On becoming a mediatizing don and claiming the new spatial boundaries of academia

Presently academics and policy makers are concerned with assessing of academic work, the majority of which pertains to journal citation indices and academic productivity (Aggarwal et al, 2009). In the United Kingdom, for example, university teaching is assessed through the Quality Assurance Agency, while research is assessed through the Research Excellence Framework. Adding to this, league tables are regularly produced by leading media institutions (eg the Times Higher Education supplement rating of UK universities and specific faculties). The institutional quest to do well, and the challenges inherent, is focusing individual academics upon enhancing their personal representation, performance, and esteem rankings, whether in teaching, research, or community engagement endeavours. Jessie Poon's (2010)commentary in this journal (volume 55), ``The mediatizing don'', is a timely reminder of how media and imagery can be used to represent the `institutional work' of the academic, often beyond their traditional community of interest. This is epitomized by particle physicist Professor Brian Cox, presenter of the Wonders of the Solar System series broadcast through the BBC, and his acclaimed celebrity appearances on popular culture television programmes and the subsequent cyberspace buzz. Poon's(2010) commentary, identifying the role of new technologies, suggests that technology mediatization is much more than a mere dalliance with the traditional vectors of the media; it strikes at the essence of the spatial boundaries of contemporary academic workspaces. This commentary aims to develop Poon's (2010) observations. We position Poon's(2010, page 5) phrase ``mediatizing the don'' within policies that are creating significant changes and challenges within the institutional context of universities. In this institutional context we consider emerging and Internet-enabled mediatization representation opportunities for academics, which are opening up the traditional spatial boundaries of their academic workspaces.