Why 2K

Sometimes the most interesting aspects of research never appear in the end product. We present research questions, but rarely discuss how we arrived at them. We detail our research approaches, but exclude the various improvisational decisions that also shaped our work. We present our findings and interpretations in as focused a way as possible, leaving out the complicating tangents, dead ends, and blind alleys we traveled along the way.

There is nothing especially surprising about this state of affairs. Research questions should be succinct; scholarly work ought to be precise; findings must be presented as clearly as possible. But a downside of all that is that we infrequently share many hard-won insights, and when we do, it is mostly informally: over drinks with colleagues or as signposts to students running down their own complicating sidetracks.

There is no shortage of calls for scholars, especially those who research technology and society, to engage publicly. We are asked to share insights in the pages of newspapers and on television, to educate or inform community members, activists, and nonprofits. We launched 2K to provide a space for scholars to reflect publicly about their research in a format that is accessible beyond their usual audiences. We hope that hosting a public discussion about what Erving Goffman might call the “back stages” of research will fuel the exploration of how best to study technology and society.

It is a complicated subject of study—heterogeneous and fluid. Consider the number of topics discussed under the banner of technology and the fact that the nature of technology is iterative and, in that way, unstable. Technology and society is also a field that draws on a wide range of analytical perspectives to understand and explain its subject. If public discussions of the back stages of research are rare in general, the factors mentioned above give scholars of technology and society additional pause.

2K welcomes such reflection, however, as a necessary part of the process of knowledge production, making the case that it can be useful to engage in these reflections publicly, because reflecting on the limits inherent in any perspective is a precondition for overcoming those limitations in the future. 2K is meant to be a space where scholars engaged in publicly relevant research can express these ideas in 2,000 words. We hope their contributions will generate conversation and stimulate reflection about scholarship that otherwise would remain on the “cutting room floor” of our published findings. We hope 2K will reach new readers eager to engage with ideas relevant to media and public life.

Each issue will be organized around a theme or question, and will invite scholars to reflect on some aspect of their work, whether it be the research topics they engage, the theories and methods that guide their inquiries, or the public relevance of their research efforts.

For this inaugural issue, we called on authors to reflect on any belief they once held but now question, temper, or reject—in response to either developments in the world or shifts in their thinking about the nature and impact of technology. We received exceptionally thoughtful responses from authors across various fields and analytic traditions. Some contributors see that the world has changed and so reflect on, revise, and sometimes refute their prior writing. Others look back and see that positions they once held were mistaken because they occluded from view things that now seem impossible to ignore. In many cases, we see a mix of the two: the world changes, and it is precisely that change that their approach did not imagine. We are grateful to the contributors for the time and energy they took to write the thoughtful essays that make up this first issue of 2K. We hope you enjoy their essays as much as we do.