Studying Communication: Disciplined Multidisciplinarity
Nirmala Mani Adhikary
(Presented as a talk on 1 May 2010, at the Department of
Languages and Mass Communication, Kathmandu University)
Physics, Mathematics, Statistics, Mass Communication, Journalism,
English, Research Methodology, Hinduism, and Communication Theory — do they
converge? If yes, for what? This article deals with these issues with reference
to academic practices in the field of communication studies, and also to my
personal experiences of being exposed across the aforesaid disciplines.
There seems an agreement on considering communication such
discipline of knowledge, or academic field of study, that incorporates insights
from a number of disciplines. Communication theory has most typically drawn
from the humanities and social sciences. The field has also been enriched with
the communication researches carried out by non-communication scholars such as
political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, social-psychologists and linguists
among others. In other words, communication has been theorized from various
approaches. The trend seems to be accelerating thereby drawing on even newer
disciplines. For instance, there are scholars who have highlighted that the
natural sciences, medicine, and engineering are full of considerations of time,
space, signals, distance, contact, which are central concerns and topics of
communication theory.
Thus the discipline of communication has been multidisciplinary and it
continues to be so. But, neither this means that communication is a secondary
perspective that can be explained only by other disciplines, nor the
multidisciplinary origin of communication makes it episodic. Rather, it is
claimed that communication is primary to all social processes and therefore the
existence of a discipline to explain the society from the standpoint of
communication is understandable. In reality, communication itself has already
been established as a discipline of knowledge in its own right. Communication’s
disciplinarity can be understood as ‘disciplined multidisciplinarity’ where
insights from all other disciplines engrave into its mainstream disciplinary
framework.
My academic endeavors also resemble to that of communication discipline. I
started my higher study as a student of science thereby studying physics,
mathematics, and statistics chiefly. I did M.A. in Mass Communication and
Journalism, and M. Phil. in English. My Ph. D. research deals with Hinduism,
particularly the Bhatta School of Mimamsa philosophy and communication theory.
Different roots; yet, unifying applications within the domain of communication
discipline.
The first question raised above (“Do they converge?”) meets an affirmative end.
It has been so, as explained above, in general. And, I have experienced so, in
particular. Without the study of as diverse subjects as physics, mathematics,
statistics, mass communication, journalism, research methodology, and Hinduism,
it would be very hard for me to understand the disciplined multidisciplinarity
of communication.
And, the convergence of various disciplines in the mainstream disciplinary
framework of communication makes and has been making the discipline more
dynamic, more comprehensive and livelier. The claim of communication as the
base of the society and the locus that holds the society together demands the
discipline to be all-encompassing in both approaches and applications, which is
certainly impossible without multidisciplinary insights. In other words, the
implications of disciplined multidisciplinarity not only broaden the discipline
of communication, but also strengthen communication’s claim as the ‘center’
(contrasted to the ‘periphery’) as compared to other disciplines. At least, the
disciplined multidisciplinarity certainly contributes — more than the episodic
multidisciplinarity and the unidisciplinarity — to the better understanding of
communication in a broader setting of the society.
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