[Air-L] New media program/journal rankings

Sat Nov 3 14:05:28 PDT 2007

doesn't matter what you do.... these 'rankings' will always be a  
fiction.  Personally, I'd suggest that any program that purports to be  
high in some measurement is likely covering up some significant  
problem.  Let's take Utah for instance... it is a good program, is it  
the best?   who is going to rank higher and on what measurements?    
how do we craft it so Utah will appear more significant than say  
University of Virginia's Media Studies?  or NYU....'s which program  
there, they must have 3-4 new media programs of one sort or another.   
If we consider the communications methodology, you will run into  
significant problems as some of our most productive members have been  
in non-communication fields.

I ran into this issue a few years ago when i was writing a paper that  
I ultimately gave up on trying to map the then nascent field of game  
studies.   If you want to give it a shot, go for it, but I'd say this  
is the sort of thing that should only be pursued by people with tenure  
who never want to leave their current tenured position.

I certainly don't want to know journal rankings, I'm sure that  
knowledge has some utility, but it isn't the sort of utility that I  
think should be perpetrated upon junior and senior faculty who are  
trying to be solid scholars.  Publishing in highly ranked journals is  
not in my opinion, the way to be the best scholar, it is the way to be  
the person that fits the journal's mould's best.  Those are very  
different things.  Sometimes good journals have great and meaningful  
scholarship that maps strongly onto meaningful indicators... sometimes  
not.  I don't want to perpetuate the mythos of the 'top journals' so  
that it becomes something you need to include on your vita.   For me,  
I'd be more interested in seeing whether people's research is cited in  
dissertations and master's theses.  Publish it anywhere, let's see who  
finds it and finds it useful.

On Nov 3, 2007, at 3:40 PM, Daren Carroll Brabham wrote:

> It occurred to me the other day that I know of no published rankings  
> of new media programs around the world, nor of any ranking for  
> journals which feature new media research.  If rankings already  
> exist, forgive this message...and please let me know where those  
> rankings are...
>
> By rankings, I suppose I'm referring to reputational studies (e.g.,  
> "Which journals/post-graduate programs are the most highly  
> regarded?").  I know of the National Communication Association's  
> reputational studies of communication Ph.D. programs, which include  
> a lengthy methodology and rationale with the results (http://www.natcom.org/nca/Template2.asp?bid=415 
>  <https://www.umail.utah.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://www.umail.utah.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://www.umail.utah.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.natcom.org/nca/Template2.asp?bid=415 
> > ), and I know there are various indices for journal rankings out  
> there...but none are specific to new media (that I can find).  I  
> think rankings like these can have some benefit for disciplines.   
> Establishing reputational rankings can help prospective graduate  
> students find their place in a good program, can help faculty make  
> tenure cases for their publishing record in new media journals, and  
> so on.  At the same tim
> e, reputational rankings can work to create infighting in a  
> discipline (or, specifically, a professional association like AoIR),  
> and, frankly, reputational rankings fail to really address the  
> concept of "fit"--the fit between prospective grad student and  
> graduate program, or the fit between manuscript and journal.
>
> So, realizing, of course, that any attempt to poll people or somehow  
> measure "highly-regarded-ness" is extremely difficult and may even  
> polarize people across agenda lines, I throw these questions out to  
> the list as gently as I can:
>
> 1.  If there are no existing rankings, is anyone out there  
> interested in teaming up to take on this task?
>
> 2.  What would a reputational study of programs and/or journals look  
> like?  What "stuff" about this discipline do people want to  
> know...other than program and journal rankings?
>
> 3.  What are the pros and cons of doing such a study?  Do rankings  
> work to stimulate programs/journals to become "better," or do  
> rankings work to make invisible the many programs/journals that may  
> not "make the cut" in the first broad sweep?  And do rankings work  
> to pin-down a discipline and solidify disciplinary boundaries, which  
> may work against the project of interdisciplinarity?  Would a  
> ranking have any value?
>
> ...If anyone has thoughts on the issue, or is interested in  
> exploring it with me (or without me), or knows of something like  
> this that's already been done, shoot me an email:  daren.brabham at utah.edu
>
> Thanks!
>
> ---
> Daren C. Brabham
> Graduate Teaching Fellow
> Department of Communication
> University of Utah
> 255 S. Central Campus Dr., Rm. 2400
> Salt Lake City, UT  84112
> phone:  (801) 633-4796
> web:  www.darenbrabham.com <http://www.darenbrabham.com/>
>
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jeremy hunsinger
Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research,  
School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu 
)

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