Rethinking Communication in Innovation Processes: Creating Space for Change in Complex Systems
Rethinking Communication in Innovation Processes: Creating Space for Change in Complex Systems
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DOI：
10.1080/1389224x.2011.536344
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发表时间：
2011-01-01
影响因子：
2.8
通讯作者：
Aarts, Noelle
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Leeuwis, Cees;Aarts, Noelle
本文从传播学和创新研究的基本理论发展入手，系统地重新思考了传播在创新过程中的作用。文献综述构成了所提出论点的基础。本文的结论是，创新是一个集体过程，涉及对多个社会网络中的关系进行上下文重新排序。这种重新排序不能被有效地理解为“传播”现成的创新。因此，我们需要把沟通视为在创新发展和“设计”中发挥作用。在这样的发展过程中，社会主体之间的日常交流和自我组织可能对社会关系的重新排序具有至关重要的意义。在这一点上，传播专业人士和故意传播的作用经常被夸大或曲解。与其为预先定义的改变而努力，传播专业人士应该促进在复杂的动态环境中增加改变的可能性。这包括努力提高现有变革举措的生存机会，方法是促进这些举措比竞争举措更有效地适应和/或与其动态的甄选环境相联系。这意味着传播专业人员必须发挥比以前更广泛的中介作用。鉴于通信科学、创新研究和复杂系统思维的最新发展，对通信在创新过程中的作用进行系统的重新思考在很大程度上是缺失的。这篇论文填补了一个空白。
This paper systematically rethinks the role of communication in innovation processes, starting from largely separate theoretical developments in communication science and innovation studies. Literature review forms the basis of the arguments presented. The paper concludes that innovation is a collective process that involves the contextual re-ordering of relations in multiple social networks. Such re-ordering cannot be usefully understood in terms of 'diffusing' ready-made innovations. Hence, we need to think about communication as playing a role in innovation development and 'design'. In such development processes, everyday communicative exchanges and self-organisation among societal agents are likely to be of critical significance in connection with the re-ordering of social relationships. In this light, the role of communication professionals and deliberate communication is often overstated or misinterpreted. Instead of striving for predefined change, communication professionals should facilitate that 'the potential for change' in complex dynamical settings increases. This includes efforts to enhance the survival chances of existing initiatives for change, by facilitating that they become more effectively adapted and/or linked to their dynamic selection environment than competing initiatives. This implies that communication professionals must play broader intermediary roles than before. A systematic rethinking of the role of communication in innovation processes in view of recent developments in communication sciences, innovation studies and complex systems thinking is largely absent. This paper fills a void.