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This week I did my first virtual seminar. It was a great experience. Hats off to the organizers! And it got me thinking about digitization and the IO of seminars. So: a thread . https://sites.google.com/view/videseminar
Prior to mass communication technologies, entertainers traveled around to present in local theaters. This was Vaudeville. And basically, our academic seminar culture pre-covid19 was like Vaudeville.
We got on planes to distant burgs to perform for a few people at a time. To be clear, this was fun. It’s nice to be invited, and it’s great to see Paris, Athens, or Gainesville. There was a venue and a live show in every town.
But now that we’ve taken the mass communication plunge, how many live venues will survive?
Think of the ten people doing the most interesting work in your field this year. You can spend an hour at their virtual seminars. You can also spend an hour with someone still touring – and willing to visit your venue. Do you do both?
As both a host and a visitor, I am personally very attached to in-person seminar visits. But I can also tell you that mass communication technologies – radio, then movies – decimated Vaudeville. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaudeville
This is not surprising in light of Sutton's work on endogenous sunk costs. When quality is produced with fixed costs and consumers largely agree on what's good, markets can concentrate. Hence the growth of national newspapers with digitization.
How might this shake out for seminars? One answer is that a few top schools continue to hold seminars that are also broadcast online. In many ways, this is great. Everyone gets access to cutting-edge working papers. And busy speakers reach large audiences quickly.
But opportunities to present may dry up, particularly for those not already well known.
How else might this shake out? The recent experience of digitization in music and movies provides some clues. On one hand we are seeing growing investment in products intended for the head of the sales distribution, such as superhero movies.
But we’re also seeing an explosion of niche products, created in anticipation of serving small audiences interested in particular kinds of music or movies.
For seminars, one path forward is to use the low cost of connecting speakers and audiences to create lots of series that are specialized enough that many research-active people have chances to participate in, and present to, small communities that can provide feedback.
A large number of seminar series would help us to nurture and discover the next generation of stars.
The pandemic sucks. But we're learning things from being forced to innovate. In short - and to be a little self-serving about this - our covid-19 experience can usher in a digital renaissance in academic interaction. n/n
