Knowledge utilization: The role of new communication technologies

From the mid‐1960s until the end of the 1970s, knowledge utilization was a framing concept for policy research on dissemination and social change in the U.S. The 1980s were a hiatus in the development of dissemination and social change strategies, but the present domestic refocusing of national policy brings knowledge utilization once again to the forefront. The communication technologies used in knowledge utilization programs of the 1960s and 1970s consisted of analog media such as printed materials and video. The technologies used in knowledge utilization programs of the 1990s will include several digital media such as ISDN, online search services, e‐mail, facsimile, and CD‐ROM. The sweeping claims made for digital media today are similar to those made for analog media 20 years ago, when in fact the analog media played only a secondary role to the prime movers of social networks and personal influence. Some properties of digital media such as asynchronicity and transformability will meet previously unmet needs in knowledge utilization. The challenge of matching specific communication technologies to phases and functions of knowledge utilization is renewed by the present mix of analog and digital media. Reasons why communication technologies succeed range from “meets an important need” to “avoids the technophobic pitfalls of deskilling, destatusing, undue technological literacy, and inhibition of human contact.” © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.