Social media can create an exclusionary system which hurts young scholars: Opinion

In a recent article from The Chronicle of Higher Ed, Jeffery Lawrence discusses the way that social media has impacted academia. Lawrence says that though academics have critiqued the issues of the “platform-dominated digital economy” and the algorithms it uses, most have not critiqued the way that it changes the work of academics. The author discusses social media’s differences from traditional publishing, such as how it “provides an outlet for intellectual expression that precariously employed academics simply cannot find in their own colleges.” However, it can also create and privilege “scholarly influencers,” creating another exclusionary system. Lawrence discusses the impact on young scholars’ job prospects and on academic culture. The Chronicle of Higher Ed (Subscription) Note: Archived stories may contain dead links or be missing source links.

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