Communication research and the “rhetorical environment”

Abstract

COMMUNICATION RESEARCH AND THE RHETORICAL ENVIRONMENT The focal question which I address myself in this paper was stated many years ago by a distinguished social scientist, whose name has become legendary: late Robert S. Lynd, co-author of famous Middletown studies. Lynd delivered a series of lectures in 1938, published following year in a book under provocative title, Knowledge for What? Lynd's purpose was consider, in words of book's subtitle, the place of social science in American culture. I think following passages capture Lynd's central concern--a concern that does not sound totally irrelevant in 1993: No informed person questions ... indispensability of objective data-gathering and of exhaustive statistical analysis of those data for all they are worth. The only question ... raised here concerns need ask, What are they worth for what? (Lynd, 1939, p. 128; emphasis in original) A few sentences later, Lynd wondered whether, in many instances, answer this question is to give lectures and supervise writing of dissertations (p. 129). (Should anyone, by way, read between lines and guess that this paper will make claim that only good communication research is that which seeks offer practical guidance in solving a real-life problem, let me be unequivocal: such a guess is way off mark.) Lynd's doubts about usefulness of social scientific research in late 1930s are essentially same as many of those voiced by critics in 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. For example, social psychologist Kenneth Gergen, in a wide-ranging critique of social sciences as he viewed them in early 1980s, lamented that number of research publications in sociobehavioral sciences has multiplied exponentially over past three decades. Yet one is hard pressed locate substantial gains in knowledge. (Gergen, 1982, pp. 3-4) After noting daily occurrence of major crises, both in society at large and in people's personal lives, he posed this double-barreled question: Is it just a matter of more hard work before [social] sciences will begin discern constancies, enduring principles beneath vicissitudes of common experience? Will time, funding, research, and greater theoretical effort finally allow behavioral scientist answer rudiments of human conduct, and return manifold society its investments date? [His laconic answer:] There is room for suspicion. (Gergen, 1982, p. 2; emphasis supplied) We should take careful note of phrase, to return manifold society its investments. In my view, Gergen is reminding us that there may come a time when society will question whether it should continue provide financial and other resources support social scientific research that appears contribute very little enriching quality of human life on this planet. The distinguished psychologist Seymour Sarason, in his recent autobiography (Sarason, 1988), provides a thoughtful assessment of state of psychological sciences. Admitting that many of his colleagues will register vigorous dissent, he deliberately walks out end of a limb when he declares that any field like psychology should be judged by degree which it understands, anticipates, and takes action in regard changes in society. (Sarason, 1988, p. 297) And, recently, in their comprehensive critique of contemporary America, The Good Society, Bellah and his associates take it as a matter of self-evident truth that All social science is implicitly normative as well as descriptive (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1991, p. 303; emphasis supplied). I refrain from piling up quotations from credible observers. The central issue that these and a host of other critics are addressing, epitomized in Lynd's knowledge for what, I shall hereafter, for the-sake of convenience, designate by shorthand term, social relevance issue. …