Recuperating Areas
Research on Media and Communication History and South Asian Studies
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5769872 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shiv Ganesh (0000-0002-7239-5465, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Publication date | 2021-10-30 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History of Media Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2637-6091 • E-ISSN: 2637-6091 |
| Publisher | mediastudies.press (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.32376/d895a0ea.39528923 |
| OpenAlex | W3208538024 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
In this short piece I argue, as provocation, that a recuperated area-focused approach to the history of research on media and communication can remedy the twin problems of theoretical universalization and methodological parochialism that continue to persist in the field despite decades of critique.The former, of course, implicates the modernist project of developing theories of communication that stretch to explain much of the complexity of human behavior, and the latter involves the problematic assumption that what works well by way of technique in one place ought to be reproducible in others.The need to do this is particularly urgent for scholars who are invested both in historicizing communication as well as the history of communication research per se.This is precisely because social scientific disciplines that seek to produce general laws about the world tend to be ahistorical and produce a kind of amnesia about the specific historical and cultural origins of concepts themselves, whether those are attribution theories, hypotheses about behavioral change, or even the concept of behavior itself.In contrast, contemporary area studies are by definition and character interdisciplinary; have objects of study that, at least at first blush, are spatially and temporally bounded; and in the current moment, mitigate historical disciplinary impulses towards theoretical colonization as well as methodological blinkers.It is crucial to note, however, that the history of area studies is itself steeped in problematic discourses of containment.Said's famous critique of area studies argued that it was a manifestly orientalist History of Media Studies, vol. 1, 2021 recuperating areas 2 practice, where western experts produce knowledge about others, based on geographical and epistemic categories that suited the administrative calculus of Cold War politics: hence the revolving door in the midcentury United States between directors of area studies programs and the Federal Administration, especially the Department of State. 1 Yet, the very critique of these political and ideological con-1 For cogent critiques of the history of area studies, see Hossein Khosrowjah
Asian Studies and History · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
The International History of Communication Study
State Consolidation through Liberalization of Telecommunications Services in India
“Under Western Eyes” Revisited
Whose India? Site and the origins of satellite television in India
The epistemology of Indian mass communication research
Mass Communication in India
The Cultures of Area Studies in the United States
Communication and Culture in Ancient India and China
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |