Doing What Comes Naturally-Suggestions for Supporting Research

Expanded from remarks given on acceptance of the Eleanor Blum Award for Support for Research at the AEJMC's 2004 convention in Toronto, 6 August 2004. Being honored for supporting research over a lifetime is both a daunting distinction and a somewhat curious one. I am, of course, grateful for the award and privileged to be in the company of those who received it before. At the same time, I am fully aware that anyone who is a citizen of the university ought to engage in research as a natural course of action, both as a matter of commitment to intellectual pursuit and as a condition of one's job description. While never stopping to think systematically about it, I suppose I have always considered support for research my duty whether as a teacher, researcher, writer, editor, administrator, or institution-builder. I have found this to be the case, whether working for a university, a policy-research center, or a foundation to mention some venues I've enjoyed. There were times when it was unquestionably a high personal priority-as a director of graduate studies, a dean, or department chair-and certainly as the director of three institutes of advanced study. For me, this award joins two happy conditions-first, the privilege of celebrating, honoring and remembering dear Eleanor Blum who was for so long the magisterial keeper of the literature of our field and-second, to underscore with urgency that research needs support. That may seem self evident, but too often it is not-and there are too few opportunities to be self conscious about it-either as individuals or as a field. Support for research begins with individuals caring enough to look beyond their own needs and self interests. But it also requires institutional support. To be specific, I mean intellectual, moral, and psychological support, as well as administrative and financial support and support for publication and dissemination. Each of these elements can only be achieved through conscious action. Some years ago I had the unenviable task of speaking after dinner at a publishers' meeting hosted by the University of Western Ontario. My assigned topic for the august Clissold Lecture was to explain the value of research and theory in journalism schools. Somewhat lamely, I titled the talk, "It Wouldn't Work in Practice," and I can attest that it didn't. During an interminable evening with a cocktail party and dinner preceding my talk, I tried to make the point that research is really about respect and about institutional memory. Luckily for me the lecture was published and is still cited today, though I doubt that anyone there recalls a thing I said. Of course, I learned that there are occasions when the case for research doesn't have the highest priority-and also never to talk about serious things after dinner, even if urged to do so by others. My point then and now, though, is that research is conditional on respect for the work that came before and the work that continues today, all of which contributes in some measure to learning and the advancement of knowledge. Something, I thought, could be said for Robert Merton's reminder that we stand "On the Shoulders of Giants." And, some would add, pygmies, too! All too often, though, we don't follow this axiom which is easy to ignore or willfully dismiss. When I first began attending meetings of this association, there was a fragile truce between the documentarians from history, law, and the like and the empirical, quantitative researchers. The sprit and conflict of C. P. Snow's Two Cultures was very much in the air. Where there had been open warfare between these two factions, that had died down by the time I got here and what prevailed was coexistence marked by civility. Still, then and now, there are those who are quick say, "that isn't research," when encountering a study or critique outside their own range of experience. Much has happened in the interceding years as research has broadened across many fields and subfields. …