution of scholarly texts was prohibitively expensive. Modern digital technology has made it possible to easily and inexpensively incorporate not only pictures but music, video clips, surveys, and other forms of interactive media into scholarly and non-scholarly works. In addition, [long tail] dynamics have made it possible for even hyper-specialized works of scholarship to reach broad audiences in a number of different disciplines and on a much more global scale. Works that previously justified no more than five hundred print copies are being downloaded and utilized thousands and thousands of times thanks to online repositories and recent digitization efforts. These efforts are making knowledge more accessible for millions of users throughout the world, thus demonstrating to a broad audience the value of the humanities within a modern context.

Bridging the Divide: Social Proof in Action

To demonstrate the points of social proof and social discovery in a humanities context, I wanted to share a recent encounter that I had with Harold Bloom, the esteemed Yale sterling scholar. I had been researching Paradise Lost's Satan figure for an undergraduate class on John Milton, and I came across an article that stated that Bloom had advised the author to read Paradise Lost from a secularist view. This was right in line with the claim that I was trying to prove, but searching through Bloom's scholarly publications, I wasn't able to find much of anything that contributed to my understanding of the topic. I had the presumption to try contacting Dr. Bloom himself for more info, and while I honestly didn't expect a response--especially not from someone so prominent within the literary community--I figured it was worth a shot if anything that my digital writing professor had been saying was true. I was very pleasantly surprised when, two days later, I opened my inbox to find a response. My email was as follows:

Bridging the Divide: The Watermill Principle

Photo courtesy of Oliver Bacquet
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Despite the Watermill Principle's utter simplicity, it remains an essential component in understanding the potential of digital writing to rescue and revitalize the humanities. The concept is this: if you want a watermill to work for you, you build it by a river. Initially, this concept may seem a bit facile, but when related to writing and, more specifically, to digital writing, it becomes a foundational principle for creating meaningful content and effecting real change in the world.

So, I say it again: build your watermill by a river, not in a desert. Too often in formal academic writing, the proposed audience consists of a selective group of scholars and specialists. Academics often assume that because their work is specific and eclectic, it must therefore have relevance only to an isolated group of individuals. While this is, in some cases, true, more often than not, scholarly works are kept from cultural relevance only because they are kept from the people. Scholars sometimes build their watermills in the desert and either expect the river to flow to them or spend much of their time trying to carve channels in order to direct the flow of readers to their work--sometimes, dare I say, even through social media! While this perhaps proves effective in certain cases, the reality is that there exists a much simpler and more effective way of engaging audiences: you build around those audiences. Rather than trying to redirect the stream toward one's work, the digital scholar builds his research around people and communities, engaging in social proof and receiving feedback on both informal and formal levels. Admittedly, this involves a major paradigm shift for scholars who are used to working in more constrained environments, but building one's scholarly watermill on the river means that the flow of readers is already established. The ideas have been vetted in early stages of social proof, and there are already people interested in the topics, be they scholars, enthusiasts, or just curious users. Aside from that, digital modes of distribution have the potential to open up works of scholarship to a much broader audience, to a veritable river of people and communities with diverse interests and backgrounds, so the work becomes not a static monument to be viewed only by the acolytes of academia but instead a fundamental component within the rich and vibrant conversation and progression of human thought.

Bridging the Divide: Connectivity

Image courtesy of naomi83
Wikimedia Commons

Digital writing further demonstrates the usefulness of the humanities through its emphasis on connectivity and its potential for a socially-mediated research process. In saying "digital writing," I do not mean simply using a computer to produce writing. Rather, it implies an entirely new writing environment--one that is integrally connected to the Internet and, as such, to a broad network of readers and contributors. It can thus, in some sense, be seen as more of a culture than a mode of production. This "culture" of connectivity, however, is proving increasingly vital in the modern economy, and scholars within the humanities will benefit greatly in seeking to harness the sociality of digitally-mediated writing.

Bridging the Divide: Schematic Overview

This project is not a research paper. While it embraces certain fundamental aspects of a research paper, the very nature of the medium requires that the reader think about these ideas differently than he might were he to read a traditional research paper instead. Neither is this meant to be a comprehensive study of writing or of digital distribution. Rather, it serves as an exploration of key concepts and scholarship as pertaining to digital writing and is written with the intent of helping students, scholars, and other interested parties to make better use of digital tools and strategies in creating and disseminating meaningful content.

To the right is a visual scheme for the overall structure of the work. The main argument follows a central path, as one might expect from a typical research paper, but each main "body page" includes branching links to pertinent digital topics and further scholarship. Use the links at the top and bottom of each page to navigate to adjacent pages, and keep an eye out within the texts themselves for links to branching pages, denoted by [square brackets]. 

Bridging the Divide: How Digital Distribution Can Save the Humanities

[This is the first post in a series on the benefits and advantages of digital writing and distribution over traditional scholarly inquiry. In you have thoughts, suggestions, questions, or contentions, please feel free to make them known in the comments.]

Introduction

Image Credit: Sporti

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I began this project initially as a piece of formal academic writing. I realized, of course, the inherent irony in preparing a piece of academic writing dedicated to the weaknesses of traditional academic writing, but I felt at that time that my work wouldn't be taken seriously if it were presented as a blog. As I began writing, though, I realized that if I held to that same form that I sought to reform, I would be limiting my ability to adequately express my ideas in a way that would be meaningful and powerful. In the introduction to Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Peter Rudy explains Zamyatin's belief that form and content must complement one another, "that only a heretical form could adequately dramatize heretical ideas" (x). Perhaps saying that scholars need to look at digital writing as the salvation of the humanities isn't as heretical as some of the claims being made in contemporary scholarship, but nonetheless, if the humanities are to remain relevant within a modern context, they must learn to thrive within the mediums of our day. And if the humanities are to survive the transition to this brave new world of the digital age, there must be a bridge built between formal and digital writing. Academia must broaden its scope and prove its grand potential.