Interdisciplinary research is research that draws on theories and methods from multiple disciplines.Footnote1 The fact that communication, as a field of study, is interdisciplinary is not new. Researchers have been discussing the interdisciplinarity of the field for decades.Footnote2,Footnote3,Footnote4 If you look through any book on the history of the discipline, you will find countless discussions of how the discipline we know today has drawn from and continues to draw from the countless humanities, social science, and more recently scientific disciplines.Footnote5 Reflecting on my own postgraduate education in communication, aside from what would be traditionally considered “Communication,” I read rhetoric (AristotleFootnote6 to BurkeFootnote7), philosophy (Gebser,Footnote8 to VoltaireFootnote9), Sociology and Anthropology (HallFootnote10 to ButlerFootnote11), political science (ArendtFootnote12), Economics (KeynesFootnote13), as well as History (EisensteinFootnote14 and GaspardFootnote15), to name a few. This interdisciplinary education has shaped how I and my postgraduate students conceptualise and operationalise “communication.” This diversity of perspective, which is increasingly common and accepted in the field, is what encouraged this themed issue for the Review of Communication.
Miller’s piece, “Reimaging tenure and promotion for creative faculty: The Creative Scholarship Pathways Framework,”Footnote16 explored the struggles creative scholars experience when communicating their work’s value. Using semistructured interviews, Miller showed how creative researchers often conduct work involving numerous community members; however, this work is often not evaluated for its engagement. Miller formalizes a Creative Scholarship Pathways Framework to assist in evaluating such work rooted in the creative and engaged scholarship. This piece shows not only the mixing of various disciplines, but also the effects of not understanding interdisciplinary work within academia.
Shin’s piece, “An interdisciplinary inquiry in the communicator: Implications of Relational Social Paradigm, Practice theory, and Biological Science,”Footnote17 proposes introducing a sociological approach to understanding the communicator in communication studies. Drawing specifically on relational sociology and practice/embodiment theory, Shin suggests communication should also expand in its borrowing from biological sciences. Through this analysis, Shin provides pathways for theoretical inquiries into the ontology of the communicator.
Spencer and Graves’ analysis of “What communication brings to the study of gaslighting: Metatheory toward disciplinarity”Footnote18 argues that the interdisciplinary nature of communication provides a unique position for critique. Using the case of gaslighting, the authors argue that research in sociology, psychology, philosophy, and other disciplines will benefit from including a communication point of view. In particular, the gaslighting message itself can even further be understood by exploring its communicative nature. This analysis shows the robust nature of communication in research.
In “Social-materiality as flesh,”Footnote19 Bodaski critiques Cooren’s stance on the social and material. Bodaski proposes that Merleau-Ponty's ontology of flesh as an alternative to overcome the problematics of materiality. Throughout this analysis, Bodaski’s inclusion of Merleau-Ponty’s work into our understanding of materiality not only reaffirms Cooren’s work, but also expands our understanding of organizational communication.
Finally, Rowe and Frischherz propose that researchers in communication studies follow an anti-method paradigm in their piece, “Introducing the anti-method paradigm [Or, when Reviewer #2 says your interdisciplinary work is vague, messy, and unrecognizable].”Footnote20 The authors in this piece are not encouraging the discipline to abandon “method.” Instead, the authors describe “anti-method” as a legitimate and philosophically grounded form of research and offer ways for others to understand and to appreciate this approach to research. While anti-method may be messy, vague, and unrecognizable to many, Rowe and Frischherz show its importance and interdisciplinarity.
Collectively, these pieces all draw on research from various disciplines and how communication does/can/should do the same. These pieces also provide the discipline with food for thought on our place within academia. I hope you enjoy these pieces, and as always, I encourage you to reach out to the authors for any questions you might have.
Notes
1 Kitty O Locker, “The Challenge of Interdisciplinary Research,” The Journal of Business Communication, 31, no. 2 (1994): 137–151.
2 Jin Hong Ha and Lois Boynton, “Has Crisis Communication Been Studied Using an Interdisciplinary Approach? A 20-Year Content Analysis of Communication Journals,” International Journal of Strategic Communication 8, no. 1 (2014). 29–44. https://do i.org/1080/1553118X.2013.850694
3 Steve J. Kulich, Liping Weng, Rongtian Tong, and Greg Dubois, “Interdisciplinary History of Intercultural Communication Studies: From Roots to Research and Praxis,” In Dan Landis and Dharm P. S. Bhawuk (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Training (pp. 60–163) (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
4 N. L. Reinsch and Phillip V. Lewis, “Author and Citation Patterns for the Journal of Business Communication, 1978–1992,” The Journal of Business Communication 30, no. 4 (1993): 435–462.
5 Paul Heyer and Peter Urguhart (eds), Communication in History: Stone Age Symbols to Social Media (New York: Routledge, 2019).
6 Aristotle, The Rhetoric of Aristotle (L. Cooper translator) (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1932, original work published Ca. 322 BCE.
7 Kenneth Burke, Grammar of Motives (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1945).
8 Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin (Noel Barstad and Algis Micknus translators) (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1985).
9 Voltaire, Candide and Other Writings (New York: Random House, 1956).
10 Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension (New York: Anchor Books, 1966).
11 Judith P. Butler, Gender Trouble (Thinking Gender) (New York: Routledge, 1989).
12 Hannah Arendt, On Violence (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc., 1970).
13 John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (New York: Prometheus Books, 1936).
14 Zillah R. Eisenstein, The Color of Gender: Reimaging Democracy (Oakland, CA: The University of California Press, 1994).
15 Françoise Gaspard and Farhad Khosrokhavar, Le Foulard et la République (Paris: La Découverte, 1995).
16 Serena Miller, “Reimaging Tenure and Promotion for Creative Faculty: The Creative Scholarship Pathways Framework,” The Review of Communication 23, no. 2 (2023): XX.
17 Youngjun Shin, “An Interdisciplinary Inquiry in the Communicator: Implications of Relational Social Paradigm, Practice Theory, and Biological Science,” The Review of Communication 23, no. 2 (2023): XX.
18 Leland Spencer and Clint Graves, “What Communication Brings to the Study of Gaslighting: Metatheory Toward Interdisciplinarity,” The Review of Communication 23, no. 2 (2023): XX.
19 Johan Bodaski, “Socio-Materiality as Flesh,” The Review of Communication 23, no. 2 (2023): XX.
20 Desiree Rowe and Michaela Frischherz, “Introducing the Anti-Method Paradigm [Or, When Reviewer #2 Says Your Interdisciplinary Work is Vague, Messy, and Unrecognizable],” The Review of Communication 23, no. 2 (2023): XX.