Public Scholarship in Communication Studies
Abstract
Defined broadly as the engagement of scholars with nonacademic publics, public scholarship encompasses a variety of approaches to academic work. Each approach pushes academic work beyond the confines of the ivory tower and takes it into the various spaces in which public life is shaped and public values are contested. Most importantly, though, public scholarship does not, as is commonly held, entail mere publicity for scholars and their ideas. Rather, public scholarship entails an orientation on the part of scholars toward serving the public good that is not limited to conventional scholarly work. Within communication studies, there is a dearth of writing on what public scholarship looks like and how it should be practiced. Particularly in a time “communication crisis” in politics, health, and culture, and amidst serious debate over the purpose of the university in contemporary society, it is imperative that communication scholars make themselves useful to addressing the world’s problems. This edited volume advocates for exactly that, aiming to advance the practice of public scholarship across the diverse array of subfields within communication studies. In doing so, it documents communication scholars’ experiences and, in doing so, present models for successfully engaging in public scholarship. It further addresses key opportunities for and obstacles to the practice of public scholarship, attending to the particularities of each communication subfield.