Studying Your Own Country. Social Scientific Knowledge For Our Times and Places; Presidential Address to the Canadian Political Science Association, St Catharines, May 28, 2014

Political science is both a generalizing and an anchored, nationally defined, discipline. Too often, the first perspective tends to crowd out the latter, because it appears more prestigious, objective, or scientific. Behind the international/national dichotomy, there are indeed rival conceptions of social science, and important ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions. This article discusses these assumptions and stresses the critical contribution of idiographic, single-outcome studies, the importance of producing relevant, usable knowledge, and the distinctive implications of studying one’s own country, where a scholar is also a citizen, involved in more encompassing national conversations. The aim is not to reject the generalizing, international perspective, or even the comparative approach, but rather to reaffirm the importance of maintaining as well, and in fact celebrating, the production of social scientific knowledge directly relevant for our own times and places.

The utilitarian and hedonic outcomes of music information seeking in everyday life

This qualitative study focuses on what contributes to making a music information-seeking experience satisfying in the context of everyday life. Data were collected through in-depth interviews conducted with 15 younger adults (18 to 29 years old). The analysis revealed that satisfaction could depend on both hedonic (i.e., experiencing pleasure) and utilitarian outcomes. It was found that two types of utilitarian outcomes contributed to satisfaction: (1) the acquisition of music, and (2) the acquisition of information about music. Information about music was gathered to (1) enrich the listening experience, (2) increase one's music knowledge, and/or (3) optimize future acquisition. This study contributes to a better understanding of music information-seeking behavior in recreational contexts. It also has implications for music information retrieval systems design: results suggest that these systems should be engaging, include a wealth of extra-musical information, allow users to navigate among music items, and encourage serendipitous encountering of music.