[ecrea] Administrative v. critical research: implications for contemporary information policy studies: An ICA pre-conference

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 
(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 (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 (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.


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