Every once in a while I get feedback of various sorts on my blog. Often, these fall into two camps: 1) why don’t I post more about Bolivia news? or 2) why do I let my biases keep me from reporting certain things? Oddly, I the second criticism comes from those who think I’m too anti-MAS and those who think I’m not critical enough of the MAS government.
The dilemma, of course, is that I don’t have time to cover everything. Nor do I think it’s my job. There’s a growing blogosphere out there w/ a number of voices. If you want rabidly pro-MAS apologetics, visit El Duderino’s blog. If you want rabidly apocalyptic anti-MAS venom, visit the folks at AROFL (they’ll be happy to put you on their mailing list).
But my blog was never meant to be a newspaper digest or a what’s-going-on-around-the-blogosphere service. I have limited time to spare blogging (though I’ll have more in a few months, whew!). There are plenty of great blogs that provide that kind of service. I highly recommend Global Voices Bolivia. Now that Blogrolling is back up (it was down for months), I can update my blogrolls & provide you w/ more links (all the ones followed by ••• are Bolivia-themed blogs).
Thus, I limit myself to the kind of things that particularly interest me. For example, I’ve pretty much stayed away from all the corruption scandals affecting the government, or the international relations tiffs w/ Peru/Chile, or the legal case moving forward against Goni. I might get to some of them eventually, but I’ve not had the time. Instead, I’d rather focus on issues more related to my research interests: elections, electoral laws/systems, and political parties. (I’ll write about the proposed changes to the electoral system later today.)
My blog has evolved over the past seven years. When I started in 2002, I hardly ever posted about politics of any kind. I mostly blogged about books, films, music, and goings-on in my little corner of the Kalamazoo “scene.” Only in 2003, as I set out to start my research fieldwork in Bolivia did I start blogging more extensively about Bolivian politics—but mixing in a dose of culture, travel, daily life, music, film, etc.—as a way to keep my friends & family back home informed. Returning in 2004, I continued to write about Bolivian politics as a way to keep myself on task while writing my dissertation. And I continued the personal blogging. Only recently has my blogging been more exclusively about Bolivian politics. But that’s more a product of moving to little Carlisle, PA, and the birth of my son (no time/opportunity for films, music shows, etc.). Basically, people are mistaken if they think my blog is only about Bolivian politics (even if in recent years it has been mainly about Bolivian politics).
So. I’m going to make a concerted effort—especially now that we’re moving to Oxford, Mississippi (an amazing college music scene) & Javi is getting a little older—to post more regularly, and more about the other things I love (music, pop culture, good books, teaching, sports, etc.). I’m also going to continue posting frequent, but more “essay” driven posts about Bolivian politics as they intersect w/ my research interests. My apologies to those who look to me for daily doses of Bolivian political news, but I haven’t provided that for a while anyhow.
I'm amused by people who make demands on what my blog covers or doesn't cover. If you don't like what I'm writing about, stop reading. If you want something covered, go write about it on your own blog. Nobody is stopping you.
I'm also amazed at the people who think it's my responsibility to read the newspaper for them.
Don't get me wrong. I love (most) reader feedback. And I do take it into account. Often, it helps sharpen my own thinking and/or makes me look at things from a different perspective. But fundamentally (like most bloggers), I'm a hobbyist.
I agree you don't have to read newspapers for anyone or tailor what you write about to their preferences. But I wouldn't call you a hobbyist - you've been interviewed by MSM who have found you through your blog, you actively talk to students about blogging and media as ways of obtaining information, and you solicit feedback about your papers in progress, ideas for classes, etc. I don't know what to call it but I wouldn't say "hobby." More like interactive, real-time peer review or something. Just my 2 cents! :)
Many people read this blog for the analysis about Bolivia, which is generally of a high quality and interesting. At the same time the angles and incidents that are selected for analysis are as important as the analysis itself. If you don't want controversy or criticism don't write about politics.
Fair enough. But often the selection of incidents is more a function of time than anything else. And I'd like to think that my "angle" is consistent w/ most mainstream political science. I'm a happy workhorse in my discipline; I've no pretensions of challenging or rewriting paradigms.
Well, maybe you have a responsibility to bloggers who would really like to read more from you. Your response reminds me of some athletes' attitude towards being rode models: they're not being paid to be role models, so why bother?
@Anon: Again, fair enough (though I don't think I'd compare myself w/ any athletes!). I'm not dismissive of the fact that people (god bless 'em) do want to read more from me. I'm baffled by the idea that I should be chastised for not writing about what they specifically want to read about right then. As if it's my job to cover everything in Bolivia, rather than the things I choose to. I'm also baffled by the idea that anytime I blog about non-Bolivia topics it must be some nefarious conspiracy, rather than the fact that my blog is a personal blog and that I might care as much about Battlestar Galactica or The Pixies or The World Cup as I do about Bolivian politics. A key part of my audience are my friends, most of whom have no interest in Bolivian politics, or my family (especially my parents & grandparents) who're more interested in seeing Javi grow up from afar. Though these days we mostly keep up w/ Twitter/Facebook. But I'd like to be able to have threads they'd like to read,