DECONSTRUCTING
DISSEMINATION: DISSEMINATION
AS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Viv Barnes, Coventry University
Lynn Clouder, Coventry University
Christina Hughes, University of
Warwick
Judy Purkis, University of Central
England
Jackie Pritchard, Coventry University
This paper is published in Qualitative Research, 3, 2,
Please direct correspondence to:
Dr Christina Hughes
Department of Continuing Education
University of Warwick, Coventry, CV 4 7AL
C.L.Hughes@warwick.ac.uk
Biographical Notes
Viv Barnes is a senior lecturer in social work at Coventry
University following a career in social work practice and
management. She specialises in teaching and research in child
care social work.
Lynn Clouder is a Senior Lecturer in Health and Social Sciences
at Coventry University. She has published widely on reflective
practice and recently completed her PhD An Exploration of the
Social Construction of Professional Identities at the University
of Warwick.
Christina Hughes is a senior lecturer in the Department of
Sociology, University of Warwick. Her recent publications
include Women's Contemporary Lives: Within and Beyond the
Mirror (2002, London, Routledge) and Key Concepts in
Feminist Theory and Research (2002, London, Sage). She is
currently completing an edited text on dissemination
(Disseminating Qualitative Research in Educational Settings,
Buckingham, Open University).
Jackie Pritchard is a Principal Lecturer in Nursing Studies at
Coventry University. For many years she was the course leader
to the Health Visitor Course and is currently teaching on a wide
variety of post-registration nursing and midwifery programmes
with a particular concern for research methods and
communication skills. Jackie completed her PhD Public, Private
and Personal: A Qualitative Study of the Invisible Aspects of
Health Visiting, University of Warwick, in 2001.
Judy Purkis is a senior lecturer in Women's Health Studies at the
University of Central England. She is a registered nurse and
midwife and after a first degree in Health and Social Policy
undertook a Master's degree in Continuing Education. She is
currently undertaking research on the experiences and retention
of newly qualified midwives for for her PhD.
DECONSTRUCTING DISSEMINATION:
DISSEMINATION AS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Abstract
This paper offers a critique of dissemination models that are
based on technical rationalist ontologies. We argue that such
models privilege a particularly narrow set of meanings and in
consequence preclude other ways through which we might
imagine dissemination acts. Our paper therefore seeks to
deconstruct dissemination in order to illuminate the ethical,
political and communicative issues that lie at the heart of
dissemination practices and to offer a range of alternative ways
that dissemination might be conceptualised. These issues are
illustrated through a series of vignettes that are drawn from
research in the fields of education, health and social care. These
focus on the everyday features of qualitative research that are
more usually discussed in relation to substantive issues of
methodology rather than dissemination per se. These vignettes
are designed to demonstrate how dissemination is present at the
very moment of conceptualising research and that it continues in
ways we have yet to explore well after the formal stages of
research are complete.
Key Words
Dissemination, deconstruction, evidence-based research,
postmodernism, poststructuralism
Introduction
The discourses of `end users', `evidence informed' research,
`quality', `value for money', `policy relevance' `best practice' and
`research impact', together with the audit culture of higher
education research, suggest that a high profile would be given to
an analysis of academic experiences of dissemination. Indeed, a
key word search of the database on the social science gateway
SOSIG highlights the extent to which dissemination is perceived
to be a core activity of research and academic life. This search
indicated that 132 organisations include the concept in their
policy statements. A search of the ESRC data base REGARD
drew 88 items. Nevertheless, these references were a descriptive
note about dissemination approaches rather than an analysis of
academic practices of dissemination.
A similar search of research methods textbooks indicates how
the topic of dissemination has not received any sustained
analysis or critique. Indeed, even those texts that are
concerned with action research where dissemination is integral
to the process give it scant mention (see for example, Hart and
Bond, 1995; Greenwood and Levin, 1998; Morton-Cooper,
2000). Where dissemination is discussed, the primary responses
are to treat it as the final stage of research. Thus, `how to' texts,
such as Blaxter, Hughes and Tight (2001) include a short section
on dissemination in terms of the end-product of research. Texts
such as Robson (2000) discuss the implementation of evaluative
findings in terms of a written report. Within the broader social
science research literature issues of dissemination appear to vary
across the disciplines. For example, Stokking (1994) argues that
the links between research knowledge and working practices are
particularly strong in areas such as health care, agriculture and
industry. In consequence, this has led to greater systematisation
in the dissemination of research. Within both school and
continuing education research, however, dissemination has been
seen as particularly problematic (see for example Schuller,
1996; Hillage et al 1998). Indeed Hillage et al (1998) identified
`rampant ad-hocery' as the main approach to dissemination in
school based research. In addition, it would be fair to say that
the predominant understandings of dissemination focus on
technical-rational models that are based on positivist
understandings of social reality. For example, Freemantle et al
(1994: 133) refer to dissemination as the process of
implementation through which users `become aware of, receive,
accept and utilise information'. Such models are presented
through check-list approaches, stages and `good practice' guides.
In contrast our own approach to understanding the processes of
dissemination has focused on a deconstructive model that has
sought to illuminate the ethical, political and communicative
issues that lie at the heart of dissemination practices. Spivak
(1999: 423) notes how deconstruction is a term coined by
Jacques Derrida whose early writings `examined how texts of
philosophy, when they established definitions as starting points,
did not attend to the fact that all such gestures involved setting
each defined item off from all that it was not'. Thus whilst a
definition attempts to offer a fixed and indeed closed meaning
this meaning is actually drawn from an absent other. For
example, Table 1 sets out some of the main meanings of
dissemination in the left hand column. However, the meanings
in the left hand column draw on those from those listed on the
right. The predominant meanings of dissemination that we have
outlined above therefore invoke the
trace or mark of those meanings in the right hand column.
Table 1 about here
In addition this relational nature of meaning gives rise to an
instability of meaning. Thus, `the first term in a binary
opposition can never be completely stable or secure, since it is
dependent on that which is excluded' (Finlayson, 1999: 64). As
the main meanings of dissemination change then so do the
meanings of what dissemination is not. For these reasons
deconstruction sees social life as a series of texts that can be
read in a variety of ways and which in consequence give rise to
a range of meanings. Moreover, each reading produces another
text to the extent that we can view the social world as the
emanations of a whole array of intertextual weavings. This is an
important point in terms of how we might think about political
challenges to meaning as it draws attention to the potential of
change rather than stasis. Whilst there is this variety, these
binaries are organised in terms of a hierarchy. Thus as we have
also indicated the meanings in the left hand column are
ascendant. Deconstruction does not seek to overturn the binary
through a reversal of dominance. This would simply maintain
hierarchization. Deconstruction is concerned to illustrate how
language is used to frame meaning. Politically its purpose is to
lead to `an appreciation of hierarchy as illusion sustained by
power. It may be a necessary illusion, at our stage in history. We
do not know. But there is no rational warrant for assuming that
other imaginary structures would not be possible' (Boyne, 1990:
124).
•
To achieve this deconstruction involves three phases (Grosz,
1990). The first two of these are the reversal and displacement
of the hierarchy. In terms of reversal we might, for example,
seek to reclaim the terms on the right of Table 1 for more
positive interpretations of their meanings in relation to
dissemination. However it is insufficient simply to try reverse
the hierarchical status of any binary. At best this simply keeps
hierarchical organisation in place. At worst such attempts will
be ignored because the dominant meanings of a hierarchical
pairing are so strongly in place. This is why it is necessary to
displace common hierarchized meanings. This is achieved by
displacing the `negative term, moving it from its oppositional
role into the very heart of the dominant term' (Grosz, 1990: 97).
The purpose of this is to make clear how the subordinated term
is subordinated. This requires a third phase. This is the creation
of a new term. Grosz notes that Derrida called the new term a
`hinge' word. She offers the following examples:
•
... such as `trace' (simultaneously present and absent),
`supplement' (simultaneously plenitude and excess); `différance'
(sameness and difference); `pharmakon' (simultaneously poison
and cure); `hymen' (simultaneously virgin and bride, rupture
and totality), etc. ... These `hinge words' (in Irigaray, the two
lips, fluidity, maternal desire, a genealogy of women, in
Kristeva, semanalysis, the semiotic, polyphony, etc) function as
undecidable, vacillating between two oppositional terms,
occupying the ground of their `excluded middle'. If strategically
harnessed, these terms rupture the systems from which they
`originate' and in which they function. (p 97)
A primary purpose of our paper is to use the dualistic framing of
dissemination to illustrate that the subordinate side of the binary
is worthy of exploration. In this our paper is focused on the
second stage of deconstruction that Grosz (op cit) has set out.
Thus we are working at reversing and displacing, but not
replacing, predominant meanings. To achieve this our paper is
concerned to illustrate how the everyday processes of qualitative
research can be reconfigured as dissemination. Our paper is
therefore organised in terms of a series of vignettes that draw on
our joint and individual experiences of fieldwork across the
fields of education, health and social care. These focus on a
particular stage or process in the execution of qualitative
research and our aim is to highlight how issues of dissemination
are embedded within each of them.
The Literature Review and Research Design as
Dissemination
The literature review is an important starting point for the
development of knowledge. Commonly the literature review
enables students and researchers to acquire an understanding of
what has already been accomplished and what the key issues are
within a specific field of enquiry. Protocols for conducting
literature reviews focus on encouraging systematic, evaluative
appraisals of an existing body of work and one of their aims is
to encourage the development of expertise in that area (Hart,
1998). In consequence the literature review also forms a key
aspects of the design of any piece of research as the results of
the review are incorporated into who and what will be studied,
what strategies of enquiry and methods will be used for
collecting and analysing empirical materials (Punch, 1998).
These starting points in the development of a research project
are, however, less commonly understood as an aspect of the
dissemination process. Rather, dissemination is seen as the endpoint of a linear research design rather than the beginning of
another's, or one's own, project. Here, we seek to explore the
dissemination of ideas that the literature review represents. A
key disseminated idea for those working within critical research
paradigms, and one that would be found when undertaking an
initial literature review in this field, is that of subverting
traditional hierarchical relations. For example, Griffiths (1998:
177) comments that `the terms `power' and `empowerment' crop
up a great deal in research related to social justice'. Thus,
working within a participatory action research framework Slim
and Thompson (1993) argue for the reversal of common expertnovice relations between development workers and those who
should be benefiting from this work. Such a principle would be
embedded in the research design and would inform the approach
taken by researchers in terms of their everyday relations with
those whom they perceive their work might benefit or be of use.
This principle was formative in the design of the research we
outline here and concerned with women's experiences of
childbirth. The researcher, who was also a midwife, was
particularly concerned with how the authority of medical
knowledge, embodied through midwives and doctors, created a
framework of power that acted to delegitimise any claims to
knowledge about birth processes that mothers may possess. For
example, medical convention prescribes certain stages in the
birth process when mothers should, and should not, `push'.
Often these stages are countervailing to what may be described
as women's natural inclinations in birthing. Yet the power of
medical discourses, and their associated practices, is such that
women often give up their `bodily' knowledge in favour of these
authorities. Simply put, despite powerful urges to `push', women
resist because they are told by authority figures that it is not the
`right' time. This observation raises many issues about the
inscribing effects of dominant discourses, how certain
knowledges become privileged and how one can learn that these
work to deny the knowledge that arises through experiences of
the most intense and emotional kind. As a midwife undertaking
research in this field, the researcher was therefore concerned to
avoid replicating such power relations in the conduct of her
study. Indeed, as the following field-notes indicate, in this she
achieved some success:
•
A focus group was organised and this comprised of women
about to have their first child or second child, a woman, Karen,
who already had two children and a midwife, Kara. The
researcher was also a midwife. The researcher had assumed
that as those with professional experience, she and Kara, the
other midwife in the group, would be seen as more authoritative
about childbirth. Indeed, the researcher took steps to avoid
replicating these common power relations of professional and
mother within the group. Indeed, the group dynamic seemed to
recognise Karen, the most experienced mother present, as the
authority on matters of childbirth. Though occasionally both
Kara and the researcher were approached for technical
information, more questions were directed to Karen.
The researcher's ethical and political stance in the design of her
fieldwork was influenced by a concern that she should not use
her professional knowledge in order to gain power over those
involved in her research. The focus group was organised as an
informal occasion. Food and drink were available and the
researcher endeavoured to create an atmosphere for the sharing
of knowledge and experience. Such a stance may not have been
an option had there not been an established stream of
methodological writings that engage in such critical approaches.
Certainly the researcher, who was at that time a student
undertaking an MA dissertation, would not have had the
confidence to engage in a research model that did not have some
legitimacy in terms of adequate and prior publications that could
be systematically accessed and critically appraised at the
literature review stage.
In addition this instance of fieldwork demonstrates a
countervailing understanding of who has authoritative
knowledge about childbirth wherein the expected `authority' that of the professional - was disrupted and where personal and
private knowledge was recognized as equally, if not more,
authoritative. Here the boundaries of power are reordered but,
importantly for what we have to say in the conclusion, they are
not overcome. In this instance the experienced mother becomes
the expert because, we would argue, in some contexts direct
experience is a more valued form of knowledge. As an example
of dissemination, this vignette therefore also demonstrates how
particular kinds of knowledge are valued and taken-up in the
everyday discussions that occur between participants in
particular knowledge communities and indeed, in this case,
amongst and by the researched. It is to the place of the
researched in the dissemination of ideas that we now turn.
Interviewing as Dissemination
As advocates of reflexive methodology, Alvesson and
Skoldberg (2000:5) argue that `empirical research in a reflective
mode starts from a sceptical approach to what appears at a
superficial glance as unproblematic replicas of the way reality
functions'. From this perspective, rather than being conceived of
as a conclusive, formal and highly controlled phase of research
the reality of dissemination might be more appropriately
acknowledged as somewhat less conclusive, informal and rather
more difficult to control than we might want to believe.
Reflexivity means that `serious attention is paid to the way
different kinds of linguistic, social, political and theoretical
elements are woven together in the process of knowledge
development, during which empirical material is constructed,
interpreted and written' (Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2000: 5). As a
consequence we want to highlight here how reflexivity is
inherent in how we might reconfigure dissemination. In
particular, reflexivity requires us to pay as much attention to
issues of process as we might pay to the end products of
dissemination. Thus, through a reflexive approach we have
become aware of the ways in which everyday processes of
qualitative research, such as conducting fieldwork, might
involve dissemination. For example, here we consider how the
research interview becomes a joint construction between parties
with the researcher as much involved in knowledge creation as
the interviewee (Collins, 1998). Thus the following excerpt
taken from a longitudinal study concerned with the professional
socialisation of occupational therapy students illustrates how
ideas and reflections are shared in a dialogical research
relationship:
Researcher: You must be wearing yourself into the ground
trying to run around after the family and cope with the course.
Student: I guess I am really but it's not for much longer. It'll be
easier once my placement is over because I'm often not home
until late.
Researcher: But isn't next term going to be heavy?
Student: Yes, I suppose so. I've got my project to get on with
and things aren't too good at home. My daughter's not getting on
too well with her Dad and she's not a hundred percent well ...
but ...
Researcher: But how about you? Perhaps you need to think
about yourself a bit more. That's not being selfish ... caring is
about learning to care about you as well as everyone else ... it's
getting a balance. You can't be there fore everyone all of the
time.
Student: You're probably right but it's not easy.
We are familiar with the critiques of such an interaction from
those colleagues who adhere to scientific models of interviewing
that are based on principles of detachment and rationality. Here
concerns would be raised about interviewer involvement
contaminating the data, reducing validity and therefore
compromising the integrity of the research process. This has led
to an emphasis on endogenous reflexivity where engagement in
introspection is a means of enabling the researcher to make
transparent their role in the construction of meanings (Hughes,
1999). This might, for example, be through first-hand,
confessional accounts of the research process. However, less
acknowledged is the role of reflexivity on the part of research
participants. Thus, we might ask "What kinds of ideas are
disseminated during the research interview and how are they
taken up?" This is illustrated in an interview with the same
respondent conducted several months later:
Student: I could spend every waking hour on the course but it's
about balance as well. As a family we've had our ups and downs
but in a lot of ways I think it's [the course] really helped. It's
improved the relationship between my husband and myself. It's
enhanced family life in some respects. Sometimes I feel guilty.
My daughter's got problems but they're her problems ... not
mine. I can help and advise when I'm there. I think I've probably
grown a lot.
This excerpt illustrates how the interviewee's attitude towards
her role within the family had developed over the period
between interviews. While other influences may have played a
part in this change in attitude, this conversation brought with it
the realisation that developing ideas had been shared
(disseminated) albeit quite unintentionally, out of honest
concern for someone struggling to cope. It is probable that such
dissemination, if we are to name it as such, is ubiquitous and
ongoing in much qualitative research. At times it may be
intentional and at other times totally unintentional. As we have
seen in the first vignette outlined in this paper that was
concerned with research into women's experiences of childbirth,
this ongoing conversation may be conducted with those who
originally participated in the research through formal interviews.
It may occur through chance meetings when one is asked "How
is the research going?". It may be conducted with a range of
significant others, including research supervisors, colleagues
and future students. The products of research may well inform
teaching and become disseminated in classrooms and in ongoing practice. In such cases dissemination becomes on ongoing
conversation that one has throughout one's research and
teaching career. It is certainly a conversation that one has in
respect of the appropriate analysis of empirical data and it is
with this in mind that we now consider the development of
analytic frameworks as dissemination.
The Analytic Framework as Dissemination
Early in the research process the researcher takes numerous
decisions that will influence the nature, content and outcomes of
research. The personal and political nature of these analytical
decisions has led Marshall and Rossman (1995: 113) to describe
the interpretative act as `mysterious in both qualitative and
quantitative analysis'. In addition, they argue that the multiple
and diverse nature of social reality means that there are always a
range of explanations to be considered. Similarly, Coffey and
Atkinson (1996) explore the variety of ways through which data
can be managed and analysed in order to enrich understandings
of complex situations. It is clear, therefore, that the choice of
analytic framework will influence the interpretation and the
nature of findings for dissemination. Dissemination issues then
become significant throughout the processes of research
analysis.
One of the metaphors used to convey the multiple choices of
analytic framework is that of a lens through which we view the
data. Williams (1990) and Barr (1999) use the term lens as a
way of conveying the reflexive processes they undertook when
re-visiting past research experiences. Other uses of lens have
been as a process of orientation (Patton, 1990), as an organising
principle (Delamont, 1992), as an entrance into transcripts
(McCracken, 1988) and as a focus through narrratives to
practice (Lewis, 1993). Each of these uses imply that a
particular lens has been a deliberate choice and analysis and
outcomes could have been otherwise. Clearly, therefore, this
also means that the resulting findings need to be contextualised
within the analytic framework selected by the researcher.
The issue of multiple ways through which data can be analysed
and, in consequence, its impact on dissemination, is illustrated
here through a qualitative study with health visitors conducted
by one of us (Pritchard, 2001). An important issue facing health
visitors is the extent to which they use their personal experience
in their professional practice. Health visitor training and
professional codes of conduct stress the importance of
detachment and the use of systematic evidence as the basis of
practice. Invoking personal experiences of childcare and
childrearing is seen to be both illegitimate and poor practice.
This study therefore explored the tensions that exist between a
scientific and an experience base to health visiting. The
methodology included semi-structured interviews with thirtyfive health visitors and it sought data on professional and
personal changes in relation to health visitors' work with
mothers. Nevertheless, the analysis of data raises a number of
dilemmas as the researcher, having put questions in a particular
way, must then interpret and extend her authority in the way the
data is reported and disseminated. This means that the
researcher is making choices in emphasis and debate. The
following extract illustrates something of the dilemma that
health visitors face when situated within the binary of personal
and professional. How might this be analysed?
•
Unfortunately you have to make a distinction between feeling as
you would - as any mother would, and then as a professional.
Only last week I had to make that distinction, "Where does
support start and end?" and then your own responsibility, where
your own feelings come into play and then when you're a
professional. It's boundaries. It's talking about your own
emotions, isn't it? And where they begin and stop. But then of
course you've got your standards that you adhere to, that
protect against all that, Child Protection Guidelines ... and so
on. (Health Visitor)
There are clearly a range of interpretations that could be used.
For example, in the current climate of managerialism an analytic
lens that was concerned with organisational management could
have used this extract to evaluate protocols and the efficacy of
easily identified work components as a means of withstanding
the private and personal experiences of the worker. The
resulting dissemination might then focus on, say, the managerial
issues of developing or enhancing policy guidelines that are
designed to sustain a clear demarcation between these spheres of
life. Alternatively, a feminist lens that was concerned with the
political effects of such public/private segregation would, as
indeed it did, focus on the systematic devaluing of the personal
and how this, in corollary, enhances the status of the medical
model of health visitor training and practice.
We raise this issue because a key concern of those critical of
evidence based paradigms is that research can become
decontextualised and presented as universal. For example, the
primary purposes of evidence based systematic reviews are to
answer questions `such as what works, how things work, what is
current practice, how practice or policy has changed over time,
and how to assess policy and practice'
(http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/ED/Handbook/HB3.2htm). In this way a
meta-analysis of previously published research is produced that
is designed to inform the development of practice, policy or a
field of study. Working in the field of health, Robinson (1998) is
critical of systematic reviews that take insufficient account of
the constructed nature of research. Specifically, Robinson
argues that overly rigid adherence to guidelines for National
Health Service systematic reviews underplays the range of
complex situations that exist within multiple and diverse health
care practices. In so doing she challenges the external authority
that seeks precision in analytical comparison across research on
the same subject. By drawing attention to the role of the
researcher in selecting an appropriate analytic framework we
would support Robinson's challenge and argue that
dissemination models need to readjust their focus on the
universal and recognise unique, specific and contextualised
meanings in the construction of knowledge.
Presenting Findings as Dissemination
Action research is a model that formalises dissemination to
participants during the course of the research process and is
often regarded as a tool to bring theory, in the form of
disseminated evidence, and practice closer together. Writers on
the subject describe a range of cyclical models (Kemmis and
McTaggart, 1988; Elliot, 1991; Hart and Bond, 1995) which
emphasise the potential of action research to be a responsive,
participative process. Ongoing feedback is seen as allowing for
collaboration with participants in a way that can bridge the old
positivist divide between creators of knowledge, ie researchers,
and providers of data, ie the researched. Yet underlying this
model is a technical-rational assumption suggesting that there is
a knowable social reality `out there' so to speak that can to
inform practice. Further, in spite of the collaboration inherent in
action research, the researcher may assume that she still has
authority over the data produced and also over the dissemination
process.
The research reported here illustrates how these assumptions
and this authority can be disrupted in several ways. This was an
evaluation of a new project that had been set up to support
young people leaving local authority care. The research was
designed on action research principles to give feedback to the
Aftercare Project workers at regular intervals so that they could
adapt their day to day strategies and longer term business plans
in line with findings. Integral to the design was consultation
with some of the young people who had been involved in this
project and focus group and semi-structured interviews were
employed to enable users of the service to express their views as
fully as possible.
The following excerpt from field notes arose as part of this ongoing dissemination. A meeting was held with the Aftercare
Project workers in order to share with them some of the early
data from focus groups with the young people and social
workers involved in the leaving care process:
•
Before the meeting [with Aftercare Project workers] K and I
went through the focus groups tapes and agreed what we
thought were the main points to feed back to the project ... [At
the meeting] we got half way through the list and K looked at
me. I knew what she meant. The looked so miserable that we
had to stop. And I'd thought we had reported lots of positive
things. (Excerpt from field notes)
The research findings had seemed a reasonable balance of
positive and negative issues but clearly the shocked reaction
from the Aftercare Project workers illustrated that there was a
marked difference in the interpretation of findings.
Overwhelmingly they took a negative interpretation of the data
presented to them. In this way the researcher's assumed
authority over the data and its meaning was called into question.
This excerpt highlights the researcher's lack of control over the
interpretation of research data and the dissemination process.
Although selection of the content of the feedback was dependent
on the researchers' interpretation of what was significant in the
data, `significance' and `relevance' are not inherent in the data
itself (Flick, 1998: 30). Interpretations of research rely on the
meanings attributed by the reader or listener and further the
meanings attributed can be a matter of personal and political
context (Scheurich, 1997). In this case workers may have been
particularly sensitised to any negative feature of the findings
since these could have led to cuts in funding their project.
Further assumptions about the dissemination process are
highlighted by this example from action research. Feedback of
interim findings to the project workers raised dilemmas about
disseminating only a part of the picture during a research
project. This is necessarily the case in action research where
dissemination occurs at intervals before all data is collected and
analysed. Some commentators argue that a partial picture may
be misleading in the short term. Thus `Evaluation should be
holistic rather than fragmented, presenting a complete picture'
(Dullea and Mullender, 1999: 95). This argument rests on an
assumption that research can be complete and that we can
produce anything other than a partial picture independent of
individual perspective and selectivity. Our experience
challenges this assumption and raises questions about research
findings as a finished product, rather than as a partial and
snapshot view of the world. We would argue that `completion'
of research and the boundaries of data collection are defined by
the researcher.
In summary, this example of dissemination as a process through
action research illustrates many of the dilemmas inherent in
considering quality of evidence for practice. It highlights the
differences in interpretation of data that question the authority of
the research account as well as questioning the possibility of
achieving a complete picture in research. In foregrounding this
subordinate side of the binaries of dissemination, those of
partiality and lack of authority, we would hope to promote an
awareness that dissemination is not an exact science and needs
to incorporate an awareness of such uncertainties.
The Journal Paper as Dissemination
Post-structuralism has presented a number of major challenges
to social science research. Through the term the `linguistic turn'
these challenges have highlighted how realities are constructed
through language and how language shapes how we come to
know. This is not in any unproblematic way. Rather language
conveys a range of meanings that are never fixed or static.
Meanings are not only ambiguously shared in the everyday.
Researchers also shape meanings in the presentation of their
findings. The previous vignette demonstrates one aspect of this
where the researchers were concerned that they would present
`positive' findings to their end-users. Certainly Atkinson (1990)
illustrates how the believability of the research report is not a
given that just comes with the data. It is formed through the
researcher's use of a variety of literary devices and narrative
strategies that depict rhetorical figures, use descriptive
vocabulary to evoke the scenes within which these characters
live their lives and which rely on the selection of appropriate
illustrative material. Nevertheless, as we have also seen above,
authorial authority is never guaranteed. Post-structuralism also
challenges the idea that there exists `a single, literal reading of a
textual object, the one intended by the author' (Barone, 1995:
65). Although some readings are more privileged than others
interpretation cannot be controlled. Readers bring their own
knowledges, experiences, values and meanings to the text. As
Smith (1998: 260) notes:
•
Post-structuralist discourse analysis undermines the idea that
language is a transmission device for carrying the intention of
the author, with the reader trusting an authoritative voice. If the
author is no longer the authoritative voice of truth and
authenticity, readers can be seen as participating in the
production of meaning by constructing their own stories.
This final vignette draws on this understanding of meaning
within post-structural theorisation and focuses on reviewer
responses to a paper submitted to a journal for publication. A
key idea in the dissemination of knowledge is that of the
gatekeeper. The gatekeeper is viewed as someone who will
facilitate or deny access and in so doing gatekeepers represent
important figures in the flow of ideas. Commonly, our
understandings of gatekeepers' practices are limited to first-hand
or confessional accounts of research practices. Less known is
the gatekeeping practices of journal editors and their associated
reviewers. In addition, our understandings of these practices fall
into a binaried template of being allowed in or being kept out.
An article is either published or it is not. In practice, however,
the responses of gatekeepers may be contradictory or conflictual
and as a result access may be partial or staged as the paper goes
through a number of revisions.
The following are comments received from reviewers in relation
to a paper that used sociological `poems' (Richardson, 1992) to
convey the multiple positions taken up by women managers in
further education colleges in England. As the comments indicate
the reviewers disagreed on some fundamental points with
respect to the article. Reviewer `A', for example, appeared to
approve of the style of the paper whilst Reviewer B did not:
•
Reviewer A Commented:
This is a confident and well written article, which steps lightly
across some well trodden epistemological territory. The poems
are delightful and evoke `Sylvia' in a most thought provoking
manner.
Reviewer B Commented:
The opening is very vague. As a challenge to conventional
knowledge systems, there is a point to this, but the overly
metaphorical nature of the writing seems to me to be a means
of avoiding being specific with the theory ... the poetry seems
to me an unnecessary distraction, poorly informed and
unskilled in its execution.
One might assume that reviewers for a journal are drawn from
similar communities of practice and in consequence have shared
assumptions and value frameworks. Weiner's (1998) analysis
from research that looked at the practices of journals in
education, psychology and sociology certainly suggests some
degree of consensus at the level of everyday cultural practices.
These included roles and responsibilities of editors and editorial
boards, how referees were chosen and the criteria for assessment
of manuscripts. However, a further analysis of the reviewers'
comments would suggest that the frames of reference of these
particular reviewers were quite different. For example,
Reviewer B appeared to have read the pseudonym `Sylvia' that
was used for one of the women managers referred to in the
paper as a code for Sylvia Plath, the eminent poet. By drawing
on more traditional, and certainly respected, forms of poetry,
Reviewer B also took issue with the naming of the style of
presentation as `poetry'. These issues were not resonant in
Reviewer A's appraisal. Of course, without knowing who the
reviewers were it is difficult to be certain about their
backgrounds and disciplinary knowledge but it would certainly
appear that the use of the word `poem' raised differential and
contradictory expectations in the readers of this paper.
In the normal course of disseminating knowledge through the
writing of journal papers one would respond to reviewers'
suggestions and shape a paper accordingly. Gatekeepers can
choose to facilitate or not facilitate access and the researcher
may strive to shape their writing to accord with the perceived
unitary voice of a particular community of practice. In this way
we would understand the nature of dissemination as a set of
disciplinary practices through which the disseminator shapes
their work for an appropriate audience. Certainly there is a
greater consciousness of narrative devices and strategies of
persuasion in the dissemination of research `findings'. This
heightened consciousness may of course lead to attempts to
reinforce researcher authority through becoming more expert in
the various techniques of writing with the result that one strives
to be `on message' in order to be heard, or in this case to get
published. Less acknowledged is a similar recognition that there
are no unitary meanings. Whilst we may assume a certain
degree of sharedness of meaning within particular communities
of practice, as we evidenced in the case of the Aftercare Project
outlined above, there will also be degrees of difference and
distantiation within them. This means that dissemination
practices need to more fully embrace the development of a
plurality of meanings. Through this we might learn to be more,
rather than less, comfortable with contradiction. In this case it
would be the idea that it is legitimate to know the poems as both
delightful/unskilled and an unnecessary distraction/thought
provoking rather than as one or the other.
Conclusion
Our paper has been designed to open up a space for a greater
consideration of issues of dissemination. We have sought to do
this through a series of vignettes that have drawn on our
experiences of undertaking qualitative research in a range of
social science disciplines. In this we have been motivated by the
relative silence that exists within the methodology literature on
the topic of dissemination. In addition we have been concerned
to mark up a critique of dissemination models that are based on
technical rationalist ontologies because, we would argue, they
privilege a particularly narrow set of meanings and in
consequence preclude other ways through which we might
imagine dissemination acts. In so doing, our intention has been
to explore a variety of experiences in the design, conduct,
analysis and presentation of qualitative research and to illustrate
how we can understand each of these as aspects of
dissemination. Our purpose in undertaking this has not been to
replace the predominant meanings of dissemination as a
relatively complete, apolitical, formal act or process that occurs
primarily at the end-point of research and through which the
researcher is viewed as an authoritative bearer of knowledge. To
do so would maintain an oppositional, albeit reversed, hierarchy
of meaning as set out in Table 1. Rather our purpose has been to
add to these by bringing into the centre those more subordinated
and negative meanings that are commonly assumed to be what
dissemination is not.
We hope that we have raised a thought about how dissemination
is present at the very moment of conceptualising research and
that it continues in ways we have yet to explore well after the
formal stages of research are complete. In this we have taken
some common issues in social research and have viewed these
through the lens of dissemination. For example, we have
illustrated how linear assumptions of research as beginning with
a literature review and concluding with dissemination can be
reconceived. Here we would suggest that a more appropriate
model is that of a spiral through which ideas that are
disseminated by undertaking literature reviews are incorporated,
modified or adapted in the design and execution of research. We
have also illustrated how the focus on developing reflexivity
amongst researchers directs our attention away from considering
the researched as reflexive individuals who will contemplate
ideas disseminated in interviews and may even change their
practices accordingly. Indeed, we have sought to encourage a
view of dissemination as a reflexive and on-going conversation
that one has with others as much as oneself. In addition, we have
been concerned to encourage an understanding of the
dissemination of knowledge as requiring adequate
contextualisation rather than universalisation of key ideas. The
example we drew on here related to the various ways in which
data might be analysed and how the selection of a particular
analytic framework could not be separated from the specific
outcomes of research. Finally, we presented two vignettes that
were concerned with more commonplace understandings of
dissemination. These were the formal presentation and the
written paper. Through these vignettes we sought to disrupt the
idea of a neat transference of meaning between, for example, the
researcher and end-user or indeed within specific communities
of practice. In particular, we have sought to illustrate how the
development of understandings of dissemination require us to
more fully recognise the take up of a variety of, often
unintended, meanings when we both formally and informally
disseminate research findings. We would argue that this is
certainly a broader, and more inclusive, understanding of
dissemination than the one currently preeminent.
In addition, we believe our paper is particularly timely given the
attention that is now being given at the national policy level to
dissemination and impact within particular discourses of
`evidence-based' research. In the field of education, for example,
concerns about the `quality' and `impact' of educational research
have led to the creation of the National Educational Research
Forum (NERF). NERF has been established to help achieve the
creation of a national strategy that would create a stronger
linkage between research, the design and implementation of
education policies and the delivery of education in practice. Yet
central to the dissemination assumptions of NERF is a
`particular narrative bringing policy, teachers and research
together in a seamless web of enlightened practice, in which
research appears to drive the action, without prejudice' (Ozga,
2000: 32). In social work, the recent Making Research Count
initiative seeks to involve practitioners more fully in the setting
of research agendas. This initiative offers local authorities and
other relevant agencies the opportunity to work with key
universities in developing evidence-based social work and social
care practice. The aims are to improve the dissemination of
research and to involve operational staff in setting research
agendas.
Nevertheless, in arguing for a deconstructive approach to
understanding dissemination we are reminded of Bordo's (1993:
15) comments that `one often hears intellectuals urging that we
"go beyond" dualisms, calling for the deconstruction of the
hierarchical oppositions ... that structure dualism in the West,
and scorning others for engaging in "dualistic thinking". Bordo
also notes how difficult this is because of the pervasiveness of
dualistic thinking in Western culture. Similarly Grosz comments
that the deconstructive project is both impossible and necessary.
It is impossible because we have to use the terms of any
dominant discourse to challenge that discourse. It is necessary
because such a process illustrates how so much of what is said is
bound up with what cannot be, and is not, said. In terms of
going beyond the binary we recognise that we do not offer a
third term or hinge phrase, as Derrida has with the neologism of
différance, that will reconfigure predominant meanings.
However, if we have at least raised a cautionary mark over the
key meanings of dissemination as end-point, conclusive, hard,
formal, structured, rational, public, authoritative and complete
then we have achieved our aim of reconfiguring the meanings of
dissemination as everyday aspects of doing qualitative research.
In this, we hope our paper has made a contribution.
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Table 1: The Binaries of Dissemination
•
•
•
Complete Partial
Hard Soft
End Point Beginning
Formal Informal
Authoritative Powerless
Conclusive Inconclusive
Public Private
Structured Unstructured
Rational Irrational
Technical Artful
Practical Academic
Apolitical Political
Universal Contextual