Communications Research in Action: Scholar-Activist Collaborations for a Democratic Public Sphere

16. Engendering Scholar-Activist Collaborations: An Evaluator’s Perspective

CHAPTER 16 Engendering Scholar-Activist Collaborations An Evaluator’s Perspective catherine borgman-arboleda This chapter offers some reflections based upon my role as an evaluator for the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Collaborative Grants program, which was the primary component of the Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere (NK) demonstration project that is described in the previous chapter by Joe Karaganis.1 The NK project offered the emerging field of media reform and justice grants and technical assistance to facilitate scholar-activist partnerships. These partnerships had both a tactical and strategic purpose. Tactically, they were intended to produce research that could help bring about progressive policy change in the U.S. media and communications system. Strategically, they were also aimed at addressing another purpose: to nurture a culture of collaboration between scholars and activists (as discussed by Karaganis in Chapter 15). The SSRC program staff and its funders2 premised the program design on prior research that had illuminated a need for institutional research capacity in the emerging field of media reform and media justice. The NK project (a result of more than two years of discussions and interviews by the SSRC and others, such as the OMG Center for Collaborative Learning, with key actors in the field) was initiated as an attempt to address those challenges, but also to take things a bit further. By selecting a highly respected research organization, not a policy advocacy organization, to serve as an intermediary for regranting purposes, the hope was that actors in the field itself, not a funding agency (that is, Ford or SSRC) could develop a process for distributing research funds that was democratic, transparent, and representative of the field’s needs. The role of my organization, the 313 314 c a th e r in e b or g m an - a rb o l ed a Center for International Media Action (CIMA),3 in partnership with the SSRC, was to provide strategic research and program design and evaluation support for the program. We were also tasked with the design and implementation of the two grantee technical assistance and networking workshops . As evaluators, our role was to help develop a theory of change for this program,4 to document the program’s activities, and to provide continual feedback from the field. Targeted beneficiaries included current and possibly future funders in the field, as well as researchers, public interest policy advocates , and community organizers. The SSRC program was ambitious and highly experimental. Thus, it is in that spirit that I offer my reflections based upon three years of interviews, surveys, and facilitated meetings with grantees, the NK selection committee, external academics from communication programs, and personnel from other grantmaking programs aimed at connecting practitioners and scholars .5 My goal is to inform future endeavors with similar goals and aspirations . What follows then is my rendering of an evaluator’s perspective on the structure and priorities of the NK program. I review what the program sought to accomplish, which was to advance more participatory knowledge building and knowledge mobilization efforts. I identify the following key considerations for academic-practitioner bridge building designed to address social issues: What are the longer-term social change goals, and what is the model of public and community participation needed to reach these goals? How can knowledge production and use support this broader model of participation? Who is positioned to advance this knowledge strategy? What are the persistent barriers and important dynamics involved in the coproduction of knowledge? What are effective approaches for overcoming these challenges, and how can a social movement knowledge strategy be supported? theoretical background A shift in participation and decision making in democratic processes is now widely understood by social change scholars and practitioners to be fundamental in addressing societal problems, from global to local, and engendering a more equitable distribution of resources. Related assumptions undergirding the change theory adopted by the SSRC and CIMA for the NK project resonate throughout the literature on public policymaking. Skocpol (2003) calls the United States ‘‘the most pluralist polity in the world’’; yet, he also makes the point that ‘‘associations claiming to speak for the people lack incentives and capacities to mobilize large numbers of people,’’ characterizing a ‘‘yawning gap’’ between professional, memberless, Washington DC–based organizations and local community-based organizations ’’ (139–140). Many international development research organizations and think tanks, such as the Overseas Development Institute (ODI),6...