„Bună informare”. Știința informării în periodicele Republicii Socialiste România: O analiză cantitativă

The aim of this paper is to address a lack of academic interest in the history of information science in communist Romania. In its more repressive meaning, i.e. as an instrument of propaganda and control, information is actually an over-studied concept in Romanian academia. However, in its more "expressive" manifestation – that is as a central element in raising productivity, producing research, and more broadly reproducing the conditions that kept the socialist system in place – information is highly neglected. This study contributes in filling this research gap. It leverages the possibilities offered by Arcanum, a digital archive of Romanian newspapers (with the investigated period being very well represented), and uses web scraping for data collection. This data is further analysed by employing content analysis as the methodological framework, but also some more in-depth analysis of the more detailed accounts (editorials, interviews, journalistic investigations, etc.) concerning the role of information science in the Socialist Republic of Romania. It provides insights into what was the meaning of the various syntagms employed to refer to information science, the main themes that were approached by the specialists in the field, and the purpose envisaged by the Romanian Communist Party for the entire information infrastructure that was built to cover the diverse needs (economical, cultural, political, etc.) of the regime.