What is it about?
What is at stake in the naming and description of an academic field such as media and communication studies? This chapter argues that a re-conceptualisation of the question of the naming and description of fields is an important task for the critical sociology of media and communication.
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Why is it important?
Situating the narrating of the field as an object of analysis promotes awareness of the rhetorical dimensions of the way academic fields are discussed, which in turn have a direct bearing on relations of power and institutional capital. This chapter tackles the ‘problematic’ of field formation through a meta-critical lens, guided by the critical sociology of John Urry and sociological dramatism of Kenneth Burke. In the discussion that follows I focus on the work of three prominent narrators of the field: Hanno Hardt, John Durham Peters and Silvio Waisbord. I trace some of the interconnections between these critical scholars of communication and the way they narrate the field. The question of post-disciplinarity raised by Waisbord in particular is considered in more detail.
Perspectives
The way we narrate and frame fields as implications both for critical work and public understanding of it. It is an important form of disciplinary storytelling and sense-making that permeates the academic architecture of journals and associations.
Steven Maras
University of Western Australia
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This page is a summary of: Narrating the Field of Communication: Charting an Unstable Territory, January 2026, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004748545_018.
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