A world-systemic analysis of knowledge production in international communication and media studies: the epistemic hierarchy of research approaches

ABSTRACT

In this present paper, we analyse the geopolitical distribution of different research approaches represented by the published papers in all the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) journals in communication. The article argues that an analysis of this kind is necessary if a clear picture of the complex pattern of power relations in global knowledge production within communication scholarship is needed. Our empirical evidences show that the global core publishes theoretical and quantitative papers in a proportionally greater extent than the global periphery, but while in 1997 the centre’s contribution was proportionally greater in theorising and in quantitative research than the contribution of the periphery, the latter’s contribution in theorisation slightly raised by 2017.

KEYWORDS:

• Global power relations
• Western hegemony
• academic inequalities
• communication scholarship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Magyar Tudományos Akadémia [2018].

Notes on contributors

Marton Demeter

Marton Demeter is an associate professor at the National University of Public Service, Department of Social Communication. His main focus of research is global knowledge production, academic capital accumulation and core-periphery biases in global academy. His monograph entitled Academic Knowledge Production and the Global South will be published in fall, 2020 by Palgrave.

Manuel Goyanes

Manuel Goyanes teaches at Carlos III University in Madrid and his main insterests are in media management and sociology of communication sciences. He has written about readership, news overload and business models. He is the author of Desafíoa la Investigación Estándar en Comunicatión, Crítica y Alternativas, Editorial OUC.