Kunskap i takt med tiden: en studie av en kunskapsarena – tysk och amerikansk kunskapscirkulation i radioprogrammet OBS! 1969–1972

Sammanfattning: This paper examines the how the radio program OBS! (or Kulturkvarten) operates as a public arena of knowledge from 1969 to 1972 – i.e, how it offers possibilities and sets limits for certain kinds of knowledge circulation. Drawing from theoretical discussions about “public circulation of knowledge”, the aim is to characterize OBS! and its role in the public sphere during the examined years. OBS! is especially interesting – and important to consider – since the radio-medium have often been disregarded in studies of the public. Firstly, using quantitative methods, the paper characterizes the knowledge which was in circulation in OBS!. In this part, a selection has been made from the transcribed broadcasts, and have been categorized by the following categories: the knowledge’s form, actor, geography and field of discipline. Secondly, using qualitative methods, the paper makes two more specific circulation-analyses – of German and American knowledge. In this part of the paper, it is studied through what issues, and by which knowledge forms and specific actors, circulation was made possible. The paper emphasizes OBS!’s interest in the German literature and politics concerning “Tysklandsfrågan” as well as the American war in Vietnam and the problems within the American society. In the results of this part, the so called “knowledge-actors” play central roles for the circulation of knowledge. Theoretically, the paper stresses that the knowledge-actors themselves might be viewed as parts of an “infrastructure of knowledge”; the correspondents provide an example of how specific actors – with their geography, interests and areas of focus – provide for a unique circulation of knowledge.