Archive for March 2017

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[ecrea] CFA ICA 2017 Blue Sky Workshop: 'policy research methods: Improving the craft'

Wed Mar 08 15:43:13 GMT 2017




*ICA 2017 Blue Sky Workshop: “Policy Research Methods: Improving the Craft”*

*Open Call for Abstracts*

*Brief Summary*

There is a pressing need to improve policy research in media and communication studies in response to theoretical developments in our understanding of the nature of policy problems, challenges presented by technological innovation, and changes in law-state-society relations. This workshop will explore the methodological difficulties for those conducting research in the current policy environment, examine which traditional methods continue to prove useful and which do not, and introduce methodological innovations. Furthermore, it will discuss various possibilities for institutionalizing scholarly exchange about methodological insights for policy research. The Blue Sky Workshop offers a valuable opportunity to gather renowned and innovative scholars in the research field from around the globe to embark on this vital mission.

*Description*

This Blue Sky Workshop aims to explore methodological difficulties that researchers in the field of media, communication and information policy are confronted with in the contemporary policy environment.

Problems addressed by those doing policy analysis keep getting more complex. Scholars have realized a long time ago that the question is not simply which solution to a problem is “best,” whether in a cost-benefit analysis or normative sense, but rather we are dealing with a multi-layered onion that is multi-dimensional and surrounded by diverse stakeholders and interests, by discursive frames and struggles over decision-making venues. For decades we have been struggling with the attempt to adapt legal and policy tools developed for one medium or context to apply to others that are qualitatively new in form and, because of unceasing technological innovation, always changing. More recently, we have come to appreciate the importance of policy-making as it is undertaken by private actors and in informal ways through diverse means including software and network architecture as well as rules and self-regulation. Finally, current developments in Western democracies and beyond give new currency to the difficulties of policy-making and analysis under conditions in which there are challenges to the rule of law and media freedom altogether. Together, these developments signal a sense of urgency in finding better methodological tools to analyze media, communication and information policy.

This Blue Sky Workshop responds to the pressing calls to improve the craft of doing policy research in media and communication studies. Questions to be addressed include:

  * What are the key challenges scholars experience in terms of
    methodology to deal with the changes in the environment of media,
    communication and information policy making?
  * Which existing methodologies have proven their sturdiness throughout
    these changes?
  * Which new methods have scholars come across that show or have proven
    potential to better capture the changing policy environment?
  * Which phenomena both old and new do scholars have problems to
    properly analyze because methods are insufficient or access to data
    impossible?

Furthermore, the Blue Sky Workshop will discuss various possibilities for institutionalizing scholarly exchange about methodological insights for policy research. Thus, the workshop offers a valuable opportunity to gather renowned and innovative scholars in the research field from around the globe to embark on this vital mission.

Following a short introduction by the session chairs (Sandra Braman, Manuel Puppis & Hilde Van den Bulck), Terry Flew (Queensland University of Technology), Sandra González-Bailón (Annenberg School for Communication, U Penn), Natascha Just (Michigan State University) and Dwayne Winseck (Carleton University) will start the discussion with short interventions before participants will be invited to share their experiences and views.

Additional confirmed participants include Christopher Ali, Hernan Galperin, Natali Helberger, Sonia Livingstone, Russell Newman, Juan Ramon Rodriguez-Amat, Amit Schejter, Dwayne Winseck and Rita Zajacz.

*Those who wish to participate in the workshop should submit an abstract (up to 400 words)*describing a particular methodological research problem, strengths and weaknesses of one or more specific methods currently in use, and/or a methodological innovation of value in the contemporary environment *to the session chairs until March 30, 2017*.

*Session Chairs*

Sandra Braman (Texas A&M University/USA), (braman /at/ email.tamu.edu) <mailto:(braman /at/ email.tamu.edu)>

Manuel Puppis (U of Fribourg/Switzerland), (manuel.puppis /at/ unifr.ch) <mailto:(manuel.puppis /at/ unifr.ch)>

Hilde Van den Bulck (U of Antwerp/Belgium), (hilde.vandenbulck /at/ uantwerpen.be) <mailto:(hilde.vandenbulck /at/ uantwerpen.be)>

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