With the burgeoning growth of online and print academic journals, and concomitantly more and more articles seeking to grab the attention for a limited breadth of readership in niche areas, often there is concern about the readership of academic commentaries. Probably, the readership of even the least read op-ed articles would dwarf the readership of academic commentaries. There is also concern about a disconnect between academic commentaries and policymaking in the “real world”. On the other hand, many, if not most, academics dismiss editorial and op-ed articles as populist, not serious enough, or entertainment-centric. Contrary to the beliefs held by many, the difference between the two is less than they are made out to be, and op-ed commentaries can supplement academic essays and one can influence the other.
On being asked about the role of newspaper articles on the curriculum vitae of an aspiring academic, as one of this author’s esteemed professors at the National University of Singapore commented, “many of us (academics) frown on commentaries in popular media for no other reason but pure envy”. Academics may need to work for weeks, months, and sometimes even for a year, or beyond, before their findings can see the light of day in academic outlets.
With the growth of the World Wide Web, there is more and more pressure on academics, not only to demonstrate lateral thinking, but their works have to demonstrate familiarity with the existing body of literature, which can make the process more demanding and tedious. Often, when many of us, academics, see that a single article of less than 1,000 words attracts a readership which surpasses that of many of our articles combined, in our entire academic lifespan, it is perhaps not so unnatural to be envious.
Judging the prowess of an academic article by the limited number of its readers is probably simplistic and misses a number of reasons behind the motivation for academic research and writing. First and foremost, unlike most newspaper and magazine articles, academic research is not inspired by the motive of entertaining its readers. The readership, though critically important from the viewpoint of a newspaper’s revenue, cannot always be the sole or most important criterion for the quality or contribution of a newspaper or magazine article.
For example, if an op-ed article is read by a few thousand readers, but inspires debate among policymakers, and eventually influences law or policymaking; then it cannot be considered less important than another op-ed article which has a higher readership, but no visible impact.
On the other hand, dismissing op-ed articles on the basis of the number of words they contain is also very simplistic. With properly arranged prose, a few hundred pithy words can have a more powerful impact on readers, than thousands of densely arranged words. Saying things in a simple way and making sense of it for a diverse spectrum of readers is by no means an easy feat. We must bear in mind that often less is more.
In some ways, there are strong synergies between academic commentaries and op-ed articles in print media. They are both public commentaries meant for interested readers.
Many of the world’s most renowned academics (for example, Michael J. Sandel of Harvard University) have proved that even subjects such as philosophy, which is typically dismissed by most as an esoteric branch of knowledge, can be presented in a form capable of not only attracting huge readership but may even influence public policymaking.
Indeed, researchers in a number of disciplines, in both social and natural sciences, can and do use op-eds, to present nuggets of their research in a form accessible to the public, which can act as a springboard for having the desired impact in the world beyond academia.
It seems distinctly possible that academics, increasingly being pressured to be driven by the market, cannot stick to the ivory towers of academia and ignore the public. Not all academics need to jump into the foray of op-ed writing (indeed, some disciplines would be more amenable to commentaries in public media than others), but it would not only do no harm, if some do just that, but it may also hopefully mean that academic commentaries would have a bigger audience (with concomitant influence) into policymaking and thus make the world a better place. After all, knowledge is not, and need not, be shelved only in academic commentaries.
Md Rizwanul Islam is an associate professor at the School of Law, BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh