Funferal

Sounds like communications research to me

Over at Boing Boing Cory points to a new paper by Siva Vaidhyanathan proposing a new ‘interdisciplinary discipline’ of Critical Information Studies. The short blurb I’ve read so far sounds very like the areas covered by Political Economy of media, and more generally, the sort of work that students and faculty at the Institute of Communications Research focus on:

• the abilities and liberties to use, revise, criticize, and manipulate cultural texts, images, ideas, and information;
• the rights and abilities of users (or consumers or citizens) to alter the means and techniques through which cultural texts and information are rendered, displayed, and distributed;
• the relationship among information control, property rights, technologies, and social norms; and
• the cultural, political, social, and economic ramifications of global flows of culture and information.

Always good to see more attention to these questions, but one has to wonder why ‘communications research’ isn’t seen as an appropriate field or term – could it be that the prevalence of administrative research in the field prevents people noting the critical research housed under the same rubric?