Translations| Communication Studies Without Frontiers? Translation and Cosmopolitanism Across Academic Cultures

Authors

  • Silvio Waisbord George Washington University

Keywords:

translation, communication studies, globalization, academic culture

Abstract

This article discusses the translatability of communication scholarship in the context of globalized academia and research traditions. The notion of translation is useful to reflect upon the globalization of academic cultures in communication studies. The globalization of academic cultures confronts matters that translation studies have long recognized: the clash between dogmatism and difference, language slips and gaps, and the possibility of (mis)understandings. Although globalization invites scholars to broaden perspectives, it does not necessarily promote the rapprochement of epistemic communities in communication studies or the values of universal, de-Westernized, and cosmopolitan scholarship. We may hope communication research includes a plurality of global voices, but we still lack a clear path to overcome different understandings about quality standards, conceptual languages, and epistemological premises.

Author Biography

Silvio Waisbord, George Washington University

Silvio Waisbord is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. He is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Press/Politics. His most recent books are Reinventing Professionalism: News and Journalism in Global Perspective (Polity), Vox Populista (Gedisa), and the edited volume Media Sociology: A Reappraisal (Polity).  He is also the author of Watchdog Journalism in South America (Columbia University Press, 2000), and El Gran Desfile (The Great Parade, Sudamericana, 1995), and co-editor of Global Health Communication (Wiley, forthcoming 2012), Media and Globalization: Why the State Matters (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001) and Latin Politics, Global Media (University of Texas Press, 2002). He also wrote the novel Duelo (Biblos Argentina 2009). His areas of interest are journalism and politics, and media and communication in aid, development and social change. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology (University of California, San Diego) and a Licenciatura in Sociology (Universidad de Buenos Aires).

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Published

2016-02-08

Issue

Vol. 10 (2016)

Section

Special Sections

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