Centre for the Study of Communication and Culture Volume 30 (2011) No. 2 IN THIS ISSUE Bringing Science and Technology Studies to Bear on Communication Studies Research Jessica Baldwin-Philippi Ph.D.Candidate Northwestern University A QUARTERLY REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION RESEARCH ISSN: 0144-4646 Communication Research Trends Table of Contents Volume 30 (2011) Number 2 http://cscc.scu.edu Bringing Science and Technology Studies to Bear on Communication Studies Research Published four times a year by the Centre for the Study of Communication and Culture (CSCC), sponsored by the Science and Technology Studies and California Province of the Society of Jesus. Communication Study: Editor’s Introduction . 3 Copyright 2011. ISSN 0144-4646 1. Introduction . 4 Editor: Emile McAnany Editor emeritus: William E. Biernatzki, S.J. 2. STS as a Field . 7 Managing Editor: Paul A. Soukup, S.J. 3. Expanding “Inventing” . 8 Subscription: Annual subscription (Vol. 30) US$50 4. Organizing Social Relationships . 11 Payment by check, MasterCard, Visa or US$ preferred. 5. Conclusion . .16 For payments by MasterCard or Visa, send full account number, expiration date, name on account, and signature. References . .17 Checks and/or International Money Orders (drawn on Additional Reading . .19 USA banks; for non-USA banks, add $10 for handling) should be made payable to Communication Research Trends and sent to the managing editor Book Reviews . .20 Paul A. Soukup, S.J. Communication Department Santa Clara University 500 El Camino Real Santa Clara, CA 95053 USA Transfer by wire: Contact the managing editor. Add $10 for handling. Address all correspondence to the managing editor at the address shown above. Tel: +1-408-554-5498 Fax: +1-408-554-4913 email: [email protected] The Centre for the Study of Communication and Culture (CSCC) is an international service of the Society of Jesus established in 1977 and currently managed by the California Province of the Society of Jesus, P.O. Box 519, Los Gatos, CA 95031-0519. 2— VOLUME 30 (2011) NO. 2 COMMUNICATION RESEARCH TRENDS Science and Technology Studies and Communication Study Editor’s Introduction Communication study has a long, but varied, to time and space through their communication sys- association with the material aspects of communication tems. Some communication media (carved stone, for itself, both the artifacts like texts and the technologies example) extend culture through time while others that produce those artifacts. The preservation of texts (lightweight papyrus, as another example) extend more has provided the material for study by communication, easily across space. Culture, technology, and commu- initially speeches and later journalism, film, and televi- nication interacted in a complex system. sion. But rhetoric and early criticism paid little atten- By the mid-1960s a number of individuals, tion to the means of production, not much concerned Marshall McLuhan and Walter Ong, among them, per- with writing or later with printing in its interest in the sistently called attention to the physical media of com- content. Only well after the flowering of electronic and munication and their effects on both communication mechanical communication technologies in the 19th and society. These “medium theorists” recognized that century—the telegraph, the telephone, the motion pic- the means of communication form an inseparable part ture, the radio—did scholars consider how these tech- of communication messages and practices. Beginning nologies played a role in communication and them- with books and intellectual practices in the print revo- selves affected society. Sociologists at the beginning of lution, they tried to shed light on the parts of commu- the 20th century often viewed technology metaphori- nication taken for granted in the typical focus on mes- cally, as the nervous system of the body politic or as a sage content. For these theorists the material object means of circulating intellectual goods. mattered as much as the intellectual. With the work of Claude Shannon and Warren Each of scholars calling attention to the material- Weaver, published as The Mathematical Theory of ity of communication came to communication study Communication in 1949, attention shifted to the tech- from the outside—from sociology, electrical engineer- nologies themselves. However, as an engineer for the ing, economics, literature, and so on. From the 1930s, Bell Telephone Company, Shannon came to communi- another group of scholars also focused on technology cation only indirectly—he concerned himself directly but technology of all kinds, not just communication with technical systems, with circuits and information technology. They did not cross as readily into commu- capacity in his original paper. Weaver helped to make nication study and so remained less well known in the the leap of seeing Shannon’s electrical circuit as a schools of communication. However, those engaged in metaphor for human communication. And so, the Science, Technology, and Society Studies (STS) com- “sender-message-medium-receiver” model added the piled an admirable record of study and developed var- sense of technology to communication study, at least as ied methodologies with which to examine technology. a metaphor. Other scholars extended that metaphor Communication forms only one aspect of their much from technical systems even to the interpersonal realm. larger interests, but their interests provide a challenging At about the same time, the Canadian economist way to examine communication. Among communica- Harold Innis also turned his attention to the material tion scholars, the Media Ecology group forms one pont aspect of communication and placed technology at the of contact with them. center of communication study. Having begun with the In this issue of TRENDS, Jessica Baldwin-Philippi economics of trade and later of pulp and paper, he introduces some of the STS work most relevant to became interested in the relationship between culture, communication study. It adds another chapter to a transportation, and communication—not the circula- growing body of literature that argues that communica- tion of ideas but the circulation of the materials on tion in its many embodiments forms a highly complex, which people inscribed ideas. Focused on the material tightly integrated whole that requires interdisciplinary aspects in this way, he hypothesized that cultures relate methods and understanding. COMMUNICATION RESEARCH TRENDS VOLUME 30 (2011) NO. 2 — 3 Bringing Science and Technology Studies to Bear on Communication Studies Research Jessica Baldwin-Philippi [email protected] 1. Introduction As the technological landscape has shifted rapid- objects of study. A consistently large section of the dis- ly over recent decades, the terrain of academic disci- cipline has devoted an overarching emphasis on media plines concerned with actors’ engagement with tech- content over form or attention to medium. Even the nology has adjusted and expanded as well. Given the expansion of analyses of content into investigations of ubiquity of technology in our contemporary society, interpretation retains an emphasis on content at the such engagement occurs in nearly all contexts, and is of expense of attention to technology. Other trajectories of increasing relevance to academic disciplines ranging research within the Communication Studies field have across the social sciences and the humanities. Due to given technology more attention, but have done so in a the desire and need to investigate the practices and limited way. These practices often focus so heavily on implications of technology use from a variety of disci- material features and tack so far away from the inves- plinary standpoints, the insights and approaches tigation of content that they become technologically gleaned from a field that has built itself around investi- determinist and often lack attention to either content or gations of the complexities of technologies—that of use. This phenomenon has occurred within the study of Science and Technology Studies (STS)—are becoming technologies past and present, from radio to television more relevant than ever before. As the field of to ICTs and Internet-based technologies, and with a Communication Studies’ long standing concern with growing body of research concerning new media and media and communication technologies becomes both Internet technologies, approaches that account for the more prevalent and more routinized (Herring, 2004), a role of new technology in a nuanced and multifaceted nuanced approach to research concerning engagement manner is of even greater import. In areas of with, views of, and discourses concerning communica- Communications Studies that have begun to account tion technologies is increasingly necessary. The field of for the role of technology, these accounts are often par- STS, as it has investigated an incredible variety of tech- tial, choosing to ignore content to focus on use, forget- nologies and their historical, social, and political con- ting both when focused on patterns of use, no matter texts, contains analytic approaches that are especially whether the object of focus is historical or contempo- beneficial for Communication Studies. Together, STS rary. With the help of theories of STS, hopefully these and Communication Studies approaches provide a fer- emphases can better engage one another and be fos- tile ground for research focusing on specific technolo- tered and developed. gies, as well as that which is directed