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

*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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