<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The article enquires about the role of researchers in an era of increasingly competitive innovation in the media industry. I argue that research-driven change in the mass media is possible, and that there should be more of it in the future. More democratic participation in mass media is the issue that most urgently needs to be resolved, and in Part II I will point out a possible strategy of reformation in the field. The article is a form of meta-theory or ‘theory of science’, and it zooms in on the normative attitude of the social researcher towards the larger society. The first part is a history of normativity in modern American and European social science from the 1920s onwards, with a focus on media studies. It sets the background for a framework for instructive media research, that is, research in which a normative goal is pursued with all the tools that social research can legitimately apply. I present three sectors of the media that can be directly and indirectly controlled by the researcher: the media’s technical platforms, their editorial procedures, and citizens’ participation in the media.</p></abstract>

The article enquires about the role of researchers in an era of increasingly competitive innovation in the media industry. I argue that research-driven change in the mass media is possible, and that there should be more of it in the future. More democratic participation in mass media is the issue that most urgently needs to be resolved, and in Part II I will point out a possible strategy of reformation in the field. The article is a form of meta-theory or ‘theory of science’, and it zooms in on the normative attitude of the social researcher towards the larger society. The first part is a history of normativity in modern American and European social science from the 1920s onwards, with a focus on media studies. It sets the background for a framework for instructive media research, that is, research in which a normative goal is pursued with all the tools that social research can legitimately apply. I present three sectors of the media that can be directly and indirectly controlled by the researcher: the media’s technical platforms, their editorial procedures, and citizens’ participation in the media.

Normative Media Research

Dr.Art., Associate Professor, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen,

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Moving from the Ivory Tower to the Control Tower

The article enquires about the role of researchers in an era of increasingly competitive innovation in the media industry. I argue that research-driven change...

Normative Media Research

Publié en ligne: 07 févr. 2017

Pages: 3 - 17

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0148

Mots clés
media research, democracy, critical research, administrative research, instructive research

© 2009 Lars Nyre, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Normative Media Research

Publié en ligne: 07 févr. 2017

Pages: 3 - 17

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0148

Mots clésmedia research, democracy, critical research, administrative research, instructive research

© 2009 Lars Nyre, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mots clés
media research, democracy, critical research, administrative research, instructive research