Daniel W. Drezner has posted a forthcoming conference paper on the role of public intellectuals 2.0. The basic argument: the internet effectively increases access to academic work by lowering the transaction costs of fnding it and breaking through the jargon of field specialization.
Moving beyond a few criticisms of how today’s intellectuals pale in comparison to their past counterparts (such as a few laundry lists of past intellectuals in comparison to their current peers as justification that the perceived decline of "great intellectuals" stems more from romanticism of the past then any real decline), Drezner addresses critiques levied against the role of the internet in modern political discourse.
The short working paper opens up the debate beyond the popular avenues and hopefully will help to provoke the debate concerning the role of blogs in the academy in a more formal and accessible way.
