Networking Knowledge about Networks

1
Networking Knowledge about Networks

• Collaboration between the Communication Research
  and Policy Communities

2
The Past

• There is an extensive literature on the
  relationship between the communication research
  and policy communities going back to the 1880s.
• Analysis of this literature tells us about

3
What We Know

• Context the sociology of knowledge
• Barriers
• knowledge creation
• knowledge transfer
• knowledge utilization
• Enduring tensions
• Lessons learned

4
Context

• Politics of the empirical
• Depoliticization effect of institutional politics
• Detachment of effects studies from originary
  concerns
• Complexity
• From government to governance and governmentality
• Pessimism about the policy enterprise

5
Barriers Knowledge Creation

• Selection of topic
• Problem definition
• Unit of analysis
• Level of abstraction
• Reward structure
• Timing

6
Barriers Knowledge Transmission

• Genre
• Venue
• Finding the information
• Stage of policy-making process
• Timing

7
Barriers Knowledge Utilization

• Understanding of social science research
• Skills to evaluate social science research
• Political uses of research process
• Political uses of research results
• Timing

8
Enduring Tensions -- Relationships

• Relationships
• Researcher and policy-maker (trust, autonomy,
  structure of relationship)
• Researcher and academic employer
• Researcher and self Identity
• Research horizon (Publication vs. knowledge
  management system)
• Research questions (validity, innovation vs.
  consensus)

9
Lessons for Researchers

• Ideas matter
• Work on policy-relevant questions
• Analyze results from policy perspective
• Beware of over-generalization
• Build coherent research agenda
• Translate results for access
• Become involved in institutional design

10
What We Dont Know

• Existing lit largely case studies broad
  prescription, not systematic research
• Case studies in this area are analytically thin
  and acontextual
• Case studies deal only with portions of complex
  decision-making processes
• Little work on current environment

11
The Problem

• Existing lit suggests bridges between research
  policy communities, eg
• Knowledge management systems
• Institutional links
• Curriculum development
• But does not provide the analytical detail
  required to operationalize such ideas
• Current curriculum study

12
Models

• Existing lit yields model of linear, 1-way
  transmission between research policy
  communities
• Alternative model Collaboration between
  research and policy communities on knowledge
  production

13
Research Agenda

• Existing theories and research methods that could
  be applied to problem
• Policy Networks
• Policy Discourse
• Information Seeking
• Collaborative Work Practices

14
Policy Networks

• Private-public sector links are critical to
  outcomes of policy processes
• Used largely in Europe, largely for industrial
  policy
• Add research community as third leg, and apply to
  social policy issues as well
• Use network analysis

15
Policy Discourse

• Conceptual frames influence policies
• Analysis usually single issue, single discourse
• Conduct meta-analyses comparative analysis
  across discourses
• Use textual analysis, groupware exercises,
  meta-analyses

16
Information Seeking

• Decision-makers acquire information through
  habitual practices
• Use in policy analysis has been relatively rare,
  always issue and usually individual specific
• Systematically apply to policy-makers who deal
  with IT
• Use interviews, observation, textual analysis,
  network analysis

17
Collaborative Work Practices

• Successful collaborations that endure over time
  are practice based
• Easier to study when take place within fixed
  organizational units
• But can apply to relationship between IT research
  and policy communities
• Observation key

18
Today

• Administrative statutory law constrain federal
  agency use of information -- without research on
  effects of regs laws on nature of
  decision-making
• Almost no research on congressional use of
  information in decision-making

19
A Research Agenda

• Conference raised specific IT policy issues, but
  the relationship between the research and policy
  communities must also be analyzed.
• Doing so of wider value as well, for ITs are one
  among many policy problems involving large,
  complex, and rapidly changing technological
  systems.