2019年3月21日下午，國際著名傳播學(xué)者、媒介社會學(xué)（Media Sociology）主要代表人帕梅拉·休梅克（Pamela J. Shoemaker）在中國人民大學(xué)新聞學(xué)院作了以“社交媒體時代的把關(guān)”為主題的講座，分享了她最新的研究方向與研究內(nèi)容，并受聘為中國人民大學(xué)“雙一流”建設(shè)國際顧問委員會。

講座結(jié)束后，《新聞周報》社記者采訪了休梅克教授，結(jié)合當(dāng)下本科生的學(xué)習(xí)科研情況，向休梅克教授請教了研究方向的尋找和傳播學(xué)的學(xué)習(xí)方法這兩方面的問題。

這其實是一個很有趣的故事。在我剛剛完成博士學(xué)位之后，我的博士導(dǎo)師，也是為我指引研究方向的人，他告訴我他準(zhǔn)備在加利福利亞的SAGE出版社（SAGE是世界領(lǐng)先的獨立學(xué)術(shù)及專業(yè)出版集團）出版一些書，并且想讓我完成其中一本，當(dāng)時我告訴他我想要去做新聞研究。他說：“新聞研究已經(jīng)有很多人在做了，你去研究“把關(guān)”吧。”“把關(guān)”在當(dāng)時更多的只是一個概念，直到十九世紀(jì)六十年代甚至七十年代才有人開始做相關(guān)的研究，我在想我到底能從對“把關(guān)”的探索中得到什么？不過他是一位非常杰出的老師，在他的指導(dǎo)下，我在1991年發(fā)表了《Gatekeeping》這本書。這本書中列出了相關(guān)的重要研究者以及“把關(guān)”理論的發(fā)展脈絡(luò)。

在老師的幫助下，我打開思路，開始思考邊界理論，即組織邊緣的人們與其他組織邊緣的人進行交流。公關(guān)人員是具有代表性的處在邊界上的人，因為他們需要試著出去與其他組織的人交流。我的老師啟發(fā)我去思考“群體思維”。我們有一個龐大的大眾媒體，在各個組織的邊緣上有邊界人，他們收集信息并向外傳遞信息。在這中間，會有一群報紙編輯，他們不停地討論，每天還有編輯部會議，他們會決定報上的內(nèi)容。長此以往，這群人有了相同的思維方式，會做出相同的決定，事實上這個群體變成了一位“把關(guān)人”，這就是一種“群體思維”。他還敦促我去學(xué)習(xí)“決策理論”，這對我?guī)椭艽螅驗椤鞍殃P(guān)”其實就是一個做決策的過程。我的博士項目并不是準(zhǔn)備一本關(guān)于“把關(guān)”的書，我要做去很多研究，不僅是了解“把關(guān)”這個過程中發(fā)生了什么，還要收集各種理論、觀點和信息，以幫助我在“把關(guān)”領(lǐng)域中建立一個新的理論。

只要我能找到和媒體把關(guān)、議程設(shè)置或者其他任何我想要了解的領(lǐng)域有關(guān)的書籍，我就會去讀。我當(dāng)學(xué)生的時候?qū)W到一個閱讀技巧：比如說，遇到一篇內(nèi)容和你感興趣的話題有關(guān)的期刊文章，你得看看文章結(jié)尾的參考文獻(xiàn)部分，并且到圖書館去找參考文獻(xiàn)里的書籍來讀。這個“讀”不是精讀，而是瀏覽，要是一個學(xué)生逐字逐句地看每一本書，他/她恐怕就沒辦法在大學(xué)里生存了。你要瀏覽的部分是對你的研究來說很重要的內(nèi)容，瀏覽完之后，再從這些書的參考文獻(xiàn)里找更早的研究成果，以此類推，不斷往前追溯。這樣一來，你就可以接觸到在你一開始看到的那篇期刊之外的多種角度。我會這樣去了解媒體把關(guān)、議程設(shè)置等研究的歷史。

除此之外，我還會閱讀其他學(xué)科的文章。如果我讀的書和哲學(xué)有關(guān)，我就還會去讀一些它引用的社會學(xué)、人類學(xué)、經(jīng)濟學(xué)或者政治科學(xué)的書籍、文獻(xiàn)。在閱讀的過程中，我會思考為什么作者會引用其他學(xué)科的研究，以及其他學(xué)科的文獻(xiàn)對這個學(xué)科的研究有什么作用。

以上說到的回溯歷史和跨學(xué)科這兩種閱讀方式能很好地促進新思考的產(chǎn)生，而產(chǎn)生新思考正是學(xué)者最應(yīng)該做的事。傳播學(xué)本身就是跨學(xué)科的，它與生活的方方面面都有關(guān)聯(lián)。作為學(xué)生，如果沒辦法廣泛選課，那至少應(yīng)該廣泛閱讀。

Q：How did you decide on your research direction? 

A：It’s a funny story actually. Just after I finished my Ph.D, The professor who was my director of my Ph.D came to me and said，“ I am going to edit a series of short books for SAGE Publishing Company in California. And I want you to write one of them”. And I said, “I want news, I want to do news”. He said,“News is already taken, somebody else has news. I want you to do gatekeeping”. And I said, “Gatekeeping?” Gatekeeping is more about concept. No one has done much about gatekeeping since the 1960s or even 1970s. And I’m thinking what in the world can I get out of gatekeeping? But he was a very brilliant person and with his help for suggestions, I produced a small book called Gatekeeping in 1991 perhaps. And yet it lays out the history of gatekeeping and some of the middle figures were in that book.

He helped to expand my thinking to consider boundary theories that people on the edges of the organizations communicate with people on the edges of other organizations. Public relations people are typically boundary people because they are going out and trying to talk to people another organizations. And he also introduced me to the group think. Let’s say we have a large mass media and there are boundary people on the edges with information being collected and information being sent out. But in the middle, there is a group of editors. Everyday they have an editorial meeting and they decide what’s to be in the newspaper and overtime they come to all think in the same way. And they call the same decisions and in fact they are one gatekeeper. That’s group think. That’s the group thinking as one. He urged me to read into decision making theories. That was very helpful because gatekeeping is decision making. And there are many theories of decision making. My doctor program had not prepared me to write this book about gatekeeping. I had to do much research in order to not only learn what happened on gatekeeping but to gather theories and perspectives and information to help me build a new theory in gatekeeping. That’s what I try to do.

Q：Do you have any suggestions for undergraduates to learn communication theory, make initial attempts to apply it and do relevant research?

A：I would read whatever I could find on gatekeeping or agenda setting or whatever it is you want to study. Here is a technique that I learned as a student. You have in front of you a journal article on the topic you are interested in. Go to the back to the list of references; look at the older references; go to the library and get those books; and read them. By read I mean skim. One cannot read every word of a book and survive in school or in academia. But you must skim through and look through the parts that are important to your work. You take that book and then you go to the references, and you go backwards in time. If you continue to go backwards in time, you are exposed to a wide range of perspectives on this topic that never made their way to this present article. So, I would do papers on the history of gatekeeping or agenda setting.

If not the history of, I would also look for articles that are in other disciplines. If I’m reading something that is about psychology, I would read something about sociology, or anthropology, or economics, or political science, to see why this person cited this article here, and how the literature of other disciplines can inform the study of this topic. Those are the two different ways, the historical approach and the going to other disciplines, that I think could really stir up new thinking, and stirring up new thinking is the most important thing that scholars should do. Always think about new thinking.

Communication is interdisciplinary. It involves every part of life. Communication had to be invented for everything else to be invented. If not take classes widely, you should read widely in other disciplines.

文字：段江含 馬靖儀

圖片：鄧海瀅

編輯：黃思琪