{"title":"Introduction to the interdisciplinary nature of communication","authors":"S. Croucher","doi":"10.1080/15358593.2023.2207259","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Interdisciplinary research is research that draws on theories and methods from multiple disciplines. The fact that communication, as a field of study, is interdisciplinary is not new. Researchers have been discussing the interdisciplinarity of the field for decades. If you look through any book on the history of the discipline, you will find countless discussions of how the discipline we know today has drawn from and continues to draw from the countless humanities, social science, and more recently scientific disciplines. Reflecting on my own postgraduate education in communication, aside from what would be traditionally considered “Communication,” I read rhetoric (Aristotle to Burke), philosophy (Gebser, to Voltaire), Sociology and Anthropology (Hall to Butler), political science (Arendt), Economics (Keynes), as well as History (Eisenstein and Gaspard), to name a few. This interdisciplinary education has shaped how I and my postgraduate students conceptualise and operationalise “communication.” This diversity of perspective, which is increasingly common and accepted in the field, is what encouraged this themed issue for the Review of Communication. Miller’s piece, “Reimaging tenure and promotion for creative faculty: The Creative Scholarship Pathways Framework,” explored the struggles creative scholars experience when communicating their work’s value. Using semistructured interviews, Miller showed how creative researchers often conduct work involving numerous community members; however, this work is often not evaluated for its engagement. Miller formalizes a Creative Scholarship Pathways Framework to assist in evaluating such work rooted in the creative and engaged scholarship. This piece shows not only the mixing of various disciplines, but also the effects of not understanding interdisciplinary work within academia. Shin’s piece, “An interdisciplinary inquiry in the communicator: Implications of Relational Social Paradigm, Practice theory, and Biological Science,” proposes introducing a sociological approach to understanding the communicator in communication studies. Drawing specifically on relational sociology and practice/embodiment theory, Shin suggests communication should also expand in its borrowing from biological sciences. Through this analysis, Shin provides pathways for theoretical inquiries into the ontology of the communicator. Spencer and Graves’ analysis of “What communication brings to the study of gaslighting: Metatheory toward disciplinarity” argues that the interdisciplinary nature of communication provides a unique position for critique. Using the case of gaslighting, the authors argue that research in sociology, psychology, philosophy, and other disciplines will benefit from including a communication point of view. In particular, the gaslighting","PeriodicalId":53587,"journal":{"name":"Review of Communication","volume":"23 1","pages":"95 - 97"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Review of Communication","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15358593.2023.2207259","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Interdisciplinary research is research that draws on theories and methods from multiple disciplines. The fact that communication, as a field of study, is interdisciplinary is not new. Researchers have been discussing the interdisciplinarity of the field for decades. If you look through any book on the history of the discipline, you will find countless discussions of how the discipline we know today has drawn from and continues to draw from the countless humanities, social science, and more recently scientific disciplines. Reflecting on my own postgraduate education in communication, aside from what would be traditionally considered “Communication,” I read rhetoric (Aristotle to Burke), philosophy (Gebser, to Voltaire), Sociology and Anthropology (Hall to Butler), political science (Arendt), Economics (Keynes), as well as History (Eisenstein and Gaspard), to name a few. This interdisciplinary education has shaped how I and my postgraduate students conceptualise and operationalise “communication.” This diversity of perspective, which is increasingly common and accepted in the field, is what encouraged this themed issue for the Review of Communication. Miller’s piece, “Reimaging tenure and promotion for creative faculty: The Creative Scholarship Pathways Framework,” explored the struggles creative scholars experience when communicating their work’s value. Using semistructured interviews, Miller showed how creative researchers often conduct work involving numerous community members; however, this work is often not evaluated for its engagement. Miller formalizes a Creative Scholarship Pathways Framework to assist in evaluating such work rooted in the creative and engaged scholarship. This piece shows not only the mixing of various disciplines, but also the effects of not understanding interdisciplinary work within academia. Shin’s piece, “An interdisciplinary inquiry in the communicator: Implications of Relational Social Paradigm, Practice theory, and Biological Science,” proposes introducing a sociological approach to understanding the communicator in communication studies. Drawing specifically on relational sociology and practice/embodiment theory, Shin suggests communication should also expand in its borrowing from biological sciences. Through this analysis, Shin provides pathways for theoretical inquiries into the ontology of the communicator. Spencer and Graves’ analysis of “What communication brings to the study of gaslighting: Metatheory toward disciplinarity” argues that the interdisciplinary nature of communication provides a unique position for critique. Using the case of gaslighting, the authors argue that research in sociology, psychology, philosophy, and other disciplines will benefit from including a communication point of view. In particular, the gaslighting