Policy Research Community Research Articles

Network analysis

Structures of interest, influence and power in communication policy are shifting due to increasing digitization, economization and globalization. Against this background it is necessary to reflect more than before upon methods to study the relations between actors and their potential influences on regulation processes. The article explains qualitative network analysis as a research strategy for communication policy research and discusses qualitative interviews and network cards as research tools to put network analysis into practice. The theoretical basis consists of governance and network theory. The article focuses on an analysis of the German youth protection system, which provides practical insight into a qualitative network study.

연구를 위한 건강보험 청구자료 요구 및 이용 요인분석

Objectives : This study examined the health policy researchers' needs and their accessibility towards health insurance claim datasets according to their academic capacity. Methods : An online questionnaire to capture relevant proxy variables for academic needs, accessibility, and research capacity was constructed based on previous studies. The survey was delivered to active health policy researchers through three major scholarly associations in South Korea. Seven-hundred and one scholars responded while the survey as open for 12 days (starting on December 20th, 2010). Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis were carried out. Results : Regardless of the definition for operational needs, the prevalent needs of survey respondents were not met with the current provision of claim data. Greater research capacity was shown to be correlated with increased demand for claim data along with a positive correlation between attempts to obtain claim datasets and research capacity. A greater research capacity, however, was not necessarily correlated with better accessibility to the claim data. Conclusions : The substantial unmet need for claim data among the healthcare policy research community calls for establishing proactive institutions which could systematically prepare and make available public datasets and provide call-in services to facilitate proper handling of data.

‘New’ paradigms, ‘new’ theory and four priorities for South African mass communication and media research

This article emphasises the importance of context in mass communication and media research. A brief summary is offered of some of the main characteristics of postmodern society and the new media landscape, and explained as the impetus for the postmodern and postcolonial paradigms in mass communication and media research. From these paradigms ‘new’ theories have developed, such as ‘chaos theory’ and ‘practice theory’, with their emphasis on diversity, the pervasiveness and the anchoring role of the media. Given these new paradigms and theories, many of the tenets and basic assumptions of the positivist and critical paradigms need to be revised, as does normative theory, which is still dominated by Western conceptualisations. With the above as background and an argument for the study and research of the media as a semiosphere of meaning, four research priorities for future South African mass communication and media research are introduced: (1) fundamental research about the new media; (2) (media) development communication research from an African perspective; (3) the indigenisation of mass communication and media theory; and (4) communications policy research.

Kommunikasiekunde in Suid-Afrika: die begin, die hede en uitdagings vir die toekoms

Communication science in South Africa: the beginnings, the present and challenges for the future This article is based on the Gert Pienaar Commemorative Lec-ture given by the author of this article on 27 August 2009 at the North-West University, Potchefstroom. The late Professor Gert Pienaar founded communication science (then Press Science) in South Africa, fifty years ago. Apart from acknowledging his contribution, the purpose of the lecture and of this article is to briefly outline the main research paradigms which have guided South African mass communication research the past fifty years, namely the positivist (or managerial) paradigm and the critical paradigm. It is argued that normative questions about the role and functions of the media in society underlie these paradigms. Against the background of new paradigms such as the postmodern and postcolonial paradigms (of which the basic tenets are also outlined) the applicability and relevance of old normative media theory in a new society and in a new media landscape (briefly described) are questioned and the Western prejudice of “old” normative theory is highlighted. With this in mind, four research areas for future South African mass com-munication research are emphasised, namely fundamental new media research, development communication research from an African perspective, communications policy research, and the indigenisation of mass communication theory.

The privacy advocates: resisting the spread of surveillance

Semi-finalist, 2008 Donald McGannon Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communications Policy Research, given by the Donald McGannon Communication Research Center. Today, personal information is captured, processed, and disseminated in a bewildering variety of ways, and through increasingly sophisticated, miniaturized, and distributed technologies: identity cards, biometrics, video surveillance, the use of cookies and spyware by Web sites, data mining and profiling, and many others. In The Privacy Advocates, Colin Bennett analyzes the people and groups around the world who have risen to challenge the most intrusive surveillance practices by both government and corporations. Bennett describes a network of self-identified privacy advocates who have emerged from civil societywithout official sanction and with few resources, but surprisingly influential. A number of high-profile conflicts in recent years have brought this international advocacy movement more sharply into focus. Bennett is the first to examine privacy and surveillance not from a legal, political, or technical perspective but from the viewpoint of these independent activists who have found creative ways to affect policy and practice. Drawing on extensive interviews with key informants in the movement, he examines how they frame the issue and how they organize, who they are, and what strategies they use. He also presents a series of case studies that illustrate how effective their efforts have been, including conflicts over key-escrow encryption (which allows the government to read encrypted messages), online advertising through third-party cookies that track users across different Web sites, and online authentication mechanisms such as the short-lived Microsoft Passport. Finally, Bennett considers how the loose coalitions of the privacy network could develop into a more cohesive international social movement.

“More and Better” Research? Critical Communication Studies and the Problem of Policy Relevance

This article is a programmatic and reflexive report on a conference-workshop entitled Converging in Parallel: Linking Communications Research and Policy in Emerging Canadian Scholarship, held at McGill University November 9-10, 2006, and what we believe it suggests about improving the policy relevance of critical research in the field of communication studies in Canada. After canvassing three broad areas of communication policy research activity—methodology, linkages, and research topics—the report suggests several steps to address challenges identified in these areas.

The challenges of incorporating scientific evidence into policy making. In this issue.

The challenges of incorporating scientific evidence into policy making. In this issue.

Disaster mitigation and communications research in Canada: towards a responsive innovation agenda

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new conceptual framework for communications policy research pertaining to disaster mitigation in Canada. It claims that mitigation-oriented policy research must expand its agenda to focus on the deep social roots of risk and vulnerability in Canadian society and that such a re-orientation in theory can provide the foundation for the reform of public policy and practical action suited to the National Disaster Mitigation Strategy (NDMS). Key findings from a recent study of Canada's communications infrastructure are cited to introduce three research themes learning, innovation, and enabling that can serve as the foundation for a 'responsive innovation agenda'. The paper introduces this agenda, specifies its core normative principle, and then provides a number of real-world cases that can inform ongoing research efforts towards its realisation.

The Potential and Limits of Consumer Empowerment by Information

Consumer policy increasingly places emphasis on the role of information in allowing consumers to protect themselves and promoting a competitive economy. Increasing the information available to consumers is undoubtedly beneficial, but this article cautions that the limitations of consumer protection though information also have to be recognized. In particular, emphasis is placed on the insights provided by behavioural economics which suggests that consumers may not always respond to information provided as rationally as traditional economic models sometimes assume. One implication of this is that the way information rules are framed needs to be revisited. Other consumer policy approaches (altering the default rules, using bans and regulations, and risk sharing) need to be considered alongside a strategy of information provision. To analyse which approach should be adopted or to find the appropriate balance between different approaches requires policy makers to engage more fully with the legal and consumer policy research community.

Using Feminist Critical Policy Analysis in the Realm of Higher Education: The Case of Welfare Reform as Gendered Educational Policy

Policy analysis is never value-neutral. However, it is often silent on the issue of gender. As a result, traditional policy analysis results in and perverse understandings of the ways in which women's lives are affected by policy (Harding, 1986). In a recent of educational policy research, Catherine Marshall (1999) makes the argument that educational policy analysis systematically ignored or marginalized the feminist critique (p.1). Yet, as Marshall goes on to point out, gender is not an afterthought in the formation of policy itself. In fact, the state has a clear role in gender politics even when it is not overtly discussed in official documents (Apple, 1994). This is also directly applicable to research on higher education policy and practice. Many higher education policies, such as those regarding tuition, degree programs, and transfer policies, would appear to be gender neutral if analyzed within a relatively narrow framework that does not acknowledge broader economic, social, and political factors. Yet large-scale shifts in the global economy, along with major changes in national social policy, can have distinct and far-reaching effects on the practices and policies of colleges and universities, and in turn on the lives of the women who work in them and/or attend them. Recently, several researchers have provided evidence to support the argument that broad economic and political factors do indeed intersect with institutions of higher education and that they have a clear and consistent effect on women (Slaughter, 1999; Glazer, 1999). A recent and very relevant example of how broad social policy can function as a barrier to higher education for women can be found in the 1996 welfare reform legislation. Welfare reform is not generally perceived as higher education policy. The Department of Education had no formal role in its development, and most of the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform has focused on economic, rather than educational, issues. As a result, welfare reform has received relatively little attention among higher education researchers. However, this piece of policy has drastically reduced access to postsecondary education for welfare recipients (Jacobs & Winslow, 2003). Not incidentally, nearly all of these citizens are women, and most of them are single parents. Yet when viewed through a traditional policy analysis lens, both of these facts are obscured to most of the higher education policy research community. This article is an attempt to provide a partial corrective to more traditional analyses of higher education policy that most often obscure broader social factors that contribute to unequal power relations and educational outcomes related to social class, gender, and race/ethnicity. In this article I focus specifically on gender issues and employ a feminist critical policy analysis framework. As I explain in more detail below, feminist critical policy analysis challenges the positivist assumptions on which most policy analysis rests and employs methodological tools that provide a more complete understanding of policy from the perspective of both policymakers and those affected by the policy. I have chosen to utilize the 1996 welfare reform legislation as a case study to illustrate the usefulness of this methodological and analytical approach to policy analysis. The article begins with an overview of feminist critical policy analysis, placing it within the context of more traditional approaches to the study of policy and providing a rationale for its use as an alternative lens through which to examine policy. Second, I illustrate the usefulness of this analytical tool by employing it to uncover the gendered nature of one piece of federal public policy, namely, welfare reform. In particular, I utilize feminist critical policy analysis to examine the discourse that surrounded the development of the policy and that surrounds it now, as early research regarding its implementation and outcomes emerges. …

Prometheus unbound: 20 years of communication policy research

In this article I review 20 years of writing on communication policy in Prometheus. I examine the contribution Prometheus has made to three areas of knowledge about communication policy: communication itself, its histories, and broad notions of communication policy; telecommunications; and new communication technology. I suggest that it is in the latter two areas focusing on the technological dimensions of communication policy, that the journal has consistently contributed genuinely innovative work. Here the journal has fostered interdisciplinary writing and enquiry where policy and technology developments most required critique and new ideas.

The Soviet Union, Russia, and the biological and toxin weapons convention

Michael Moodie is the co-founder and President of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute (CBACI) in Alexandria, Virginia. He has more than 25-years experience on international security issues both in government and the policy research community. He is a former Assistant Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, where he had responsibility for a range of arms control matters, including negotiations concluding the Chemical Weapons Convention and issues related to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. Recently, he was the primary author of the CBACI report, Contagion and Conflict: Health as a Global Security Challenge. Other recent publications include “Fighting the Proliferation of Biological Weapons: Beyond the BWC Protocol,” in Disarmament Forum and Cooperative Security: Implications for National Security and International Relations.

Growth of exports from developing countries: implications for freight trends and ecological impact

Representatives of world governments and the policy research community often promote expansion of exports from developing countries as a means of growing national economies of these countries and raising living standards. This type of export growth over the long term will have important implications for the international freight transportation system and for its overall level of ecological impact; however, up to the present there is little research on this issue. This paper gives a preliminary analysis of the possibility for future growth over the next several decades, in two parts. First, an estimate of the range of potential growth in total export tonne-km and associated energy use is given. Second, production and export of apparel from developing countries is modeled to illustrate the effect of growth in international freight from the perspective of product life-cycle analysis. At the upper end of the estimated growth range, substantial increases in energy use and carbon emissions will merit specific policies to counteract the full participation of industrializing countries in the world trading system, and these are discussed. The paper also identifies areas where data gathering should be improved.

Underestimating Our Own Weight? The Scope and Impact of Communication Research on Public Policy

This chapter examines the scope and impact of communication research on public policy, with attention to three broad areas: mass communication, interpersonal communication, and organizational communication. In their review of research on mass communication, the authors focus on the topics of children and television violence and the effects of viewing pornography. In their discussion of research on interpersonal communication, they review research in health risk behaviors, hate speech, and crisis communication. They then address two areas of research in organizational communication: sexual harassment and privacy in the workplace. After a brief discussion of the breadth of communication policy research, the authors conclude with some observations on prospects for the future of this field.

Developments in Medicaid managed care

Some of the most important developments in the health care system are occurring in the Medicaid program. Medicaid has a natural engine for innovation since it is administered by the states, each of which has developed its Medicaid program in distinctive ways and has the power and resources of a large purchaser. The population covered by Medicaid--low income and disabled adults and chil- dren-presents many challenges; in many ways, these individuals seem perfect candidates for managed care programs that provide a point of entry, coordination of services, and a locus of accountability. Almost all states have tried some version of managed care under federally approved waivers of the ordinary rules of the Medicaid program. The challenges and opportunities resulting from the state-by-state nature of the Medicaid program provide one of the themes for this special section of the Journal of Urban Health. Medicaid operates in real time with real constraints, and states improvise their own solutions to the program's countless problems of design and administration. Yet, neither they nor the policy research community are well situated to draw lessons from their experiences. Sophisticated case studies, such as the paper of Gold and colleagues about Maryland and the safety net in this issue, are invaluable. Brodsky and Baron describe an innovative program at the Center for Health Care Strategies to enable states to learn from the experiences of each other. Somers and associates, whose work has made them familiar with developments in virtually all states, provide a broad synthesis regarding developments across the country. Questions regarding cost and quality provide the other theme for this issue.

Conceptualizing social justice in education: mapping the territory

Within recent studies of education policy, social justice has been an under‐theorized concept. This paper is an attempt to begin to remedy this situation. It critically examines some of the most prominent ways in which social justice has been and is being thought about within various traditions of social theory and concludes by sketching out a framework for conceptualizing social justice in the context of education policy research. However, the main purpose of the paper is not to provide a definitive conceptualization of social justice but to open up a debate which might usefully inform the work of the education policy research community.

Communications Policy in the Era of Choice and Convergence with Reflections on the Markle Foundation

Advances in information technology have gradually blurred the boundaries among the communications media, raising complex policy issues concerning regulation, intellectual property rights, the role of media in politics, and educational methods. The new information technology has ushered in the era of convergence and choice: convergence in the sense that all communications media are rapidly moving towards becoming simply a different form of bit streams in a digital network, and choice in that monopolies (like telephones) and tight oligopolies (like network television and local newspapers) are rapidly being challenged by new entrants as technological progress has lowered entry barriers. During this period, the Markle Foundation has been the leading supporter of research on the social and economic effects of these changes, under the leadership of its president, Lloyd Morrisett. This essay traces the co-evolution of information technology, communications policy research, and the Markle Foundation.

The politics of a paradigm shift: Telecommunications regulation and the communications revolution

Abstract As a result of the convergence of telecommunications and mass communications technologies, American policymakers face a series of critical decisions about infrastructural investment, technical architecture, and regulation that will determine the character of the U.S. electronic industrial base. This article develops the argument that the current policy trajectory will likely lead to some awkward choices. Powerful vested interests have distorted the communications policy process. Regulatory inertia has come to tie the hands of the regulators as well as the hands of industry leaders. We argue that there exists a critical opportunity for independent communications policy research to make a difference and to anticipate and facilitate a paradigm shift in telecommunications regulation.

Local energy conservation initiatives in the UK: Their nature and achievements

Local energy conservation initiatives in the UK have been relatively neglected on the part of the energy policy research community as a whole. However, though individually small in scale, in aggregate and with effective replication, their impact could be very substantial indeed. Here, we review and evaluate the varying nature of five different local UK energy conservation initiatives.

The Social Component in Communications Policy Research

The Social Component in Communications Policy Research