[Air-L] New media program/journal rankings

Sat Nov 3 14:55:02 PDT 2007

A rubric for what I carefully pay attention to:

1) Who is doing work that I like, can believe in, and can validate?

2) Are those people in a place where synergistic effects happen - where
    multiple really smart people get together and produce something
    amazing?

3) Where should our own work be sent in order for people who will be able
    to use it to get maximum exposure to it?

A whole lot of things about different programs are driven by the 
individuals who are present in those locations: I don't think anyone would 
flinch if they were advised to try to get a position in a program where 
there's a Steve or a Susan or a Nancy or a Charles or a Matt or a Bonnie 
or an Annette (among a whole bunch of other folks...);  some folks are 
able to very heroically drive successes around them, and seem to turn 
dross into gold on a frightfully regular basis.

--elijah

On Sat, 3 Nov 2007, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:

> Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 16:05:28 -0500
> From: Jeremy Hunsinger <jhuns at vt.edu>
> Reply-To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] New media program/journal rankings
> 
> 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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