232 Governance and Education
management among a variety of actors with a view to arriving at new innovations.
Thus, communication workers are seen as interacting with a wider set of actors
than the knowledge institutions. Nevertheless, it remains relevant to look at issues
like knowledge exchange and links between clients, extensionists, research and other
parties in the agricultural knowledge system; not least since other knowledge institu-
tions may well have an influence on whether or not communication workers can
effectively play their newly envisaged roles. Communication workers might, for
example, aspire to engage in interactive technology design, but find out that research
institutes are unable or unwilling to cooperate and coordinate activities to that end.
Thus, when talking about agricultural knowledge systems, one is immediately con-
fronted with issues of interinstitutional cooperation and associated problems.
In order to understand the functioning and potential of communicative inter-
vention, it remains vital to look at it in the context of other actors in the knowl-
edge system.
Extension science/communication and innovation studies
In agricultural universities, groups have emerged that study the phenomenon of
‘agricultural extension’, as described by its evolving definitions (see ‘Historical
roots and evolving conceptions of extension’). Röling (1988) has called this aca-
demic tradition ‘extension science’, and new names are being invented to describe
this field of study. In The Netherlands we now speak about ‘Communication and
Innovation Studies’. Scholars in this field systematically investigate communica-
tion for innovation processes and experiences, and connect their conclusions with
more abstract and general concepts and theories. In the early days extension sci-
ence was predominantly an applied science in that most of the questions and con-
clusions were aimed at informing communication workers how to do a better job.
Thus, many theories were formulated on, for example, how to use media effec-
tively, how to develop effective communication plans, how to manage agricultural
knowledge systems. More recently, studies have appeared which are more oriented
towards describing and interpreting what happens around communication for
innovation processes, and which do not start from a wish to arrive at practical,
prescriptive theories and recommendations. One can, for example, analyse how
communication workers cope with the contradictory pressures from farmers and
the government, without wishing to inform them on how to do so better. But such
studies can usually be used by others to derive valuable practical lessons. Typically,
communication and innovation studies borrows insights from, and sometimes
adds insights to, several other social science disciplines. Originally, these were
mainly communication science, social psychology, adult education and rural soci-
ology. More recently, many more disciplines have offered inspiration to our field
of study, including the sociology of science and technology, management science,
systems theory, political science and anthropology.
Although communication and innovation studies is a social science field, it has
also attracted interest from natural scientists, not least because it often focuses on