scholarly journals Playing the fields: Theorizing research impact and its assessment

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Williams

Abstract How research is assessed affects what types of knowledge are valued, incentivized, and rewarded. An increasingly important element of contemporary research evaluation is the measurement of the wider impact of research (e.g. benefit to society, culture or economy). Although the measurement of impact has been highly contested, the area is under-theorized and dominated by pragmatic research policy imperatives. Informed by a sociological perspective, this article intervenes in this context by reframing research impact as the attainment and maintenance of capital (i.e. symbolic power or status) in various fields beyond academia. It argues that research impact occurs at the intersection of these fields of power. The article shows that impact involves various combinations of capital from the scholarly field, the field of politics, the field of application, the media field, and the economic field, which provide credibility, authority, utility, visibility, and weight, respectively. In exploring the forms of worth and value that underpin the pursuit of legitimacy in these fields, the article provides a new theoretical framework for understanding research impact and its assessment.

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Áine Regan ◽  
Maeve Henchion

Abstract How research impact is defined and evaluated is much-debated at research policy level. Offering one avenue for capturing societal research impact, altmetrics are proposed as quantitative indicators providing a measure of the reach and attention that a research output, such as a peer-reviewed paper, is receiving online. Eighty publicly-funded food researchers participated in an online mixed-methods engagement study. The analytical framework of sensemaking was used to explore participants’ views of altmetrics as a threat or opportunity for their perceived professional identities. The identities important to our participants included ensuring rigour and quality in knowledge production; communicating and engaging with non-academic audiences; and bringing about tangible and meaningful changes in society. While an appetite for changes to research evaluation was apparent in our study, altmetrics was perceived to introduce a number of different threats as well as opportunities to the academic identity, which will influence its potential uptake and use.


Numen ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 62 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 243-264
Author(s):  
Jonas Otterbeck

This article addresses the understanding of Islam of nine young adult Muslims living in the Malmö and Copenhagen region.1 Throughout the interviews with the young adults, they mark their distance from what they perceive as unacceptable forms of Islamic ideas and practices, labeling these ideas as extremist and inconsistent. They develop discursive techniques of distancing themselves from the mediated Islam of radicals and the often negative rendering of Islam that they encounter in daily life and in the media. By negotiating with the dominant discourse on what a “respectable religion” should look like, the young adults construct a religiosity that shares much of theformprescribed by mainstream society, but is different incontent. The theoretical framework is drawn from the study of sociology of religion and, in particular, from Beverley Skeggs’ theories on respectability (1997).


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Rene Brauer ◽  
Mirek Dymitrow

Sustainable tourism (ST) has recently become the mainstream of the tourism industry and, accordingly, has influenced contemporary tourism research. However, ST is not just theories about indications and contraindications of global travel, but also a specific language that needs mastering to take sustainability work forward. In other words, what research receives recognition depends on the proficiency in how the articulation in research proposals and within assessment under the heading of “research impact”. The aim of this paper is to investigate how tourism research gains recognition within research evaluation, by investigating the national research appraisal in the United Kingdom (Research Excellence Framework). By using content analysis, we disentangle the rhetorical choices and narrative constructions within researchers’ impact claims. Our findings suggest that researchers adopt a rhetorical style that implies causality and promotes good outcomes facilitating ST. However, the structure of the assessment format enforces an articulation of sustainable research impact without stating the methodological limitations of that such claim. Therefore, the rhetorical choices of ST researchers merely represent a proxy indicator of the claimed impact. We conclude that the lack of rigor in accounting for the impact of ST research may inadvertently restrict attaining ST.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-92
Author(s):  
P. Krishnaveni ◽  
J. Selvam

The hit rate of the media increasingly grew from day to day on sexual harassment and other crime as sex has its base.. Therefore, to assess the response of the global social scientists, a study has been conducted with the support of scientometric tools. Relevant data were downloaded from the SCOPUS on “Continence”. Hypotheses were framed and duly tested with appropriate statistical tools. The Year wise growth of publications, language wise publications, type of documents involved in the publications and top ten journals were assessed. The prediction of Lotka has been tested with KS Test. Finally, it is suggested to encourage the global social scientists to publish many more articles on the ethical background to improve the value of ethics of the society.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Jolanta Dyoniziak

The present analysis is devoted to the discursive units that are activated at the moment by the media nomination as categoremes of the referent, Donald Trump, and shape the media narrative. These will be formulas, which appear in the headlines and imply labels, e.g. Donald Trump, agitateur en chef (‘Donald Trump, the troublemaker’; lemonde.fr, 5.10.2017). The research problem will be to determine their narrative and argumentative potential. Theoretical framework is provided by studies of the media information discourse (Arquembourg, 2011; Calabrese, 2009, 2013; Moirand, 2007; Veniard, 2013), as well as the argumentative discourse (Amossy, 2006). The corpus has been compiled on the basis of electronic version of two daily newspapers Le Monde (lemonde.fr) and Gazeta Wyborcza (wyborcza.pl), released between Jan the 1st 2016 and december 2020.


Author(s):  
Victor Olusegun Babatunde

This chapter focused on the national strike organized by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) at the dawn of the year 2012 to protest the removal of petroleum subsidy in Nigeria and it explored its implications for development communication. By using documentary research method, the study reviewed relevant literature and discussed the findings. In line with the theoretical framework on which the study is anchored, it observed that the media are powerful medium for carrying development messages to the grassroots. Besides, it also performs watchdog function so as to make the government responsible to the people and allow them to participate actively in the development processes. Therefore, the chapter recommends that government at all levels in Nigeria should ensure adequate participation of the people in the initiation, planning and execution of development projects and policies.


2020 ◽  
pp. 137-160
Author(s):  
Katherine E. Smith ◽  
Justyna Bandola-Gill ◽  
Nasar Meer ◽  
Ellen Stewart ◽  
Richard Watermeyer

This chapter focuses on academics working in university-based groups that have been charged with, and funded to achieve, knowledge translation and research impact. These are, we suggest, academics working at the vanguard of the impact agenda, who we might consider as experimental subjects from whom we can learn. This chapter includes a summary of the types of knowledge brokerage roles and organisations that have been created in the UK and the perceived and stated rationales for these new roles and organisations, and an analysis of interview data providing insights into the perspectives of academics working within two such groups.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. e39146
Author(s):  
Mario Tito Barros Almeida ◽  
Bruna Ferreira Pinheiro

Neste artigo, visa-se apresentar e analisar a experiência de cinco anos do Programa Globalizando, programa de rádio universitária produzido pelos alunos e professores do curso de Relações Internacionais da Universidade da Amazônia/PA. Este programa discute temas de Relações Internacionais e é transmitido via Rádio UNAMA FM 105.5 de Belém do Pará, bem como pela internet. Esta experiência universitária é analisada a partir do pensamento de Boaventura de Sousa Santos, em sua perspectiva sobre a Universidade à luz da teoria crítica e da epistemologia do Sul. Para tal, metodologicamente, realizou-se uma revisão bibliográfica sobre a importância da extensão universitária e a utilização de meios de comunicação. Para viabilizá-la, apresenta-se organização e experiência do Programa Globalizando e, analisa-se estas questões a partir do referencial teórico proposto. Palavras-chave: Programa Globalizando; Relações Internacionais; Extensão Universitária.ABSTRACTIn this article, the objective is to present and analyze the five years’ experience of Programa Globalizando, a university radio program produced by the students and professors from the course of the University of Amazonia / PA. This program discusses topics of International Relations and is transmitted via Radio UNAMA FM 105.5 of Belém do Pará, as well as through the internet. This study is analyzed from the theorical thinking of Boaventura de Sousa Santos, in his perspective on the University in the light of the critical theory and the epistemology of the South. To this end, a bibliographical review was carried out on the importance of university extension and the use of the media. To make it feasible, the organization and experience gained by the Globalizing Program over the years is presented, and these questions are analyzed based on the proposed theoretical framework. Keywords: Programa Globalizando; International Relations; University Extension.Recebido em: 09 dez. 2018 | Aceito em: 05 mai. 2019


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 31-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosi Braidotti

What are the parameters that define a posthuman knowing subject, her scientific credibility and ethical accountability? Taking the posthumanities as an emergent field of enquiry based on the convergence of posthumanism and post-anthropocentrism, I argue that posthuman knowledge claims go beyond the critiques of the universalist image of ‘Man’ and of human exceptionalism. The conceptual foundation I envisage for the critical posthumanities is a neo-Spinozist monistic ontology that assumes radical immanence, i.e. the primacy of intelligent and self-organizing matter. This implies that the posthuman knowing subject has to be understood as a relational embodied and embedded, affective and accountable entity and not only as a transcendental consciousness. Two related notions emerge from this claim: firstly, the mind-body continuum – i.e. the embrainment of the body and embodiment of the mind – and secondly, the nature-culture continuum – i.e. ‘naturecultural’ and ‘humanimal’ transversal bonding. The article explores these key conceptual and methodological perspectives and discusses the implications of the critical posthumanities for practices in the contemporary ‘research’ university.


Journalism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 1264-1282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Nozal Cantarero ◽  
Ana González-Neira ◽  
Elena Valentini

This article proposes a comparative analysis of the newspaper apps developed for tablets and smartphones within different media systems. It studies the multimediality, interactivity and commercialization models adopted by newspaper publishers and journalists for these apps. The theoretical framework embraces two main topics: the media system models, starting from Hallin and Mancini’s proposal, and the characteristics of the media systems, particularly in the countries selected for this sample, focusing on the digital and mobile media scenario. In order to collect comparable data from a common source, we have selected indicators from Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2016. The total number of app versions analysed came to 148 (81 for smartphones and 67 for tablets) from 20 newspapers in 10 different countries. One conclusion is that newspapers’ commitment to the tablet and smartphone, in general, tends to be conservative and far from independent of pre-existing print and web-based media. This article shows how media systems have become more complex in the digital scenario, in which apps are an important, but not exclusive, aspect. So, it is necessary to take into account trends in news globalization and ‘convergent journalism’. Finally, this research confirms that crossplatform management and multichannel strategies are still weak, which has consequences for the innovation of app editions.


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