This is quite an interesting topic to me. The video clearly shows two students, one who is being very scholarly, reading academic papers and getting good grades. The “bad” student is reading a magazine, which represents the “popular” media.
On the surface it seems obvious that scholarly, academic articles are more authoritative than popular media, and this is true. But how does popular media influence academic writing? The truth is that if an academic article is not popular within a certain field, then it will not be published and will not be read. To go even further, if academics do not do research that is considered “popular” then they will not receive money to do the research from funding bodies, and industries. So is there a trade off between popular academic articles and scholarly academic articles? Do academics hype up their research to make it more popular, to receive more money? Are academics who have written “popular” books considered more successful in academia, or are they not taken seriously?
I would love to know your views on this. Which is more important to you? Do you believe there is a trade off and if so, where does it lie?
Did you enjoy this article?
"Get access to the literature review toolbox"
Get this constantly updated resource for everything you need for your literature review
This is Sidebar 2. You can edit the content that appears here by visiting your Widgets panel and modifying the current widgets in Sidebar 2. Or, if you want to be a true ninja, you can add your own content to this sidebar by using the appropriate hooks.
rss feed
113 
