Interdisciplinarity and Infrastructure: Mediation and Knotworking in Communication Research
Nordicom Review, (2007)Abstract
In the Nordic region the field of media and communication research has appeared fairly coherent despite the underlying broad interdisciplinarity. The reasons can partly be found in the support of biennial regional conferences, national research associations, and the Nordicom documentation centre. A similar relationship between interdisciplinarity and infrastructure can be studied at the single university performing research in this area. The case is the author's home base at the University of Oslo. Units and networks of media and communication research are analyzed as 'activity systems'. To what extent can the concepts of 'mediation' and 'knotworking' in 'activity theory' be useful in analyses of interdisciplinarity and infrastructure of media and communication research? How would this apply on a European level?