|
Blogging Archaeology and the Archaeology of Blogging
|
January 17, 2008
|
by William R. Caraher
|
Introduction
When I decided that our archaeological project in
Cyprus needed a blog, I had never read a weblog on a regular basis. Like most
Americans, I was familiar with the idea of a weblog and even understood
generally how they function. I had heard the famous success stories about how
intrepid bloggers had taken on the likes of Trent Lott and 60 Minutes and created some of the "buzz" that propelled
candidates like Howard Dean to the national spotlight. While I was pretty sure
that my blog would not challenge the powerful or change the landscape of
American politics, the stories about the success of blogs suggested that the
medium had potential for reaching a large audience of people who might be
interested in a small, but energetic archaeological project on the south coast
of Cyprus.
![[image]](thumbnails/author.gif)
Archaeologist and blogger William Caraher
As an academic who
studies the past for a living, I find it difficult to begin any project without
a theoretic, historical, and practical foundation. This meant that I had to
understand what a weblog was in the abstract, how they came to be, and how they
functioned. As I researched this, the real potential of the medium became
apparent. Weblogs could bridge the gap between working archeologists and the
interested public. In this way, weblogs are part of a larger movement by
archaeologists toward engaging the New Media and recognizing its potential for
changing how archaeologists talk to one another, scholars in allied fields
(like classics, history, art history, and anthropology), and, perhaps most
importantly, the general public. The opportunity to engage the general public
might be all the more important as sudden re-emergence of untrained
archaeological enthusiasts, bent on discovering everything from Atlantis to
Noah's Ark, has absorbed public money and attention at the expense of rigorous,
systematic archaeological research (see Eric Cline's recent discussion in the
Boston Globe and reprinted here). Engaging
our colleagues and the public in new ways will not spell the end of venerable
print venues like American
Journal or Archaeology, Hesperia, or the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, but the parallel
emergence of a more dynamic and flexible electronic media could improve access
to serious and rigorous archaeological information and discussions. The risk
involved in engaging such New Media opportunities like the weblogs is minimal.
They are easy to update and maintain, capable of accommodating a wide range of
media from photographs, to line drawings, to video and audio clips, and, most
importantly, inexpensive (and often free)!
Mediterranean World
![[image]](thumbnails/mediterraneanworld.gif)
Conclusions
When I began my blog, I had little idea of the history, potential, or diversity of the weblog as a medium. I am not sure that I have necessarily found the proper voice for my blog yet. It tends to vacillate between news on my own research and archaeology projects and more general observations on matters that catch my fancy. I've tried to speak at least some of the time to an audience in North Dakota where I now live and teach, and I also try to speak to my academic peers. The result, in hindsight, is a sometime bizarre blend of academic and popular. This uneven character of blogs is what distinguishes them from more formal academic writing, but is also what makes them such a compelling medium. Most academics, after all, drift between the mundane world of daily life and the obscure concerns of their research and writing. The idiosyncratic and uneven cadence of academic blogging perhaps brings out these juxtaposed facets of their lives better than anywhere else. In this regard, those of us involved in blogging archaeology and the archaeology of blogging, bring just a bit more of our life's work to light.
William R. Caraher is the Rhys Carpenter Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and an assistant professor of history at the University of North Dakota.

© 2008 by the Archaeological Institute of America archive.archaeology.org/online/features/blogs/ |