Without readers the work of a scholar never happens, socially. In theory you might want to do your work and have no one read it, just because it’s what you want to do. But that’s got to be very unusual. Still, not all of us professional scholars want public attention for our work, we just want the right readers at the right time. If you do want public attention, and more readers, you might have to do some things that make you uncomfortable, especially promoting yourself.
In my forthcoming book Citizen Scholar I include the figure below, and write:
A little organization and effort with the big picture in mind goes a long way. The key to the strategy is that the different components of your public self reference each other to work together, and provide context – as best you can – for the miniaturized bits of information from and about you floating around. I call it pentagulation because I see these five elements as key anchor points. You don’t want to make your whole life transactional and strategic, where everything you do has to be meticulously aligned with your preconceived goals and intended to reach exactly the right people. And you don’t need to devote equal time or resources to each component in the system. You want to focus on doing what you think is interesting and important, learning new things, working with people that inspire you, and exposing yourself to new opportunities. The citizen scholar pentagulation lifehack is to develop great workflow and tools without getting between you and your heart’s destination.
I thought of this today because I was updating the Media page on my website, where I list media mentions going back to 2006, and I visited this article on Retraction Watch that mentions my essay about Jonathan Turner, the new editor of Theory and Society. And there in the (anonymous) comments was someone saying, “Why give Philip N. Cohen a voice in this discussion?” and the reply, “Because he’s the best sociologist of his generation? [laughing tears emoji].” Ouch!
So if I’m going to promote self promotion, I should own up to this, too: As long as I’ve been mentioned in the media, I’ve been denigrated for it on social media (and presumably even moreso in private). Also, of course, spending time on the public outreach angle of things eats into research time, so if I had fewer media mentions I might have more research worth mentioning. My reconciliation is that I think my work would be less interesting and important in other ways, and my career less enjoyable. Pick your poison.
I don’t know who complained that Retraction Watch mentioned me, but rest assured, dear critic — I hear your voice in my head pretty often. Of course I’d like to think they mentioned me because my essay was interesting or useful. But maybe also they mentioned me because other people did. That’s part of the point of the media mentions page — not just search engine hits, but also showing future journalists that previous journalists thought it was worth calling me. It usually starts with someone writing about your research, and eventually maybe leads to commenting on other people’s research, or just stuff in the news. This is a big reason I recommend maintaining a page like this. It only takes 1 minute to add a mention. (I’d love to hear how other people handle this, or see your examples.)
Data
You can assess all that for yourself — both about your career, and mine. Below is the list from my media page, just by counting entries on the media page, through 2023. Some clusters are missing, like a bunch that mentioned the lawsuit against Trump.
Family Inequality 