Has Media and Communication Research Become Invisible? Some Reflections from a Scandinavian Horizon

For the last 30 years, Nordicom (Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research) has documented and publicized scholarly work in the field of media and communication research in the five Nordic countries. We have done so through many channels. One of them is the journal Nordicom Review, edited for the international research community and published twice a year in English. It is against the backdrop of my many years as editor of these Nordicom publications that the following reflections on the state of our field should be seen. The number of scholars in the field of media and communication research has increased dramatically during the last decade, and some excellent research communities have been created. But, there are aspects that arouse some critical reflections – most of which concern whether and to what extent the work in our field raises relevant questions on the relations between media and society. An attunement of research to the agendas – and even the interests – of external financiers (‘marketization’), and furthermore, new structures for higher education have thrust scientific enquiry into a period of change. Research tends to be more administrative, and short-term perspectives prevail – at the expense of the long-term accumulation of knowledge. The pressures at play in this overall trend may well have more far-reaching consequences for a relatively ‘new’ field of research like media and communication than in older and more established disciplines. Modern media and communication research grew out of a variety of disciplines: political science, economics, sociology, psychology, history, literature and linguistics. Within these fields, questions relating to mass media had tended to be marginalized. Serious gaps in knowledge had opened concerning how the external manifestations of media and communication related to their inner life, and to the place the institutions occupy in our societies and cultures. This, just as television was becoming a ubiquitous household fixture and GAZETTE: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATION STUDIES