Comm 300 CH 3

Interpretive Standard 2: New Understanding of People

"Interpretive scholarship is good when it offers fresh insight into the human condition.""Science wants an objective explanation; humanism desires subjective understanding. Krippendorff urges us to recognize that we, as theorists, are both the cause and the consequence of what we observe. "

Sensing

"One way to "find out" is to use your sensing function. Your eyes, ears, and other senses tell you what is actually there and actually happening, both inside and outside of yourself. Sensing is especially useful for appreciating the realities of a situation"

Scientific Standard 5: Practical Utility

"Over time, a good objective theory is useful. Since an oft-cited goal of social science is to help people have more control over their daily lives, people facing the types of thorny social situations that the theory addresses should be able to benefit from its wisdom""This requirement is consistent with social psychologist Kurt Lewin's claim that there is nothing as practical as a good theory. A theory that communication practitioners find helpful may not be more valid than one to which few folks turn for guidance, but because of its influence, it may prove more valuable."

Critical Theorist

"Scholars who use theory to reveal unjust communication practices that create or perpetuate an imbalance of power"

Intuition

"The other way to "find out" is through intuition, which reveals the meanings, relationships, and possibilities that go beyond the information from your senses. Intuition looks at the big picture and tries to grasp the essential patterns"

Falsifiability

"The requirement that a scientific theory be stated in such a way that it can be tested and disproved if it is indeed wrong"

Interpretive Standard 1: Clarification of Values

"A good interpretive theory brings people's values into the open. The theorist actively seeks to acknowledge, identify, or unmask the ideology behind the message under scrutiny"

Interpretive Standard 5: Reform of Society

"A good interpretive theory often generates change. Some interpretive scholars, but by no means all, aren't content merely to interpret the intended meanings of a text. Contrary to the notion that we can dismiss calls for social justice or emancipation as mere rhetoric, critical interpreters are reformers who can have an impact on society. They want to expose and publicly resist the ideology that permeates the accepted wisdom of a culture. ""Along with many interpretive scholars, critical theorists tend to reject any notion of permanent truth or meaning. They see society's economic, political, social, religious, and educational institutions as socially constructed by unjust communication practices that create or perpetuate gross imbalances of power. The aim of their scholarship is to unmask these communication practices in an attempt to stimulate change."

Scientific Standard 2: Explanation of the Data

"A good objective theory explains an event or human behavior.""Philosopher of science Abraham Kaplan said that theory is a way of making sense out of a disturbing situation.1 An objective theory should bring clarity to an otherwise jumbled state of affairs; it should draw order out of chaos." NOT AS IMPORTANT: "If the rationale behind why people engage in certain behaviors is simply That's the kind of people they are, objective scholars won't be happy with the theory's explanatory power. As a student of communication theory, you shouldn't be either. When you evaluate an objective theory, keep in mind that the reason something happens becomes as important as the fact that it does"

Scientific Standard 3: Relative Simplicity

"A good objective theory is as simple as possible—no more complex than it has to be" "the scientific principle called Occam's razor, so named because philosopher William of Occam implored theorists to "shave off" any assumptions, variables, or concepts that aren't necessary to explain what's going on.""rule of parsimony—another label for the same principle—states that given two plausible explanations for the same event, we should accept the less complex version. Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein put it this way: "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. . . . It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction."

Scientific Standard 4: Hypotheses That Can Be Tested

"A good objective theory is testable. If a prediction is wrong, there ought to be a way to demonstrate the error."

Scientific Standard 1: Prediction of Future Events

"A good objective theory predicts what will happen. Prediction is possible only when we are dealing with things we can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste over and over again. As we repeatedly notice the same things happening in similar situations, we begin to speak of invariable patterns or universal laws."

Ethnography

"A method of participant observation designed to help a researcher experience a culture's complex web of meaning"

Textual Analysis

"A research method that describes and interprets the characteristics of any text"

Experiment

"A research method that manipulates a variable in a tightly controlled situation in order to find out if it has the predicted effect"

Survey

"A research method that uses questionnaires and structured interviews to collect self-reported data that reflects what respondents think, feel, or intend to do."

An Objective Theory

"An objective theory is credible when it fulfills the twin objectives of scientific knowledge. The theory predicts some future outcome, and it explains the reasons for that outcome. Social scientists of all kinds agree on four additional criteria a theory must meet to be good—relative simplicity, testability, practical utility, and quantifiable research."

Scientific Standard 6: Quantitative Research

"As the heading suggests, scientists tend to appeal to numbers as they gather evidence to support their theories. Almost all scientific research depends on a comparison of differences—this group compared to that group, this treatment as opposed to that treatment, these results versus those results. Since objective theorists aim to mirror reality, it makes sense for them to measure and report what they discover in precise numerical terms rather than in linguistic terms, which are open to interpretation"

Rule of Parsimony (Occam's Razor)

"Given two plausible explanations for the same event, we should accept the simpler version"

Ethical Imperative

"Grant others that occur in your construction the same autonomy you practice constructing them."

Self- Referential Imperative

"Include yourself as a constituent of your own construction"

Interpretive standard 3: Aesthetic Appeal

"The way a theorist presents ideas can capture the imagination of a reader just as much as the wisdom and originality of the theory he or she has created. As with any type of communication, both content and style make a difference. Objective theorists are constrained by the standard format for acceptable scientific writing—propositions, hypotheses, operationalized constructs, and the like. But interpretive theorists have more room for creativity, so aesthetic appeal becomes an issue. Although the elegance of a theory is in the eye of the beholder, clarity and artistry seem to be the two qualities needed to satisfy this aesthetic requirement."

Interpretive Standard 4: Community of Agreement

"We can identify a good interpretive theory by the amount of support it generates within a community of scholars who are interested and knowledgeable about the same type of communication. Interpretation of meaning is subjective, but whether the interpreter's case is reasonable or totally off the wall is ultimately decided by others in the field. Their acceptance or rejection is an objective fact that helps verify or vilify a theorist's ideas.""sound arguments differ from unsound ones in that "sound arguments are addressed to the general audience of critical readers, not just to the adherents of a particular 'school' or perspective. . . . They open their own reasoning process to scrutiny"

Interpretive Standard 6: Qualitative Research

"While scientists use numbers to support their theories, interpretive scholars use words.""Qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meaning people bring to them""The interpretive scholar's qualitative tools include open-ended interviews, focus groups, visual texts, artifacts, and introspection. But textual analysis and ethnography are the two methods most often used to study how humans use signs and symbols to create and infer meaning"