The International Journal of Communication (IJoC), in collaboration with the Social Science Research Council, has just published a series of contributions from invited participants to the IJoC/SSRC Forum on “Making Communication Research Matter”. This Special Feature focuses on how and why engaged research should be conducted.

Topics include an exploration of how researchers can include and collaborate with under-represented populations (for whom should our research matter?); an examination of how different roles (practitioner, academic and activist) can overlap and complement each other to support the community radio cause in the policy arena; an analysis of the obstacles and methodological challenges of working with grassroots activists (how can different organizational cultures talk to each other?); and a discussion of how personal and collective processes of reflection and action can empower researchers and practitioners in understanding dynamics of power and participation.  

The papers constitute the building blocks of an epistemology of engaged research. They are highly relevant for communications and media scholars, as well as for students of social movements, policy and governance, and methods for social research. 

Titles include:  

Stefania Milan: Introduction: Toward An Epistemology of Engaged Research
Charlotte Ryan, Vanessa Salas-Wright, Mike Anastario, and Gabriel Cámara Cervera: Making Research Matter... Matter to Whom?
Arne Hintz and Stefania Milan: Social Science is Police Science: Researching Grass-Roots Activism
Peter Lewis: Scenes from a Community Radio Campaign, 1972-2009: Un/Masking Objectivity
Jethro Pettit: Learning to do Action Research for Social Science

They are published in the Feature section of the International Journal of Communication, 4(2010), and available for download at:
http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc.