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Social Media and the Policy Researcher
This will be my last post on this blog for at least a year. I am about to start a fellowship program with the Council on Foreign Relations that will place me in the U.S. government for the next 12 months. Because this blog has become such a big part of my idenity, I want to use this last opportunity to explain why I blog and how social media has both amplified and enriched my policy work.
A few years ago, Steve Biddle, arguably the finest defense policy analyst of his generation and a valued mentor, gave me some particularly good advice. When you write a policy paper, he told me, you should always be thinking of the scholarly journal article version of the policy paper you are writing as well as the op-ed version of the article you are writing. The idea, of course, is to make sure you reach the widest audience possible and get the most out of the research you have done.
While subscribing to all of Steve's wise counsel, my approach to research is a bit different, and I have, since arriving at CNAS in 2009, encouraged our junior research staff to broaden the approach Steve first offered me. In addition to thinking about the ways in which one can turn one's policy paper into an op-ed for the New York Times or article in International Security, one should also think several layers down: how can one blog about one's research? How can one tweet, in real time, about the research one is doing?
The limitations of the old approach -- and of most research produced by think tanks and academia -- is the communication is largely one-way. The scholar in the ivory tower thinks deep thoughts, consults with his or her colleagues, locks the door and then emerges months later with a paper or book that he or she delivers to the masses. A "response" to a journal article might be published a year later. This is not an altogether bad thing. And if it's a choice between tweeting about college football and producing great books like this, by all means do the latter.
But an approach that incorporates social media into the research process has greater potential than the old approach. Note, quickly, that I am talking about the research process and not the marketing process. Lots of scholars, myself included, want to harness social media to publicize their latest reports and books. I get books from publishers in the mail on a weekly basis addressed not to "Andrew Exum" but to "Abu Muqawama" in the apparent hope that I will blog about a new book on the Middle East or Afghanistan. But I am writing here about using social media during the research itself.
The first great advantage that social media has over traditional media is that it is a two-way conversation. Although this can be quite scary for some policy scholars, social media requires one to climb down from the ivory tower and expose one's self to the slings and arrows of the unwashed masses. Once down among hoi polloi, one quickly discovers something: there is a rich and diverse community of amateur and professional scholars out there with interests and educations that complement one's own. Tweeting or blogging about a book you are reading on Afghanistan? Prepare for a barrage of tweets and comments telling you how good or bad that book is while offering other recommendations -- recommendations for books or articles that you, despite your fancy education, might not yet have discovered. Social media, then, exposes the policy researcher to immediate feedback on his or her bibliography and research methods. It can serve as a quick external validator -- or tell you where you're going wrong.
Second, policy research is also very much about a world of competing ideas. Whether you are opining about air-sea battle or health care, you must recognize that other scholars out there might have also been researching your issue and have reached different conclusions with regard to policy preferences. One of the most effective -- and without a doubt quickest -- ways I have discovered to identify weaknesses in my own arguments has been through social media. I am constantly wrestling with the comments on my blog or the tweets people send back in my direction. Some of them are silly, and others are ugly, but many more are valuable. I can also observe how other policy proposals are received. Filtering out the sarcasm and snark, one gets a sense for where other scholarship falls short.
Third, we at CNAS believe that one of our core missions as a think tank is to identify the next generation of policy professionals. In my short and young career, I have already benefitted from many great mentors, and like the Army officer I once was, I consider it my duty to seek out and mentor others younger than me. Social media -- especially Twitter -- has been a great way to identify and meet some of the most promising young people writing on issues related to defense policy. I "met" both of this blog's caretaker bloggers -- Adam Elkus and Dan Trombly -- over social media. Many others have made the jump from tweeting back and forth with me to having coffee in my office shooting the bull about jobs and careers. This is how it should be, because Lord knows, I have spent plenty of time in other people's offices seeking advice about my career.
The key ingredient to engaging with social media as a part of the research process is humility. You must be prepared, for example, for some 20-year old senior at George Washington University <cough> Trombly </cough> to systematically destroy your initial argument, thereby making your second draft better. You must be prepared to accept that you are not the "expert" your think tank homepage says you are. You are merely a student. And you can thus learn from the many other amateur and professional students around you. And you must be prepared to laugh at yourself. There is a reason the mascot of this blog -- and the avatar for my Twitter account -- is a Lego militant. It says, "I'm going to talk about serious things, but I'll be damned if I am going to lose my sense of humor in the process." The moment one loses one's sense of humor, an officer in the Special Air Service once told me before a mission in Iraq, is the moment one starts thinking of one's self as too good -- too cool -- to get killed. Researchers shouldn't take themselves too seriously either, for that's the road to embarassment. We are unbelievably privileged to be doing this for a living, and we should remember that as we engage as broadly as possible with the people that both consume and inform our work.
Many thanks Ex, see ya next
Many thanks Ex, see ya next year.
What? You are not talking
What? You are not talking about research using social media but criticism of your work, the two are logically seperate.
Farewell. As you describe
Farewell. As you describe it it's innovative to use social media to open source your research.
Your second innovation today - Trombly
I was unfamiliar with that tag.
Beware being career minded. You will be swimming with Dorsal finned Svengalis.
Understand why you must go
Understand why you must go radio-silent, but hope that, sometime/some way, your voice, in a forum like this, will be heard again. Too many good bloggers, like Hilzoy, Billmon, and now Abu MuqAwama, seem to pass on--while still having fresh insights, snark and things to say.
Best wishes in the meantime.
congratulations, thanks and
congratulations, thanks and bye.
''humour and humility'' is the motto you are looking for
What do All Black World Cup and US counterinsurgency campaigns have in common?
They're both only successful when conducted on home soil.
congratulations, thanks and
congratulations, thanks and bye.
''humour and humility'' is the motto you are looking for
What do All Black World Cup and US counterinsurgency campaigns have in common?
They're both only successful when conducted on home soil.
It is not goodbye it is
It is not goodbye it is hello.
Social media does have a purpose. Still, you have to be careful not to get myopic because social media only represents a small group of people and even fewer that listen. Just because you are on Twitter doesn’t mean you have exited the Ivory Tower. Policy is written for 100% of the American population.
Don't fool yourself people interacting on social media is a substitute for agreement or understanding. Group behavior is much different than individual thought. Most of human understanding is expressed in facial expression and gestures (not the single digit kind) and there is no substitute for that discussion. Social media is an allusion until you have validation.
For every sunset there is a sunrise. There are no amateurs in America; some people get a government job for doing what is each and every American’s responsibility.
BTW... Exum your heart is in the right place but Basil Fawlty? That is like using 51% of your intellect to form a statement! Please do not embarrass the other 49% (that is about 150 Million people that did not agree with the current administration) in your new job.
God speed and do good work.
God speed and do good work. Try to kill as few as possible.
May I btw post a quote from republican site Hot Air (hotair.com) about China and the west that i found hilarious and shows why the republicans are lost? Here goes:
"The beautiful thing about prosperity is that there’s no finite supply of it that we need to fight over — it just keeps on growing, and there’s absolutely no reason that every single person on the planet couldn’t enjoy the same level of material comfort that we by and large enjoy in the western world. "
That is the singular most holistic approach to limited suply and finite resources I have ever heard. It is simply not sustainable in a 50-year time frame, never mind 200. Build it and they will come, that worked out all right in Iraq, hey? Gentile, Totten, Exum, Ackerman, y`all need to educate your fellow politicos more than you need to plan campaigns. If the level of competence in the decisionmakinggroup is way lower than that of the engineers, all the engineers say will just be noise. You have to educate em. (Here in Norway, former CoS Sverre Disen just translated COIN into counter-revolutionary warfare :-))
East Tennesseans Lead the
East Tennesseans Lead the Way. ETLTDubs.
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Fnord on September 1, 2012 -
Fnord on September 1, 2012 - 7:46pm
"The beautiful thing about prosperity is that there’s no finite supply of it that we need to fight over — it just keeps on growing, and there’s absolutely no reason that every single person on the planet couldn’t enjoy the same level of material comfort that we by and large enjoy in the western world. "
Off shoring jobs from America is the engine of change in India and China, there are ripple effects on every Continent. For all the discussion about human rights in the Clinton administration ( http://www.southerncenter.org/EA_Lesson2_Activity1_handout2-1_p59.pdf ) China's most favored nation status was always approved. Hillary worked for WalMart Corp before the Clinton presidency and Walmart moved operations massively into China while Bill Clinton shook his bony finger at the Chinese for being so bad. Today China is one of the largest bond holders for American debt and part of the world complex of exporters to the world. The Clinton administration was ground zero. How are human rights in China today?
Today Hillary still is making her career off of China. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/world/asia/clinton-tries-to-ease-tensi...
“We all have important contributions and stakes in this region’s success — to advance your security, your opportunity and your prosperity,” she told leaders on Friday at the Pacific Island Forum, an annual conference of 16 nations and self-governing states located across a vast stretch of ocean. “I think, after all, the Pacific is big enough for all of us.”
Nothing has really changed in the past twenty years except the speed that we communicate, the quality of that communication has decreased.
This one says that Republican ideas come from the last century. http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/01/us-usa-campaign-idINBRE87P01H20...
Speaking to a crowd of 10,000 in the battleground state of Iowa, Obama said rival Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans had offered no new ideas when they held the national spotlight for three days during their convention in Tampa.
.
"What they offered over those three days was more often than not an agenda that was better-suited for the last century," Obama said. "We might as well have watched it on a black-and-white TV."
The US Constitution was ratified over two hundred years ago June 21, 1788 and every US president takes an oath.
"I, name, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and I will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
FNord, I agree what America is doing is not sustainable and could radically impact that oath of office. Unless the American people stand together, that piece of paper is just that.
America is aways generation away from extinction.
Exum, the only solution is 100%.
Thanks for the education and
Thanks for the education and for providing a great way to reacquaint myself with the IR world of the 21st century. A lot has changed since good old Konstantin Chernenko died.
Have a great year with the Fellowship.
BTW, I went to graduate school at Boston College with your Trombly's father. I never wanted to get into an argument with his dad (or tangle with him under the basket going for a rebound). It is certainly not surprising but I am glad to hear/read that Daniel has the same intellect and tenacity.
EX, as I owe the fact that I
EX, as I owe the fact that I sit in a particular office, doing a particular job in no small part to a post on the AM blog in 2010, I wanted to say thanks for the effort, thanks for going the distance when the petty and small minded made sickening threats, thanks for the humour and the serious analyse and the seamless transition from one to another.
I have not always agreed with what you have said but I have always enjoyed the way you said it.
Enjoy the Council. And the role you will now surely play in one of the many and varied secret government that rule this world along with our lizard masters.
Thanks for the guidance and
Thanks for the guidance and good luck. Here's to your return and the hope that you make it back to SIPA next year!
I'm too upset to start off
I'm too upset to start off with anything else but this:
Please don't go completely off the grid!! Can't you continue to grace us with your snarky yet intelligent presence on the world wide web!?? What am I supposed to do now?! *okay lemme tone down the drama a bit*
Exum you will be sorely missed by me. I have agreed with your points of view, disagreed sometimes, but have always laughed (in the right places) and I've always been stimulated and challenged to see things differently or from a different angle.
Your description of the Lebanon crisis using 'The Wire' will always make me smile to myself.
As Omar would say: '"The Game's the game, yo."
So I totally understand why you have to go off and do your thing but don't forget the blog! Don't forget your readers! Will you still be on twitter?
llolo
llolo
You must be prepared to
You must be prepared to accept that you are not the "expert" your think tank homepage says you are. You are merely a student. And you can thus learn from the many other amateur and professional students around you.
Excellent!
And a neat personal expression of what Howard Rheingold is up to with his Peeragogy Project, too – although his emphasis is on the "rich and diverse community of amateur and professional" in a mutual agreement to both learn and teach each other simultaneously -- so that the community itself is "colearning".
http://hastac.org/blogs/cathydavidson/2012/02/11/youre-invited-howard-rh...
On a personal note, I'd just like to thank you for paying attention to your comments. Not everyone with interesting things to say actually does that, and given the snark and sniping that comments sections are often full of, it's not so surprising. But when comments sections become fora for authentic deliberative discussion, we're all the richer for it. And when cross-blog discussions begin to weave together a diversity of readerships, the effect can be even more pronounced...
**
I tried posting this several times previously, and am trying again on the off chance it will get through this time...
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