Let’s talk about dissemination.

As an early-career researcher, this word is constantly lurking about: spread, promote, and publish your research. Sure, I love sharing my research findings, and telling people about what I do. Yet, the act of disseminating in academia seem to have very limited means: publishing an article in an academic journal, and, in some instances, delivering a paper at an academic conference. Other forms of dissemination activity are few discussed. Although I agree that articles are important to the building of one’s reputation in academia, I am still grappling with its essence: are articles the most effective way of dissemination, especially for music? What constitutes as effective? Who is my audience?

Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Academics write rubbish nobody reads – the hard reality of how many people will actually read your article after you have published it: ‘82% of articles published in the humanities are not even cited once. Of those articles that are cited, only 20% have actually been read.’ Why? Daniel Lattier posits this trend to the increased specialisation of subject disciplines in research, which in turn forges a greater divide not only between academics and the general public, but also between academics themselves. Instead of using their niche to build up a ‘society’ (by this I mean geographic location, cultural groups, an institution or a research field), are academics becoming more and more autonomous and individualistic? Are we, as Lattier puts it, ‘answering questions that nobody’s asking on pages that nobody’s reading?’

Nobody might read it, yet. If you think of the amount of effort that one takes to write an academic article (usually several months), and the rigorous process from submission to appearing in journals (via peer reviews, editors), an article, once it is published, is a noteworthy piece. It may not convey a popular message, but it is one based on evidential research. Yes, people might not be able to relate to it now, but who knows whether what we say now has relevance for future research? And is it wrong for academics to be too focused in their subjects, to get to the bottom of their curiosities, and keep digging – until they strike gold?

I have yet to prepare an academic article: part of this being imposter syndrome, and the other part being still unconvinced this being the form of dissemination I want to engage in doing at this moment of time. Being a performing musician, disseminating of research findings involve not only written enquiry of music but also showcasing the implications through performance. Although I am more enthusiastic about finding methods of dissemination other than articles, I do believe in the value of academic articles, that they are a must in academia. After reading several reviews on guidance books, I might just get Wendy Laura Belcher’s book Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: apparently it has step-by-step instructions, and I do like timed challenges.

Getting back to dissemination methods beyond articles. Well, the point of disseminating one’s research is to make it known to others. Whilst articles enable one to reach a specific audience (academics, and in the field of music, musicians too), finding ways to reach a wider, non-research audiences can be valuable too in allowing for multiple inputs and feedback. Workshops, seminars, one-to-one meetings, these are the starting points of possibilities, and with today’s technology, these platforms don’t even need to take up a lot of space. And, although appearing on social media can be a daunting task, it is undeniably an effective platform for scholarly communications and an unavoidable step for publishing one’s work in the 21^st century. How one disseminates their research findings on social media can differ from practice to practice: it depends on what you want to showcase and what others want you to showcase. More and more I am convinced that social media is a very important to those in the music academe; I am a newbie in this area, so I end this blogpost with adding one more book to the shopping cart: Mark Carrigan’s Social Media for Academics.

Books mentioned in this post:

Belcher, Wendy L. (2009). Writing your journal article in 12 weeks: a guide to academic publishing success. SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, California.

Carrigan, Mark (2019). Social Media for Academics. Second Edition. SAGE Publications Ltd.

Postscript:

Checking out Mark Carrigan’s blog on building a digital academic culture…