John Downey (ECREA vice-president)

In recent weeks ECREA has issued three public statements relating to the suppression of academic freedom and autonomy in Belarus and Hungary. We stand in solidarity with our colleagues and students in these countries exercising their democratic rights to protest and to voice criticism of the regimes. Although thankfully these are extreme cases in the European context at least, colleagues in many European countries are mindful of how their public actions may be received by the powers that be. The Covid pandemic has at once highlighted the relevance of scientists, including communication scholars, and of speaking truth to power and reminded us that academics expressing uncomfortable views for those in power can be easily discriminated against in major and minor ways. To step outside the ivory tower and engage with the world may of course sometimes be good for one’s career but it is also motivated by wanting to change the world for the better, to make a difference. And it carries risks from death to imprisonment and intimidation to being passed over when it comes to promotion. Being awkward, of questioning authority and received wisdom consistently and insistently from the seminar room to the presidential palace, should be part of the essential criteria in any job specification for an academic position.

Michael Burawoy in his 2004 Presidential Address to the American Sociological Association makes a persuasive argument for the rebirth of a public sociology. He argues that the founding voices of sociology—Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Du Bois, Adams— shared a moral and political purpose to change the world for the better. This, however, has been mislaid: “If our predecessors set out to change the world we have too often ended up conserving it. Fighting for a place in the academic sun, sociology has developed its own specialised knowledge” (2005, 5). Communication scholars, of course, also want their place in the academic sun. We want respect from colleagues in other disciplines, recognition of the value of the field, large research grants from prestigious funding bodies, prizes and plaudits. There’s nothing wrong with this but there is a danger though that we too lose our moral and political purpose.

In many European countries and beyond there is now an ‘impact agenda’ in academia largely dreamt up by politicians who want scholars to prove their social relevance and worth. This is almost a strong argument for moving back into the ivory tower and pulling up the drawbridge. At its worst the impact agenda offers an emaciated view of the role of science as a handmaiden to the economy or other vested interests, of producing applied, instrumental and acritical work at the behest of those with power. Of course, there is a need to challenge and change this impact agenda as best we can so that academics are not the servants of power but rather are able to effect change through critique. The ECREA conference in 2022 in Aarhus, organised as a partnership between the university and the city, asks us to ‘Rethink Impact!’ as its theme. Of course, persuading people and organisations of the need for radical change is difficult. It is not always going to succeed, at least not immediately. We should be good at this sort of thing though as the precondition for effecting significant change beyond academia is that we remain true to our cherished academic values and remain stubbornly awkward.

Burawoy, Michael. 2005. “For Public Sociology.” American Sociological Review 70 (1): 4–28.

John Downey is Professor of Comparative Media Analysis and Head of Communication and Media at Loughborough University, UK.  He is also a Vice-President of ECREA.