Academic group proposes editor blogging ban to keep 'professional' tone

A major academic body is proposing that editors of its journals be banned from blogging in an effort to maintain a “professional” environment.

The International Studies Association (ISA), which connects international studies scholars to promote research in the field, created the proposal to officially ban editors from blogging because “the issue of ‘maintaining and promoting a professional environment’ is particularly pertinent to the material that is made public through the use of blogs.”

The proposal is “pretty antithetical to the entire academic enterprise,” said Stephen Saideman, a Paterson chair at Carleton University's Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and president of the ISA’s foreign policy analysis section, who posted the proposal text on his blog on Monday.

“Academic blogging grew from the desire to compensate for people being unable to access academic scholarship,” Saideman told the Guardian. He said academic blogging has become a part of a professor's job and that it is part of a movement to share scholarship with broader groups of people, including translating it into other languages.

One of his many critiques of the ISA’s proposal is that it further reduces the plurality of voices in scholarship, potentially affecting the number of minorities and women heard in academic discussions. If you’re telling people that the only way to be on editorial teams is by reducing your voice elsewhere, then that’s logically going to reduce the amount of voices out there,” Saideman said.

Members of the academic blogging community quickly voiced their opposition to the measure. Amanda Murdie, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri, said the policy violates the protections the ISA claims to grant academics who are published in its journals.

“I have personally found that blogging, as one of many tools available in the 21st century, aids greatly in my teaching, service, and research responsibilities,” Murdie wrote in a post for the blogging collective The Duck of Minerva. “It’s these responsibilities – not my responsibility to set up your conference or shepherd a few manuscripts – that is at the heart of why I became an academic.”

If the proposal is passed, it would prevent the editors of six journals from blogging: International Studies Quarterly, International Studies Review, International Studies Perspectives, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Political Sociology and International Interactions.

Saideman said he is confident the proposal will not pass, but: “If it has to be between blogging and participating on a journal’s editorial board – I’ll choose blogging.”

The 50 voting members of the ISA’s governing council are set to debate the proposal at the organization’s annual meeting on 25 March.

"Often the sort of 'professional environment' we expect our members to promote is challenged by the nature of the presentations and exchanges that often occur on blogs," said ISA president Harvey Starr in an email.

He said that the purpose of the proposal is to address confusion that may arise from people confusing personal blogs of ISA journals with the editorial policies of their journals.

"The policy was proposed to avoid a situation where journal blogs are conflated with personal (or non-ISA) blogs and editors use them seamlessly," Starr said. "Such a situation creates confusion and controversy particularly when some of these personal and group blogs are controversial in terms of their views, and when they seem to cause discomfort in sections of ISA membership."

In December, the Kansas board of regents adopted a social media policy that allows Kansas state universities to fire employees for “improper use” of social media – defined as making violent comments, writing negative statements about students and sharing things that are “contrary to the best interests of the university”.

That policy is now under review after protests by faculty groups.