https://orca-mwe.cf.ac.uk/73196/1/Laura%20Golbuff%20Revised%20%20Final%20PhD%20Thesis.pdf
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
A PhD on cycle blogging ... I kid you not
(11 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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I'm afraid I could bring myself to read beyond this (276 pages).
"
Blogging about cycling-related transport policy is shown to be an individualised response to the perceived failings of expert systems, as well as in Giddens’ words, a ‘reflexive project of the self’. Citizens who may otherwise only be policy subjects or passive consumers of transport, emerge as policy, media and civil society actors by virtue of their ability to publish information, which forms the basis of social relations. Through blogging, they produce and mobilise knowledge. Knowledge claims mediated by blogging interact with expert systems responsible for transport, which in turn adapt; routine institutional practices evolve; a new order emerges; blogging makes a difference. That difference is however limited, not least because the public remains reliant on expert systems. Ultimately, despite the obvious importance of physical mobility to cycling, this thesis seeks to move beyond it. Information and communication technologies have radically altered how we - researchers, the public, expert system representatives - communicate about and understand cycling, and as such, this project argues for a renewed emphasis on mobilities in a genuinely plural sense of the word as being about more than physically moving from A to B.
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Posted 9 years ago # -
So people blog cos they're angry?
Posted 9 years ago # -
So? It is in technical English. If I posted up excerpts from the two small research projects I've done (one as part of my undergraduate degree, and one as part of my MSc) you'd expect the language to make your brain melt (unless you are a chemist or a computer scientist yourself). If SRD posted something that she's written as an academic, I'd expect to struggle with it, because I don't speak her academic language. It is a PhD, it isn't aimed at the general public!
Posted 9 years ago # -
My Honours dissertation was on football hooliganism, there was quite a lot of very easy to understand language... ;)
The excerpt above actually makes sense, but it's the verbose way things are put, you can just sense word-limit-reaching going on. It almost reads like an explanatory panel beside a piece of modern art ("In painting a block canvas in red only the artist was reaching into an inner space to determine what it is that motivates man, in the male sense, to act as he does and that direct comparison with the female form, expressed in the direction of the unseen brush strokes, which at once creates a mothering bond counteracted by violence and a strict adherence to the social norms when viewed through the kaleidoscope of a media driven society").
Although it doesn't not make sense. I do think a PhD on what, how and why people write about stuff in the public domain would be a little more understandable to the general public (even if not aimed at them) than a chemistry thesis.
Anyway, I 'think' the OP, and the title specifically, was intended to express surprise (perhaps disbelief) that anyone would write a PhD thesis on bike blogging, but I'm not sure why it would be such an odd subject? I can imagine there are some even stranger ones (a physics friend of mine once did some work on why dried spaghetti breaks in the way it does when you snap it).
Posted 9 years ago # -
"a physics friend of mine once did some work on why dried spaghetti breaks in the way it does when you snap it"
Interesting topic, no doubt due to the distribution of ingredient molecules and details of the extrusion process.
But was it interesting reading?
I accept that PhDs aren't aimed at the general public and will contain a lot about the research process and are not designed to result in 'popular' journalism. However as it's a subject I have practical interest in/experience of I'm (a bit) disappointed that I didn't find myself skimming further.
I also accept that my attention span may be limited.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Your mistake is in reading the abstract. Abstracts are always the worst part of a PhD. You should have looked at the table of contents, which makes it look very interesting.
Posted 9 years ago # -
What is interesting on a brief scan of the contents is how this research flags up that there's not much research on cycling, as opposed to other modes, e.g.. motor vehicles, air travel. Along the way as it examines blogging it touches upon all kinds of pertinent information on cycling's social position.
When I get a chance I shall delve further into it.
Posted 9 years ago # -
...and having looked at the table of contents I got sucked into starting to read the thing which would be a bad idea seeing as it is 3 years work. Definitely looks interesting. And appears to be in non-technical language!
Posted 9 years ago # -
David Hembrow, shinchcliffe (of this parish) and BikeSnobNYC all make it into the references.
(You know, in case anyone else was vain enough to give them a quick flick through :P)
Posted 9 years ago # -
Reflexive mobility - is that hi viz Lycra?
Posted 9 years ago #
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