Communication Studies beyond the National: Connections and Disconnections between Research Communities and How to Study Them

Authors

  • Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz University of Bremen

Keywords:

History of Communication Studies, ociology of Science, Sociology of Knowledge, Methodology of the Sociology of Science, History of Ideas

Abstract

This essay is dealing with a self-reflection in communication studies on existing blind spots between national communication research communities and milieus. The author presents recent debates on communication studies under international comparison, including their focus on historical developments and disciplinary boundaries of the field. She discusses the lack of knowledge about transnational influences between scientific communities in the field of communication research as well as central categories to grasp the social as well as the body of knowledge in Science (like “generation” a term which understands scientific milieus as experience communities in the sense of Karl Mannheim). The underlying argument is, that only a meta-science perspective from an historical viewpoint allows the understanding of our actual theory building and methodological settings which is confronted with future problems, especially the transnationalization of communication flows as well as of scientific knowledge.

Author Biography

Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz, University of Bremen

Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz is professor for communication studies at the University of Bremen, Center for Communication, Media and Information Research. She received her PhD at the University of Muenster in 2000 with a study on the early newspaper science in Germany and passed her habilitation thesis in 2008 at the University of Leipzig with a study on communication theories in France. Her research interests are: communication history and media change, history of communication studies, media and communication ethics, inter- and transcultural communication. Beyond a large number of journal articles and book chapters her monographs are Kommunikation als Prozess. Soziologische Perspektiven in der Zeitungswissenschaft (Münster, London: LIT 1999) and Kommunikationstheorien in Frankreich. Der epistemologische Diskurs der Sciences de l’information et de la communication 1975-2005 (Berlin, Paris, Toronto 2010).

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How to Cite

Averbeck-Lietz, S. (2012). Communication Studies beyond the National: Connections and Disconnections between Research Communities and How to Study Them. Global Media Journal - German Edition, 2(2). Retrieved from https://globalmediajournal.de/index.php/gmj/article/view/113