I’ve been an intermittent blogger so far, getting used to the rhythms of blogging, finding the ways in which it can fit into the patterns of my work life without swamping it. I’m getting there. But I did want to at least try out one popular convention among academic bloggers, that is, posting from a conference during a conference. I’m currently sitting in on a panel addressing critical responses to Web 2.0, part of the conference Media in Transition 5: Creativity, Ownership, and Collaboration in a Digital Age, fifth in a series of conferences set up by Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn in the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT. The conference has been quite good, if not perfect; if nothing else, it has been one of those conferences where enarly everyone here is on the same page in terms of what phenomena we’re looking at and the general methodological approach as to how we might address them. It may suffer from some of the same drawbacks of that same quality. But except for a first few panels poorly chosen, the papers I’ve seen have been excellent, the plenaries even better. And, just to say it, my paper on industry anti-piracy campaigns was well received, and part of a panel that was both consistently good and refreshingly cohesive, a rare experience.

I don’t want to be too navel-gazing here, but one thing I’m struck by is the relative difficulty of incorporating my own online activities into the conference. MIT, natch, has a comprehensive and free wireless network, so many of us are on our computers during and between panels. There’s a gentle competition for plugs, especially in the larger auditorium where the plenary sessions are held. I’m finding both great value, in that much of what people are talking about are online, so I can do a quick look at materials, grab a video, etc. But that temptation drifts into the appeal of checking email, downloading videos, surfing the web, and — what do you know — writing blog posts. I am certain that I didn’t get much of the intellectual value of the last talk, which is certainly not to suggest that there was no such value. I suspect this will change over time, for me and for as a social convention, but I wonder whether the other people in the room with their laptops open are struggling with the same tension.