The commodification of academic research and its social legitimation: When the public communication of science becomes propaganda

Abstract

This paper takes a novel approach to the functional transformation of the public communication of science and technology in the context of the commodification of academia and academic research. It contends that the public representations of university-industry relations and academic entrepreneurship policy should be understood as an instance of the leveraging of the public communication of science and technology for propaganda purposes. To substantiate this approach, this paper elaborates on the concept and functions of propaganda by drawing from traditional and contemporary scholarship. It also examines what the commodification of academic knowledge production consists of, underscoring its contradictions and the negative consequences that it has had for some domains of social life, including academia itself. In view of the foregoing, it is possible to hypothesise the use of the public communication of science and technology for disseminating the ‘ideology of academic entrepreneurship’ for propaganda purposes. The final section outlines some general criteria that ought to be considered when operationalising this theoretical framework for analysing the media coverage of university-industry relations and academic entrepreneurship. The approach described here should be understood as a first step towards uncovering and criticising the ‘common sense’ on which the contemporary political economy of academic knowledge production rests.