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I can only thank Times Higher Education for consistently transmitting from the academic blogosphere via its THE Scholarly Web. I have been writing loosely academic perspectives on since 2005. All that perspiration, all that inspiration is paying off, despite all those hand- wringing meetings with line managers who ¡°recommended¡± that this ¡°output comes to a close¡±.

I¡¯m not alone. Look: there¡¯s University of Sydney scholar Deborah Lupton with This Sociological Life; Dave Beer, senior lecturer at the University of York and author of the Thinking Culture blog; and the lovely (if annoyingly spelled) danah boyd, the US social media scholar. All demand good and regular online readership. But what is the possible evidence of impact?

In a conversation over coffee last week with my favourite English literature professor, he concluded: ¡°I get more readers (more than 1,000 from the States alone) to one of my reviews on TripAdvisor, and that took 10 minutes to compose, than my latest output in a 4* journal.¡±

And he¡¯s not alone.

The thing is, just as every institution needs a serious measure of its mark of progress and ranking, the same should be true of digital outputs. However, they are often overlooked, ignored or remain poised for ¡°impact¡±, which makes the whole process feel like it is waiting for the right Instagram filter.

Nevertheless, I have to tell you that I will continue to compose my little blog, regardless of whether it is high impact or not. Surely 50-plus daily readers is enough?

Mariann Hardey ()
Lecturer in marketing
Durham University