[Air-L] ICA Workshop CFP: Administrative v. Critical Research: Implications for Contemporary Information Policy Studies

[Richard Denny Taylor]

Administrative v. Critical Research: Implications for Contemporary
Information Policy Studies 

 An ICA pre-conference co-hosted by the Journal of Information Policy, the
Institute for Information Policy at Penn State, the Department of Media
and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political
Science, the LINKS-ICORE project at the Department of Communication
Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the ICA Communication
Law and Policy Division

 

Tensions, disagreements, differences and disputes of both a methodological
and theoretical nature have always been an attribute of communication
policy studies. One of the major contributions to this debate is Paul
Lazarsfeld's seminal piece "Remarks on Administrative and Critical
Communication Research."* The Journal of Information Policy (
<http://www.jip-online.org> www.jip-online.org), the Institute for
Information Policy at Penn State, the Department of Media and
Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science,
the LINKS-ICORE project at the Department of Communication Studies at
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the ICA Communication Law and
Policy Division are holding a pre-conference in which the relevance of the
distinction between "administrative" and "critical" scholarship in light
of Lazarsfeld's analysis will be tested when applied to today's
information society and the research questions contemporary information
policy raises. The Journal will publish a special issue dedicated to the
75th anniversary of this essay in 2016. 

The pre-conference will be held on May 21, 2015 at one of the two ICA
hotels in San Juan. 

Administrative research, according to Lazarsfeld, which takes its name
from the corporate or government funding that supports it, emanates from
the notion that the media are "tools handled by people or agencies for
given purposes" and therefore the studies themselves focus on making the
"tool(s) better known, and thus to facilitate (their) use." Critical
research, on the other hand, is guided by the notion that "the general
role of our media of communication in the present social order should be
studied." Lazarsfeld saw "administrative" research as being focused on
questions such as "Who are the people exposed to different media? What are
their specific preferences? What are the effects of different methods of
presentation?" and "critical" research as asking a different set of
questions, such as "How are these media organized and controlled? How, in
their institutional set-up is the trend toward centralization,
standardization and promotional pressure expressed? In what form, however
disguised, are they threatening human values?" Administrative research,
explains Lazarsfeld, is criticized for solving only "little problems,
generally of a business character, when the same methods could be used to
improve the life of the community if only they were applied to forward
looking projects related to the pressing economic and social problems of
our time." Critical research, however, is opposed by those who believe
"that so much of its effort is spent on what might be called 'showing up'
things, rather than fact-finding or constructive suggestions."

Self-described as one "whose interests and occupational duties are in the
field of administrative research," Lazarsfeld called for the development
of critical policy research, since he believed it could "contribute much
in terms of challenging problems and new concepts."

Contemporary society stands, 75 years later, at the same crossroads. The
media may have changed, they have assumed new names, they are "digital"
and "social", interactive and mobile; however, the social challenges they
raise are similar. While media are accessible as never before, the divide
among their users is more complex, and on many more levels, than could
have been fathomed three quarters of a century ago. The increased pace of
technological change also implies that it has become more difficult to
undertake the sort of anticipatory "reimagining" of media potentialities
with which critical research was tasked. Instead, many of the most radical
innovations capitalizing on the affordances of new technologies are taking
place in entrepreneurial contexts. Governments, ideologically disinclined
or unable to undertake regulation preemptively (as witnessed in the net
neutrality debates), are allowing greater play for market forces in media
environments. Is there a role for critical research in this new scenario?
Further, many policy issues now go well beyond the boundary of
nation-states and need to be addressed at the international, the regional
or even the global levels. Would a debate originated in the U.S. context
shed light on those issues in the age of networked power and global
governance?

What direction is communication policy research taking? Is it driven by
researchers focused on the "tools" or on the context in which the tools
are used? What kinds of research should drive policy? How can media
researchers, who now have access to vastly improved sources of data and
research methods, compared to those in Lazarsfeld's time, most effectively
conduct administrative research? What ethical questions are raised by the
use of consumer data for administrative research? Should research focus on
understanding the media of communications, what they are capable of doing
and what their effects may be, or should it focus on the social
implications of access or lack of access to these media?

This Call for Papers invites submissions that identify the tension between
administrative and critical research as it pertains to information and
communication policy studies in both national and global contexts.
Submissions may focus on, but are not limited to, addressing the following
questions:

.         What are the normative foundations of administrative research?

.         Can administrative research ethically inform information policy?

.         How can policy research be made more democratic?

.         What, if any, is the role of the moral imagination in policy
research?

.         Can empiricism/positivism engage ethical/moral values?

.         How can scholarly policy researchers (of any kind) avoid being
compromised by the dominant agents of influence?

.         Should critical research have a greater presence in forums
directed to administrative research?

.         Can critical scholarship inform policy?

.         Is critical scholarship utilized enough by policymakers?

.         What is and what should be the relationship of social activism
to scholarship? 

.         What current policy issues heighten the tension between
administrative and critical research?

 

Case studies, which combine these questions with specific examples of
contemporary policy issues, are encouraged as well.

Abstracts of between 400-500 words and a short bio of the author(s) should
be sent to  <mailto:pennstateiip at psu.edu> pennstateiip at psu.edu by December
19, 2014. Please write IIPCLAPWS: YOUR NAME in the subject line. Abstracts
not sent according to the above instructions will not be reviewed. Authors
will be notified of their acceptance before January 14, 2015.  Up to 8
abstracts will be accepted to the workshop and full papers are expected by
May 14, 2015. Each paper will be assigned a respondent, and discussed at
length at the workshop in order to help the author develop a paper to be
submitted to the Journal of Information Policy.

Authors presenting at the pre-conference will be invited to submit their
completed papers for review in a special issue of the Journal of
Information Policy ( <http://www.jip-online.org/> www.jip-online.org) to
be published in 2016 highlighting the 75th anniversary of Lazarfeld's
essay. Now in its 5th year, the JIP is an open-access peer-reviewed
journal dedicated to timely policy research that addresses contemporary
challenges and connects researchers to policymakers. This pre-conference
is the 10th workshop of the "Making Policy Research Accessible," project
organized by the Institute for Information Policy at Penn State.

* Lazarsfeld, P. (1941). Remarks on administrative and critical research.
Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, 9, 2-16.