[Air-l] What is a discipline.

Tue Nov 5 11:44:17 PST 2002

To those who may be interested,

Please let me be clear that personally, I am not trying to establish or
join in an argument about who is right or wrong about whether Internet
research is a discipline, but I am searching for an operational
definition of the concept/construct of "academic discipline."

I am curious as to the type of criteria that generally defines a
"discipline".  It strikes me that Internet Research may qualify as a
"Studies" area, which at least to my way of thinking may represent some
intersection of more traditional disciplinary approaches, by interested
parties wanting to study similar content areas.   There is a long
history to the notion of a discipline and to the philosophical and
ideological "Wars" that have erupted over 2500 years to qualify the
knowledge production of a specific "discipline" as a legitimate means to
gain academic, critical and/or scientific understanding.

It would seem to me that a discipline operates within a conceptual
framework that represents a set of paradigmatic structures which are
commonly subscribed to by members of that discipline-- meaning a
somewhat shared philosophic or methodological sets of approaches which
give validity to the work that is produced within that framework.  How
else could we legitimize the notion of a "juried journal" or "juried
anything" for that matter?  The basic mission and functionality of a
University itself, and the social/ institutional role that the
University fulfills is to some degree based on the idea that we somehow
maintain credentialing authority (knowledge capital) which is based on
our ability to somehow assess "legitimate academic knowledge."  And that
this knowledge is some way is unique in it's production and is of high
value to the society relative to other types of knowledge production.

We tenure the professorate against performance within the discipline,
we credential students through degrees that certify knowledge and the
whole notion of liberal education is based on the concept that we
educate students in "Ways of knowing" that are somehow critical to their
fundamental ability to solve problems requiring development of critical
thought processes.

Anybody that would like to share his or her thoughts on this question,
I would appreciate the input.  If you want to use Internet Research as a
practical example this would be quite interesting as well.  If you would
like to compare and contrast to say English or Engineering, or
Biochemistry or Informatics (blended disciplines), even better.

Thanks for your help,

Irene Berkowitz

Irene Berkowitz
DARS Coordinator
Office of the Vice Provost
Temple University
tel. 215-204-7596  fax. 215-204 3175
berkowitz at mail.temple.edu

>>> veritas at u.washington.edu 11/05/2002 12:41:17 PM >>>
Friends,

    Nancy's comments make my case that Internet Research is a
discipline, or failing that, at least is rapidly becoming one.  There
are dedicated journals, a flagship organization, a listserver
supporting the community, a code of ethics, and people who call
themselves Internet Researchers.  More comments below.

Nancy Baym wrote:
> 
> Charlie Hendricksen wrote:
> 
>>    Paying members of AoIR are unlikely to do their research near 
>> the boundaries of the discipline of Internet Research.  They
>> represent the mainstream.
> 
> I question this characterization of paying members. My experience
> from talking to people at our conferences and throughout the
> formation and growth of this association has been that members:
> 
> feel marginalized within their institutional disciplines because of
> their interest in the internet

Certainly!  That is the reason new disciplines are formed.  I am sure
that many members feel, or even have been told, that their 'out of the
mainstream' research is hurting their career in the home discipline.

> think that their particular angle on internet studies -- be it
> literary, economic, artistic, you name it -- is not adequately
> represented within aoir

That will come in time.  I welcome any dialog with colleagues who
would like to study research teams who operate ON the Internet. 
Certainly distributed research teams are worthy of becoming subjects
of Internet Research. 

> also do research that is not just about the internet and which is
> more closely aligned with our more traditional disciplines, and we
> also have to think about framing the net research that we do in ways
> that speak to those disciplines.

Until there are recognized departments of Internet Studies, the home
disciplines must be served.  To ignore the hand that feeds you is not
recommended.  Of course we all owe our research interests to
established disciplines as well as to Internet Research.  The value we
add to Internet Studies as representatives of our current home
disciplines is that our research is tied to an established body of
knowledge. 

> In short, I think this association works because we are all at
> boundaries, the field of internet research is comprised of
> intersecting boundaries. Though there may be some strong themes that
> characterize contemporary net research, I don't think there is a
> "mainstream" nor even a "discipline."

Yes, this week.

> 
> Nancy
> ________________________________________________________
> Nancy Baym      http://www.ku.edu/home/nbaym 
> Communication Studies, University of Kansas
> 102 Bailey Hall, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
> Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Air-l mailing list
> Air-l at aoir.org 
> http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l 

-- 
            Charlie Hendricksen, Ph.D.   veritas at u.washington.edu 

            "Information technology structures human relationships."
                            "Models relate concepts."

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