... digital name dropping


I guess that in academic circles it could be called footnoting, and since these columns are on an academic server I suppose that I could get away with it, but quoting someone on a web page seems to be little more than name dropping. And that's without linking to a site.

From my experience, it seems to me that what bothers people most about linking is the supposed credibility that being linked gives a page. It's as though by linking to the Library of Congress I'm somehow hinting that I've actually read what's there.

So now I have a web page that name drops Walter Benjamin. Does that mean that I actually have some sort of contact with his thoughts? I wish.



Go to: The Unbearable Linearity of Learning