The digital academic: Identities, contexts and politics

On 5 August 2016, a short piece for The Guardian online site (Anonymous, 2016) provoked discussion among academics on its site and various social media platforms. The piece was published in the ‘Academics Anonymous’ section, in which authors are not expected to reveal their identities, presumably to encourage potentially controversial opinions to be aired. Titled ‘I’m a serious academic, not a professional Instagrammer’, the author, who identified as a ‘young PhD student, not some cranky old professor’, working in science, criticised faculty members and higher degree students who were active on social media. In the article, the author described a ‘selfie epidemic’ in which ‘We document every moment of our lives’, and bemoaned that ‘this culture has infiltrated the world of academia’. She or he went on to describe other academics ‘live tweeting and hashtagging their way through events’, suggesting that they were thus too occupied to pay proper attention to the speakers. The author characterised this behaviour as a way of self-promotion, and indeed went so far as to accuse colleagues of ‘showing off’ as ‘proof of their dedication to the profession’. She or he not only criticised academic social media users for publicising their academic activities but also for expounding ‘strong opinions’ in these forums.