A praxeological study of research in communication, through analysis of the hegemonic discourse of academic researchers in Spain [Bilingual edition: Spanish – English]

Abstract

Meta-research is an activity usually addressed from the philosophy of scientific knowledge and sometimes from the sociology of science, and the object of study on which the research on research (meta-research) has almost always been the recognized research practices according to the subjects of study and/or the methodological procedures in the elaboration, registration and treatment of the data made available to scientific communities. But the least practiced so far has been the praxeological study of the research, attempting to discover the dialectical relations between the objective structures that condition the human action (praxis) of scientific research processes, and the structured dispositions that are updated in academic debates and which the discourses of researchers tend to reproduce. To this end, the MapCom Project organized three sessions of debates in Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga on Research in Communication, which were the first university meetings held in this regard in Spain. The Phillips 66 technique was applied to this, which, for this type of meeting, addresses the challenge of conveniently organizing a call for experts, giving them the opportunity to express their opinions in a nuanced manner in group meetings and subsequent rounds of sharing in plenary sessions, not exceeding a working day. The subject of discussion included questions related to the system and the research processes, as well as to the management of the research activity in the field of Communication. Having recorded and transcribed the speeches of the researchers, the qualitative analysis tool Atlas.ti was applied. And it was revealing the dialectical contradiction that the analysis with this tool of Atlas.ti allowed to discover, and that was to find the opposition between what it is to face the politics of the cooperation (weak for not favoring networks of teams of investigators) with the politics of competitiveness (obsession with academic-professional recognition). And presumably this choice will follow alternative non-reversible praxis to be undertaken and that can no longer be ignored.