doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2020-1464
Article
Epistemological approach to communication research: meanings of communication, disciplinarity and criteria for building a discipline
Aproximación epistemológica a la investigación en comunicación: significados de comunicación, disciplinariedad y criterios para construir una disciplina
Gloria Gómez-Diago1
1Rey Juan Carlos University. Madrid, Spain.
Abstract
Introduction: In “Ferment in the Field” (1983), 37 years ago, Katz stated that the best thing that had happened to communication research was to stop looking for evidence of the media's ability to change opinions, attitudes and actions in the short term to analyze its role in the configuration of our images of reality. Mattelart (1983) encouraged to study the interaction between audience and media from a non commercial perspective and Ewen (1983) proposed using oral histories or literary sources. Four decades later, the short-term effects of media continue to be studied and predominates the analysis of their content (Martínez Nicolás and Saperas, 2011, 2016), analysis, that of media contents, on which as it happened thirty years ago (Cáceres and Caffarel, 1992; p. 12) the field seems to support its specificity, suffering the lack of an intellectual institutionalization (Peters, 1986; Lacasa, 2017) which can be filled through a meta-research of ideas, by distilling perspectives, concepts and methods that have been used in communication research. Method: Through the analysis of three reference volumes in meta-research, the volumes of the Journal of Communication “Ferment in the Field” (1983) and “The Future of the Field. Between fragmentation and cohesion” (1993) and volume 1 of Rethinking Communication (1989) “Paradigm Issues”. Results: We will be bringing perspectives regarding the meanings of communication, the disciplinary character of the field and regarding the requirements needed for turning the field into a science. The perspectives and proposals emerge, mainly, from two ways of understanding communication: as product or result and as a relationship.
Keywords: epistemology, Ferment in the field, The Future of the Field, Between fragmentation and cohesion, history of communication research, metaresearch in communication, methodology, communication theories, communication theory, Paradigm Issues, research methods.
Resumen
Introducción: En “Ferment in the Field” (1983), hace 37 años, Katz planteaba que lo mejor que le había sucedido a la investigación en comunicación era dejar de buscar evidencias de la capacidad de los medios para cambiar opiniones, actitudes y acciones a corto plazo; para analizar su función en la configuración de nuestras imágenes de la realidad. Mattelart (1983) animaba a estudiar la interacción entre audiencias y medios desde una perspectiva no comercial y Ewen (1983) proponía utilizar historias orales o fuentes literarias. Cuatro décadas después, siguen estudiándose los efectos a corto plazo de los medios, predominando el análisis de sus contenidos (Martínez Nicolás y Saperas, 2011, 2016), análisis este, el de los contenidos de los medios, sobre el que, como sucedía hace treinta años (Cáceres y Caffarel, 1992; p. 12), el campo parece sustentar su especificidad, adoleciendo de una institucionalización intelectual (Peters, 1986; Lacasa, 2017) que puede ser colmada mediante una metainvestigación de las ideas que destile perspectivas, conceptos y métodos que se han venido utilizando en la investigación en comunicación. Método: Tras analizar tres volúmenes referentes en metainvestigación, los volúmenes del Journal of Communication “Ferment in the Field” (1983) y “The Future of the Field. Between fragmentation and cohesion” (1993) y el volumen 1 de Rethinking Communication (1989), “Paradigm Issues”. Resultados: Se aportan perspectivas respecto de maneras de entender la comunicación, respecto del carácter disciplinar del campo y en lo que se refiere a los requisitos necesarios para convertir el campo en disciplina. Las perspectivas y propuestas emergen, principalmente, de dos maneras de entender la comunicación: como producto o resultado y como relación.
Palabras clave: epistemología, Ferment in the field, The Future of the Field, Between fragmentation and cohesion, historia de la investigación en comunicación, metainvestigación en comunicación, métodos de investigación, Paradigm Issues, teoría de la comunicación.
Contents
1. Introduction. 2. Objectives. 3. Methodology and sample. 4. Results 4.1. Meanings of communication. 4.2 Disciplinary nature of communication research. 4.3. Criteria/Procedures to transform the field of communication into a discipline. 5. Discussions and Conclusions. 6. References.
Correspondence
Gloria Gómez-Diago. Rey Juan Carlos University. Madrid, Spain. gloria.gomez.diago@urjc.es
Received: 08/10/2019.
Accepted: 16/06/2020.
Published: 31/07/2020.
How to cite this article / Standard reference
Gómez-Diago, G. (2020). Epistemological approach to communication research: meanings of communication, disciplinarity and criteria for building a discipline. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, (77), 393-412. https://www.doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2020-1464
1. Introduction
We are in a context in which, in the practice of Social Science, it is possible to use IT environments and tools that provide diversity and a significant amount of data, in a context in which focusing on the importance and usefulness of these data is sometimes omitted, producing a type of scientific literature that can already be generated by robots (Gunkel, 2015). Additionally, in social research, and specifically, in communication research, the use of platforms such as Qualtrics or Mechanical Turk is becoming more frequent. These platforms intend bringing research closer to social actors who, on the other side of the screen, respond typically to closed questions and stimuli in experiments that usually focus only on demonstrating a phenomenon, thus losing their investigative function, as it happens with demonstration-oriented experiments, instead of working as “surprise generators” (Hoagland, 1990), or as “machines to build the future” (Jacob, 1987), in Rheinberger (2011, p. 312).
While social research is using formulas more frequently to approach the society that maintains its distance (the physical, intellectual and emotional ones) from social actors, thus hindering what Mills (1987, p. 32) considers to be the main political and intellectual task of social scientists, that is, “to clarify the elements of contemporary disaffection and indifference”; the unemployment [1] and inequality rates continue to rise, being multiplied due to the Covid-19.
Communication research can help society and humanity at different levels, in the same way as other disciplines do; but it seems necessary to examine critically the social implications of our discourse and examine our vocabulary (Krippendorff, 2017, p. 98), it seems necessary to redefine and/or expand the meaning of communication research and to widen its focus, methods and field of action.
Meta-research is a line of work that can have different purposes and that is used in different disciplines, being common in Sociology, Philosophy, Psychology, Political Science or History (Ritzer, 2009, p. 5). Danzinger, in the field of Psychology, has been carrying out a meta-research aimed at identifying the perspectives, ideas and concepts upon which this scientific field has been constructed. This researcher (2003, p. 23) highlights the importance of “psychological objects”, that is, the concepts that have been shaping the field of psychology and points out the need of identifying the ways in which these objects are used in the scientific practice and the manners in which these concepts have been evolving, if it is the case, as it happens, according to Danzier, with the concept of “behavior”. This type of analysis is what this researcher labels as “biography of scientific objects”. The concepts and ways in which these are deemed are also fundamental in the field of communication research (Gómez-Diago, 2017). In this sense, Corner (1979) stated the need of maintaining the use of the concept of “mass communication”, Hackett (1984) points out the error of using concepts such as “objectivity” in communication research, Newcomb (1986) already warned that the concepts of “sender”, “message” or “receivers” barely allowed scratching the surface of the changes experienced in society three decades ago, and Krippendorff (2017) suggests leaving the concepts of “message content”, “power” and “framing” behind. This researcher also states that, even if there are concepts that may be popular in daily conversations about communication, using them without thinking about our academic discourse limits our ability of recognizing what they do, unintentionally imposing restrictions on research questions, and replicating or serving potentially oppressive social institutions. In this line of taking into consideration the concepts and the ways of deeming them as defining in the communication research that is being carried out, Hall (1989, p. 47) expresses that the transition from the dominant paradigm to the critical paradigm has to do with opposite ways of understanding the elements of communicative practice. The researcher states that the conception that a particular content could be separated in terms of behavior and that its effects can be measured, has to be replaced with a perspective that understands the cultural aspects of each element, as well as its semiotic and discursive nature, a perspective that acknowledges that media work in and through the meaning and that understands that there is no “message” that already exists in reality, a message that language or other means carry into empty minds and consciousnesses, since the message is polysemous and it is closely linked to the context.
In a context in which the need for an intellectual institutionalization in the field of communication is demanded (Peters, 1986; Lacasa 2017), it seems fundamental to investigate what it means, what people can understand by communication. Knowing what we understand by “communication” will contribute to making research in this field more independent and not influenced by other disciplines (Peters, 1986, p. 549). Half a century ago, Nordestreng (1968, p. 208), referring to the communication research he had known on his travels to the United States, but also referring to the communication research he started to notice in Europe, pointed out the existence of hyper-scientism. This researcher stated that he saw a lot of “physical growth” and “many games to play with”, but little intellectual growth and few problems to think about, activity that was poorly represented regarding the types of sophisticated measures that were being implemented. According to him, the field focused on using technical means correctly at the expense of losing conceptual level. That reality detected by Nordestreng (1968) half a century ago, has accelerated frantically and it seems that now, more than ever, it is necessary to stop and identify the perspectives and concepts that have been shaping communication research, in order to know what the foundations of the current discourse are and to identify possible alternative foundations upon which the scientific field can develop.
[1] According to Eurostat (2019), Spain is the second country in the European Union with the highest unemployment rate (14.1%), with Greece holding the first place (17.3%). This number is lower than the real one since, for its calculation, the definition recommended by the International Labor Organization is taken into account, which recognizes as unemployed that people ranging from 15 to 74 years old who have no job, who are available for working in the next two weeks and have been actively seeking jobs at any point during the four previous weeks. Outside the “unemployed” definition we then find people who, at the age of fifty or older, stop seeking jobs for a month or longer, and also those who have given up due to the added difficulty, on many occasions, because of being replaced with young people who work as interns and do not receive any payment, even after graduating.
2. Objectives
It is necessary to construct and/or update the intellectual dimension of communication research in order to generate a perspective that will have a greater impact on society. To build and shape that intellectual institutionalism, which we said, is lacking in communication research (Peters, 1986; Lacasa, 2017), it seems important to share perspectives and ideas about at least three fundamental issues: 1) the different meanings that have been given to communication and that have been promoting the research that is being conducted; 2) the different perspectives whether there is a scientific nature in communication or not and 3) the requirements that are presented as those that can turn communication research into a discipline.
This work, situated at the confluence of two lines of research: communication meta-research and the history of communication research, aims at contributing to this purpose, that is, to build, to discuss and generate around the three fundamental questions proposed.
3. Methodology and sample
A research method used in the context of a wider work (Gómez-Diago, 2016) was implemented, which fundamentally consists in reading and distilling full articles, a method that follows the defining processes( ) [2] of the grounded theory practice (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1978; Strauss, 1987, in Charmaz, 2006, pp. 5-6). Therefore, it is a method that prevents the main problem that, as Krippendorff (2017) states, the use of content analysis entails and lies in taking what we want to find (categories) to that place where we want to find it.
The method implemented is aimed at conducting a meta-research of the ideas that have been promoting communication research. This work is focused on three issues: 1) the conception of communication, that is, the meanings “communication” can have; 2) the disciplinary nature of communication and 3) the requirements the communication field should have in order to become a science.
Based on a qualitative content analysis of three reference volumes in the field of communication, specialized in communication meta-research, the volumes of Journal of Communication “Ferment in the Field" (1983) and "The Future of the Field: Between fragmentation and cohesion” (1993) and volume 1 of Rethinking Communication (1989), “Paradigm Issues”, some of the main ideas that the research authors of these publications contributed regarding three fundamental issues in communication research have been distilled: 1) the meanings “communication” can have; 2) the disciplinary nature of communication and 3) the requirements the field of communication research must comply in order to be considered as a science.
The choosing of these volumes derived from them being reference in this scientific field and being specialized in meta-research. The editor of “Ferment in the Field”, Gerbner, requested the authors to express their views about the state of Communication Research at that moment, specifically, researchers were asked to share their opinions about the relation of researchers with Science, the relation of researchers with Society and with Politics, as well as the objectives that Communication Research could undertake. “Ferment in the field” is included in different chronologies of communication research such as the one of Baran and Davis (2013) and it is considered by Nordestreng (2007, p. 212) to be an indispensable volume in the search for a “soul” that leads communication research. Nordestreng (2004, p. 7), basing on the idea of “ferment” in this volume, identifies six “ferments” in communication research , [3] defined by the way in which the left relates with this scientific field. This researcher places the publication of “Ferment in the Field” in the second “ferment”, a time when the perspectives of leftists were being challenged by the increasing commercialization of media and culture.
The volume of the Journal of Communication “The Future of the Field: Between Fragmentation and Cohesion” (1993) was edited by Levy and Gurevitch and most of the contributions are focused on aspects related to social and political issues of communication research. The editors had suggested the authors to write about some of the following suggestive statements: 1) the search for a paradigm in the field has been replaced with a comfortable acceptance of theoretical pluralism; 2) communication research is unable to influence on journalism and on public policies; 3) communication research lacks the disciplinary status because it lacks a center of knowledge; 4) the cold war ended, but the ideological and methodological battles are still fragmenting the field; 5) The matter of the effects of the media remains in its perennial “black box” state and raises unresolved issues.
Finally, the volume I of Rethinking Communication, titled “Paradigm issues” (1989) was edited by Dervin, Grossberg, O' Keefe, and Wartella and it is configured by five essays in which Giddens, Hall, Krippendorff, Craig and Rosengren developed a perspective about the fundamentals aspects that the field of communication must face, with each author identifying what they consider to be the problem or problems affecting this scientific field, while providing an image of how they deem research in communication must be. In addition to these five essays, the volume comprises twenty five comments that the editors had requested researchers in communication and related disciplines, representing a wide range of interests, backgrounds, and theoretical and political preferences.
[2] According to Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1978; Strauss, 1987, the defining components of the practice of the grounded theory are: 1) Simultaneous participation in data collection and analysis; 2) Construction of analytical codes and categories from data, not from logically deduced preconceived hypotheses; 3) To use the comparative method constantly, which entails making comparisons during each stage of the analysis; 4) To progress in the theory development during each step of the data collection and analysis; 5) Writing notes to elaborate categories, specify their characteristics, define relations between categories and identify gaps and 6) Sampling aimed at the construction of theories, not the representativeness of population.
[3] Nordestreng (2004) identifies the appearance of five “ferment” in the field of research basing on how the left is placed in the field: in the first ferment (1950s) the left is invisible; in the second ferment (1960s) the left took a defensive stance; in the third ferment (1970) the left is stable; in the fourth ferment (1980) the left is challenged; in the fifth ferment (1990) the left is co-opted and by the sixth ferment (2000) he names it, “Is the left returning?”.
4. Results
The results are organized in three categories which are the ones articulating this work: 1) Meanings of communication; 2) Disciplinary nature of communication research and 3) Criteria/procedures to transform the field of communication into a discipline.
4.1. Meanings of communication
The researching authors who wrote the articles included in the volumes studied understand communication, mainly, in two ways: 1) as a product or result; and 2) as a relation. Furthermore, to define communication, the researchers address mainly four issues: 1) how communication is shaped, 2) the types of communication that can be identified, 3) the functions that communication has and can have, and 4) the relation the field of communication has with other disciplines.
Regarding whether communication is deemed as product or result, Balle and Cappe de Baillon (1983) define social communication by identifying three possible types of communication ; [4] 1) interpersonal communication, guided by customs; 2) organizational communication, which determines and it is determined by the social system, the economic system and by the political system; 3) media communication, placed between interpersonal communication and organizational communication.
The author of the “Cultivation Theory”, Gerbner (1983), states the necessity of focusing research on the function of messages. This researcher considers that the study of communication revolves around production, nature and the function of messages in life and in society. In this sense, the storytelling or the human capacity, and now also the capacity of computing programs to tell stories [5], allow, according to Gerbner, humankind to evolve, hence its importance.
Regarding the proposals that deem communication as a relation, Steeves (1993) highlights that communication is not only the transmission of messages from A to B, but communication also encompasses the shared and changing meaning that is created through different types of relations, within different economic, political and cultural contexts. Condit (1989) understands communication as something that is designed, referring to its dynamic and generating nature and stresses that communication is a process that builds its distinctive and changing possibilities through the relation that is produced between its components. For her part, Dervin (1993) defines communication as the place in which the micro becomes the macro, in which the structure and the agent, the object and the individual, and hegemony and resistance meet. This proposal by Dervin defines communication as the axis from which relations are structured. Her perspective deems communication as the bridge between that structure and the agents, understanding communication in a similar manner to the way Habermas understands it when he defines communication as a bridge between the systems and “lifeworls” (Gómez-Diago, 2019, p. 5).
Braman (1993) defines communication as the way in which the elements of a system participate creatively in it, shaping that system and its interactions with other systems. From a perspective that also affects the generating nature of communication, Krippendorff (1989) understands communication as the interactive construction of realities that include communicators who are part of them and who have created and create durable objects such as language, technology and social institutions. The construction capacity of communication highlighted by Krippendorff is one of its fundamental dimensions and is one of the aspects that make developing a perspective capable of approaching the study of the different types of relations generated and that can be generated by the elements and actors, who shape different communicative relations, so essential.
Finally, Schramm (1983) stresses the need of deeming communication as a transaction in which two sides (sender and receiver) are active. This researcher deems communication as a relation built around the exchange of information and states that communication is always part of something, which not only represents the relation between individuals, but also between relations, being the network that unites society and being inclusive instead of exclusive.
Hereunder, a table in which the main meanings of communication collected from the volumes studied is included.
[4] The differentiation of Balle and Cappe de Baillon (1983) is still used forty years later, and it could have incorporated, for example, “mass self-communication” (Castells, 2009), which refers to a type of communication that is neither interpersonal, nor the communication developed by the media, nor organizational communication.
[5] The capacity to tell stories has been increased by the development of new technologies, especially the Internet. Algorithms such as the Narrative Science’s natural language generation program can write original stories by collecting content from large data sources. The storytelling that is performed on the digital environment is studied from different perspectives, but it becomes necessary to delve, for example, into aspects such as the influence that the traditional media are exerting on what users comment on social networks, onto which those media disseminate the same themes that they address in those traditional mediums, also involving users who become creators and disseminators of those contents.
Table 1. Main meanings of communication. Communication as a product/communication as a relation. Gómez-Diago, G. (2020).
Fuente: Gómez-Diago, G. (2020).
Hereunder, some perspectives, regarding the consideration or not of communication research as a scientific discipline, provided by the authors of the articles that contain the volumes studied are included.
4.2. Disciplinary nature of communication research
Hall (1989) states that communication is not a discipline, but a regional theory inextricably linked to social theories and he contextualizes communication within a broad Social Theory. This researcher considers that communication is a regional theory linked to success and to the theoretical effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the general social theories as a whole because it is in this context that the role of communication in the modern social world has to be theorized. According to Newcomb (1993) communication is not a discipline because it lacks a “center of knowledge”, in the sense that research and training actions are carried out on very limited aspects of reality, generating specializations that barely have development within themselves. From a different perspective, Craig (1989, 1993) and Bormann (1989) present communication as a practical discipline. Craig (1989, 1993) considers that the discipline of communication is a discipline established from a type of critical theory aimed at the evaluation of communicative practices rather than providing causal explanations or historical interpretations and as a more appropriate methodology to carry out the evaluation of communicative practices, this researcher proposes to use empirical methodologies and to transform them through the incorporation of hermeneutical methodologies. In a similar sense, Bormann (1989) deems communication as a practical discipline and its special theories as one of the greatest strengths of the discipline of communication, since, according to this researcher, a lot of what is done has to do with the study and the implementation of special theories into the daily communication needs of our societies.
Despite the fact that researchers like Herbst (2008) emphasize that in order for the interdisciplinary nature to exist, there must be discipline first, several authors propose deeming the field of communication as interdisciplinary. In this sense, Joch (1989) argues the importance of considering communication as an interdiscipline in order to integrate different perspectives about the social communication processes such as the perspectives of Sociology and Speech communication. Simultaneously, he highlights the fact that the field of communication contains different traditions. In this same sense, Newcomb (1993), Pfau (2008) and Rowland (1993) deem the field of communication as an interdisciplinary field and understand that it is necessary for research communication to be based upon the knowledge of different epistemologies.
Taking into consideration that the field of communication can provide a differentiating perspective, Beniger (1993) proposes deeming communication as a mean for another purpose; he proposes deeming communication research as a method for integrating models and data from many disciplines. In this sense, this researcher states that the field of communication must aim at becoming what Compte wanted for Sociology, that is, to be the queen of Social and behavioral Sciences, since this field complies with one of the essential conditions, which is the fact that its subject of study; communication and information, play a fundamental role in the central theories and in the models of all the relevant disciplines.
Lang and Lang (1993), in a similar line to Beniger, consider that communication is a perspective that can shed light on topics shared with other disciplines and deem communication as a management science aimed at explaining a set of specific problems. Jensen (1993) highlights the social nature of science by expressing that communication research, similarly to the scientific field of communication, is a world that we have created, something we do in common and that is constantly redefined by the social, cultural and interpretive practices in which we are involved. Finally, Halloran (1983) deems communication as a multidisciplinary science that needs the support of other sciences.
Hereunder, we present a table in which some perspectives regarding the disciplinary nature of communication research are shown.
Table 2. Disciplinary nature of communication research. Gómez-Diago, G. (2020).
Fuente: Gómez-Diago, G. (2020).
Some researchers identify a sort of differential aspect in communication research and deem it as a science to integrate data from other disciplines. Other authors deem communication as a “practical discipline”, and communication is also presented as a Social Theory and as an interdiscipline or an interdisciplinary science.
Once some meanings proposed for communication and different perspectives regarding the disciplinary nature of communication research have been identified, this work focuses on some of the criteria provided by the authors of the volumes analyzed regarding the requirements that the field of communication should comply with to become a scientific discipline. These requirements presented as necessary by the researchers in order for the field of communication to become a discipline, refer to an epistemological dimension, a methodological dimension and an institutional dimension.
4.3. Criteria/procedures to transform the field of communication into a discipline
Despite the fact that O´Keefe (1993) considers that there is little justification to continue seeking a unified theoretical consensus, pointing out that it is better for the field of communication to promote theoretical and methodological tolerance than to seek a disciplinary cohesion, and despite the fact that Miller (1989) states that it is possible that what is universal may never be successfully addressed by communication academics, since the process of human communication can be conceptualized and modeled in many different ways, depending on the objectives of researchers and provoking that that which makes a satisfactory explanation and sufficient understanding depends on the functions of a specific line of research; different authors of the volumes studied, proposed criteria that communication research must comply with to be deemed as a scientific discipline. These criteria refer to three dimensions of the scientific field of communication: an epistemological dimension, an institutional dimension and a methodological dimension.
From an epistemological dimension, researchers such as Servaes (1989) and Katz (1983) highlight that communication, in order to develop as a discipline, must incorporate other disciplines. In this sense, Servaes (1989) states the necessity of integrating multiple and interdisciplinary perspectives, which focus on the dominant views, and Katz (1983), in the same line of thought, highlights the necessity of practicing a multidisciplinarity in which communication research incorporates the perspectives of other sciences.
Lang and Lang (1993) point out the necessity for the field of communication to have its own perspective and state that for communication to be a discipline it must be deemed as something more than a vehicle, it must have ontology, that is, a particular way of examining. Schramm (1986) states that communication is a discipline in the sense that it has managed to attract thousands of researchers who meet, publish together, hold respectable positions in and outside the academy, and who teach a very common and shared body of knowledge; but this researcher highlights the lack of an interrelated theory structure upon which researchers in the discipline can build and unify their thinking. In this sense, Carter (1989) points out the fundamental value of theory in order to build a discipline of communication. This researcher considers that to generate a discipline it is necessary to produce a type of theory that allows making formulations on which the scientific practice can be built, invented and interpreted. In this sense, Jakubowicz (1989) places the responsibility of transforming this field into a discipline on the researchers, who must combine fields and methodology.
Gerbner (1983) considers that for this field to become a discipline, it must have an intellectual mastery, a body of theories and perspectives that set its subject of study. From an institutional dimension, Gerbner (1983) states the necessity for the existence of organizations and also volumes that “nurture” their members.
From a methodological perspective, Shepherd (1993) points out the necessity for the communication field to investigate the ways in which the particular manifestations of existence (individuals, societies) are communicationally constructed, and Rogers and Chaffee (1983) propose leaving the perspective that deems communication as something linear and that focuses on its effects behind, to start generating convergence models that allow addressing the changes introduced by new communication technologies.
Daryl Slack and Allor (1983) propose that, in order for the field of communication to provide a differentiated perspective of analysis, the media and the processes of mass communication must be studied in relation to other institutions and social processes such as the State, the family and the economic organization [6].
Following the criteria that research in communication would need to comply with, from a methodological perspective, to become a scientific field, Mancini (1993) refers to the necessity of linking the field of communication with society, highlighting that in order for research in communication to be a discipline, it must take politics and society into account.
Davis and Jasinsky (1993) claim the necessity for research in communication to influence institutions, forcing them to comply with the needs of citizens. According to researchers, communication research should suggest ways for how to transform the existing institutions, ways to identify and promote the development of innovative communication practices that serve to structure new rituals, new roles and new institutions, since researchers consider that this research field seeks a microscopic reform when a substantial change is necessary. In this sense, Davis and Jasinsky (1993) express that there is plenty of research aimed at institutions and people improving their ways of communicating and that, even if this will help people accept institutions and deal with a world that is more and more fragmented, it will neither increase the knowledge about their place in the world nor motivate them to seek creative and innovate solutions to their problems. David and Jasinsky highlight the necessity for research in communication to contribute to generating a perspective aimed at analyzing the production and negotiation of meanings within communities, an investigation aimed at social change.
Finally, Rosengren (1993) points out that in order for this field to provide a differentiated perspective, an interaction between the substantive theory, the formal models and the empirical data must be considered, an interaction that, according to this researcher, is often absent in the emerging traditions of research in communication.
Hereunder, some of the criteria/procedures that the research authors of the volumes analyzed propose in order for the field of communication to become a discipline are shown in a table.
[6] The proposal of these researchers becomes relevant in a context in which most of the research carried out during the past recent decades studies the content of media (Martínez Nicolás and Saperas, 2011, 2016; Anderson and Middleton, 2015); usually through a quantitative content analysis that, as we expressed at the beginning of this article, Krippendorff (2017) advises to leave behind, mainly, to regain what is sought.
Table 3. Criteria/procedures to transform the field of communication into a discipline. Gómez Diago, G. (2020).
Fuente: Gómez-Diago, G. (2020).
At the same time as some researchers are concerned with identifying some criteria for communication research to achieve the disciplinary status, researchers such as Hamelink (1983) and Thayer (1983) state the necessity for research in communication to be liberated from the research methods deemed as scientific to incorporate other forms of analysis and work more connected to creativity. In this sense, Hamelink highlights the necessity of liberating this research from the typical way of generating knowledge in the “Ferment in the Field”, since according to the researcher the scientific dimension has not demonstrated its superiority over other more intuitive dimensions of human life.
Hamelink (1983) proposes using more art instead of science in order to seek the emancipation of research in communication. In a similar way, Thayer (1983) explains that scientists try to emulate the alleged laboratory science method, being this, according to this researcher, a mistake given the fact that laboratory science does not predict anything beyond its control; beyond what is not completely defined. As stated by Thayer, it is impossible to study open systems with methods only suitable for closed systems and this shortsightedness explains, according to this researcher, the irrelevant nature of the greatest portion of social research in The United States to date.
5. Discussions and Conclusions
This work has collected some perspectives expressed in three fundamental volumes in meta-research in communication regarding three aspects: 1) meanings of communication, 2) the disciplinary nature of the field and 3) possible criteria to transform the field of communication into a discipline. Regarding the ways of approaching communication, the authors of the articles studied deem communication as a product or a relation. It is the former perspective, the one that deems communication as a relation, the most appropriate to approach research in this scientific field, since deeming communication as a relation entails seeing beyond “communication”, making it possible to analyze a specific context from a communicative perspective. From this perspective, communication is deemed as the origin of relationships and, therefore, as the generator of certain institutions, associations or societies. By developing this perspective is how the idea of deeming communication as context for interaction has been being proposed (Gómez-Diago, 2016, 2017.b, 2018, 2019), a perspective that facilitates addressing communication as a space and as a dependent variable. In this sense, to overcome the contradiction that Peters (2008, p. 143) finds in wanting to support the specificity of research in communication only in the fact that he is concerned about something that triggers as much interest as communication, the scientific field of communication can help thinking communicationally (Deetz, 2010).
The criteria proposed in the three analyzed volumes in order for the field of communication to become a science, refer to three dimensions: an institutional dimension, an epistemological dimension and a methodological dimension. From an epistemological dimension the lack of theoretical works and theories in the field of communication is highlighted. This continues to happen today and it is demonstrated in studies such as the one by Anderson and Middleton (2015) in which, in spite of the changes motivated by the extensive use of new technologies, they conclude that the same theories from fifty years ago are still being implemented in research in communication, that is, while technologies are experiencing continuous changes, the perspectives for investigating these changes remain in a state of inertia (Wang, 2011, p. 1458). Perhaps this state of inertia is due to the scarcity of theoretical articles (Martínez Nicolás and Saperas, 2011, 2016; Neuman and Guggenheimm, 2011; Bryant and Miron, 2004) and perhaps the scarcity of theoretical production occurs due to the imposed necessity of publishing (Haniztsch, 2015, p. 351), a necessity that seems to motivate the use of fundamentally quantitative research techniques (Martínez Nicolás and Saperas, 2011; 2016), techniques that were already the most used ones fifteen years ago (Cooper et al., 1994).
Finally, from a methodological dimension, we suggest that the field of communication investigates the ways how the existence of individuals and societies are communicationally constructed. Leaving the study of linear effects behind to incorporate the use of convergence models that allow studying the interactivity of technologies of communication is recommended. We propose understanding the processes of mass communication in relation to other social institutions such as the State, the family and the economic organization; the necessity of taking political communication and society into account is pointed out and, the necessity for research in communication to aim at influencing on institutions is also highlighted.
Even taking into account that a method is insufficient to conduct good research, and that the implementation of methods in a mechanistic way leads to irrelevant results, in which case an attentive look and listening are more useful than any other methodological procedure (Charmaz and Mitchell, 1996, p. 15); it is essential to develop methodological proposals for research in communication because they are going to be paths that allow generating new theories to consolidate this scientific field that can be useful in an increasingly unequal society. In this sense of needing to generate research methodologies that provide different results, Hamelink (2018, p. 3) continues to state that, in addition to scientific knowledge, experimental and tacit knowledge from non-scientific sources should be taken seriously, and Martínez Nicolás (2019; p. 13-14), in the Inaugural lecture of the 2019-2020 academic course at King Juan Carlos University, encourages social researchers to “work together with society, making them collaborators in the research process, but now in a generalized and systematic way, consciously exploring all the possibilities of that social intervention in the planning, execution and exploitation of the results of our research projects”.
Including the recipients of this research in its design and in its journey, giving them voice, can generate new forms of researching to start consolidating intellectually and socially the scientific field of communication. In this sense, a relevant issue to be addressed in future works is to determine who have been, who are and who may be the recipients of research in communication. This matter is closely linked with which have been, which are and which may be the objectives of research in communication, and these are issues that force us to generate a necessary intellectual discussion that facilitates starting to redefine and/or expand the focus and dimension of a scientific field, the communication one, which can be useful for society.
References
Author
Gloria Gómez-Diago
Teaching assistant professor at the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC). PhD in Communication Sciences. Extraordinary Doctorate Prize with the doctoral thesis "To Investigate in communication. 400 ideas from the last three decades and a proposal to update the interaction paradigm". Research lines: Theories and methods for communication research, history of communication research, meta-research in communication, forms of citizen participation and methodologies for learning and teaching. In these lines of research, she has published more than thirty papers (articles, chapters, encyclopedias) and has presented more than forty communications at national and international conferences.
H-Index: 9.
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fZezpPoAAAAJ&hl=en
Some of the latest published work
GÓMEZ-DIAGO, G. (2019). A Threefold approach for enabling social change: Communication as Context for Interaction, Uneven Development, and Recognition ». En J. Servaes J. (ed.): Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change, Singapore: Springer, pp.1-14. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7035-8-7-1
GÓMEZ-DIAGO, G. (2019). Paradigm shift. En D. Merskin (ed.): International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society. The SAGE international encyclopedia of mass media and society, Vol. 1. Thousand Oaks,, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. pp. 1333-1334. doi: 10.4135/9781483375519.n509
GÓMEZ-DIAGO, G. (2019). Funcionalist theory. En D. Merskin (ed.): The SAGE international encyclopedia of mass media and society, Vol. 1. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. pp. 657-658. doi: 10.4135/9781483375519.n260
GÓMEZ-DIAGO, G. (2019). Metainvestigación en comunicación en España. Propuesta de una tipología. En F. Sierra y J. Alberich (eds.): Epistemología de la comunicación y cultura digital: retos emergentes. Granada: Universidad de Granada, pp. 271-284.
GÓMEZ-DIAGO, G. (2018). Paradigma para la Teoría Crítica en la Investigación en Comunicación: la comunicación como contexto para la interacción. VI Congreso Internacional de la AE-IC, “Comunicación y Conocimiento". Salamanca: Asociación española para la investigación en comunicación, pp. 37-51.
GÓMEZ-DIAGO, G. (2018). Propuesta socio-crítica para investigar las culturas periodísticas a partir de la revisión de Worlds of Journalism Study (2012-2015). Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico, 24(1), pp.173-191. https://doi.org/10.5209/ESMP.59944
GÓMEZ-DIAGO, G. (2017). Indicadores para definir la participación ciudadana y/o política. Una propuesta: de lo personal a lo público. En José Candón Mena (ed.): Actas del III Congreso Internacional Move.net sobre Movimientos sociales y TIC, pp. 176-189.
GÓMEZ-DIAGO, G. (2016). The role of shared emotions in the construction of the Cyberculture. From cultural industries to cultural actions. The case of crowdfunding. En S. Y. Tettegah (ed.): Emotions, Technology and Social Media, pp. 49-62. London (UK), San Diego, CA (USA), Cambridge, MA (USA), Oxford (UK): Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-801857-6.00003-8