Communication Research and the Need for Shifting Paradigms - Again

Abstract

Theorizing and investigating the constantly changing social conditions, which substantially affect the communication of human beings, should remain (or become, as a matter of fact) the primary task or ‘mission’ of communication studies. This does not imply that they should produce claims related to ideal communication acts that are supposedly good in themselves although opposed to reality, but related to what it is already time for due to the existing practical conditions, to paraphrase Horkheimer’s famous idea. Such attempts may be seen as ‘non-productive’ – because they do not advance the existence of the past in the present, or the present in the future – yet they are productive in a more fundamental sense: they ‘construe’ facts that materially do not yet exist, but have ample potential to exist, and they confront barriers that do not allow for their practical realization. In that sense, communication like any other social research always implies (maybe just tacitly assumes) normative and regulative components that link theory, research and social action. Attempts to regulate human communication (either in order to liberate or to censor it) are even older than those trying to understand and theorize its human nature and its inherent laws. While the former date back to at least the invention of writing technology, the latter were invigorated only by the period of Enlightenment (although one could also argue that in a sense, Plato’s and Aristotle’s discussions of rhetoric represent the very beginning of such efforts). But regardless of how we assess the relationship between regulation and research and the social character of that relationship in different societies, cultures and historical periods, we must realize that communication research has never been ‘regulation-free’. The results of social research may always invite, or be used for ‘therapy’ by social action. Both ‘administrative research’, as a prototype of linking specific problems and tools identified with interpretations of findings that support – explicitly or implicitly – the status quo of society, and critical research (or ‘theory’ for that matter), are motivated by the idea of having some bearing on regulatory capacities. The latter may be either those of individuals effectuating their personal GAZETTE: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATION STUDIES