f Transdisciplinary Action Research Bringing Together Communication and Media Researchers and Practitioners

Transdisciplinary action research (TD) is about understanding and improving the real world, the “life-world” (e.g. Hirsch Hadorn, et al., 2008, p. 20). In the TD research framework, academics from various disciplines collaborate with practitioners to investigate and sustainably solve a socially-relevant practical problem. TD transcends academe: It is research “on, for and with” practitioners (Cameron, Frazer, Rampton, & Richardson, 1992, p. 22). This position paper outlines TD as the ideal research framework to “bridge the gap between media and communication scholarship on the one hand and media practitioners on the other” (http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=220). To illustrate TD, I draw on the Idée suisse research project (e.g. Perrin, 2011a). In this project, academics and media practitioners collaborate to investigate how the Swiss national TV company and its journalists work and what they need to do to improve their output.