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Four programs of research in scientific communication

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Knowledge in Society

“When I studied scientific communication back in the sixties, it was a great field to be in ... we thought we knew just about everything there was to know about scientific communication.”1 Bill Paisley, 1985

Abstract

Selected studies of scientific communication, philosophy and sociology of science, sociology of knowledge, and information science are reviewed according to the assumptions they make about scientific information. Based on these assumptions and their historical order of development, the studies are organized into four distinct “programs” of research: artifact studies, user studies, network studies, and laboratory studies. The four programs represent a continuum of definitions of information, from the information-as-commodity definition that is embodied in the artifact studies, to the contextual, meaning-based definition that is characteristic of the laboratory studies. They also provide a rich framework for a renewal of research interest in this area among communication scholars and others interested in the social impacts of information.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Communication, Rutgers University, 4 Huntington St., 08903, New Brunswick, NJ

    Leah A. Lievrouw

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  1. Leah A. Lievrouw
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Leah A. Lievrouw is assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Rutgers University. Dr. Lievrouw received her PhD from the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include scientific communication and the social aspects of telecommunications technologies.

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Lievrouw, L.A. Four programs of research in scientific communication. Knowledge in Society 1, 6–22 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02687210

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