book: The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States

Machlup, Fritz. (1962). The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

I was drawn to this title because it includes distribution in its examination of knowledge. Production is really interesting to me, but it’s covered in many areas of research. People study and theorize about how science creates a specific type of knowledge, they consider the implications of political, economical, and societal forces in the creation of knowledge, they discuss the publication process for academics. It’s much less common for people to theorize about how distribution effects knowledge. I think that this is an extremely important aspect of knowledge to consider, especially in the internet age. We face a journals crisis, university presses are closing down, yet it’s easier than ever to publish your opinions for the world to see via blogs and wikis. This book was written in 1962, long before anyone even though of blogs or the web as we know it.

Machlup covers the topics of types of knowledge, knowledge producing industries, education, research & development, media & communication, information machines, information services, total production of knowledge & the national product (he’s an economist), and knowledge production and occupational structure.

Chapter 7, “The Media of Communication” will be most useful to my topic, as I’m using the lens of media as a way of examining the social structure of knowledge. Again, I’d like media to include (or focus on) technology, and this book does not do that, but it does provide a useful context. Machlup’s coverage of media includes books and pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, and “all printing and publishing” which includes photography and phonography, stage & cinema, broadcasting (via TV and movies), advertising & PR, telephone, telegraph, and postal service. Again, this is entirely before information technology (as we know it today) entered the scene, and most of the content is examined through the lens of economics. Still, this will be a useful context chapter for my research.