Analysis of Comm Theory exam 1
Bobo Doll Study
(Bandura) Study that illustrates social learning of aggression; children observe an adult model's aggressive behavior and imitate the same behavior. -social cognitive theory
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION? HOW DO PEOPLE THEORIZE ABOUT COMMUNICATION? WHAT ARE SOME OF THE POSSIBLE PHILOSOPHICAL ASSUMPTIONS OF COMMUNICATION THEORY?
-Communication is an ongoing process of the sending and receiving messages while interacting and influencing others. Communication happens in certain settings and contexts with specific intentions, and shared meanings. It can happen in person, over technology, on social media, nonverbally, etc. Theorists discuss communication as an interdisciplinary process which they come from different fields. -Some philosophical assumptions include ontology, which is what exactly insists in the rela world. Another assumption includes epistemology which includes the ways that we know things and how we know them. Axiology are the values underlying when considering what and how we know things. And lastly, praxeology are what the practices are the practices used to know things. People theorize communication about the messages that are being communicated, the means, about the people who are communication and about the contexts of these things.
Extended Cognition Theory
-The energy-saving, embedded-extended mind perspective (Clark, 2008; Clark & Toribio 1994) argues that, in order to save scarce cognitive resources, we do not encode stable environmental information. Instead, we simply coordinate our actions to the stable environment and use the world as an external information store. This allows us to save scarce resources which are then available for the encoding of less stable information (called fleeting).
WHAT ARE THE PROCESSES OF THEORY BUILDING, BROADLY CONSTRUED
-curiousity, To find out the why, we have to identify the things that are already known. conceptual modeling and hypothesizing, Following is operationalizing and testing hypotheses, and then comparing results to predictions that are moving forward.
social science vs hard science
-differing from natural theology in virtue kinds of explanation thy acknowledge. -separate but equal -social sciences and hard science are both forms of systematic empirical inquiry but social sciences have different subject- matter and because they appeal to people's beliefs, intentions, hopes, fears, etc. to explain their behavior, they are intentional. Social scientific explanations in terms of beliefs, goals, etc are not reducible to explanations in physics in anything like the simple way some optimistic unifiers hoped- but, the intentional social sciences aren't wholly disjoint from the natural sciences, but integrated with them. Intentional social science investigates the same world as natural science but intentional rather than brutally physical aspects of the world. Social institutions are constituted in part by people's beliefs, etc; they are real, but also socially constructed. like empirical inquirers of every kind, social scientists make conjectures about the explanation of some puzzling phenomenon, check how well those conjectures stand up to the evidence, and use their judgements in proceeding from there. But, the explanations sought are of a different kind from natural- scientific explanations; interpreting the evidence requires a different kind of background information; and social- scientific inquiry requires different kinds of "help" p. 152 -Social scientists often investigate issues that engage our moral or political sensibilities; moreover, what purports to be social- scientific "investigation" quite often shades into something more closely resembling advocacy. Like inquiry of every kind, social- scientific inquiry is subject to certain epistemological values, among them disinterestedness- ie, in another sense of that multiply ambiguous phrase, "value- freedom." Intentional social sciences seem to have not made impressive progress of the natural sciences because the ideal of respect for evidence is even harder to achieve in social- scientific than in natural- scientific inquiry, and that borrowing mathematical and methodological helps from physics in hopes of looking "scientific" has sometimes proven counter- productive.
What is Popper's problem of demarcation? What are the examples he uses to explain it? How does he "solve" it?
-statements or systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable, observations. -the problem of drawing a line between statements, or systems of statements, whether they are religious or metaphysical character, or simply pseudo- scientific. -political statements -criterion of demarcation- the criterion of testability, or falsfiability, or refutability -its solution is the key to most of the fundamental problems of the philosophy of science.
What is Popper's problem of induction? What are the examples he uses to explain it? How does he "solve" it?
-things that resemble the past may not resemble the future. -induction cannot be justified. those instances of which we have had no experience, resemble those, of which we have had experience. -even after observation of the frequent or constant conjuction of objects, we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have had experience.
positivism applied to human behavior
-this approach to human affairs implies that human behavior is also law governed, because only law- governed phenomena allow for generalization based on past observations of individuals. Applying positivism to human behavior also suggests that the reasons and motivations underlying human behavior are not unique to each individual and thus idiosyncratic, but rather are shared among humans, -how one person behaves under certain circumstances is likely similar to how any other person would behave under the same conditions (textbook cont. social scientists specify patterns)
impression management
-when a person enters a social situation he wants and needs to know something about the other participants and the given context. conversely, people in the given setting will want to know something about the person who enters -people are constantly mobilizing their energies to create socially meaningful impressions -has the character of "drama"- all social roles are a performance where the individual actor highlights certain characteristics and conceals others. and just like any other drama, the stage must be properly set, the individual must often learn and rehearse his role, and he must coordinate his activities with fellow performances. -the individual tends to have a front: that part of the individuals performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance. there are two aspects of front: setting and personal front -the setting involves relatively fixed elements like furniture, windows, etc. it establishes an expectation of roles and appropriate behavior. McDonalds vs fancy dinner place -personal front includes features like age, height, sex, race, etc. divided into appearance and manner, -back stage vs front stage
cultural indicators
1-commercial television, unlike other media, presents an organically composed total world of interrelated stories (both drama and news) produced to the same set of market specifications 2- television audiences (unlike those for other media) view largely non- selectively and by clock rather than by the program. Television viewing is a ritual, almost like a religion, except that it is attended to more regularly
knowledge gap
1. over time, acquisition of knowledge of a heavily publicized topic will proceed at a faster rate among better educated persons than among those with less education 3. At a given point in time, there should be a higher correlation between acquisition of knowledge and education for topics highly publicized in the media than for topics less highly publicized tichenor
OSCO'S FOUR ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY (AS LISTED IN WASKO 2005)
1: Engagement with history and social change - exploring the "long-term changes in the role of state, corporations and media in society" (Hardy, 2014, p. 9) 2: Social totality - PE methods view the economy as linked with functions of the political, social and cultural realms of life (such as media production) 3: Moral philosophy - analyze societal issues with a normative emphasis on addressing societal imbalances created by private corporate power 4: Praxis - applying the research conducted in a scholarly study beyond the realm of academia -> go change the world!
Humanism
A belief that emphasizes faith and optimism in human potential and creativity
Axiology
A part of worldview; refers to an individual or group's value system. -the split is across the value- free (objectivism) and value intended subjectivism -what values drive what we know?
Praxeology
A part of worldview; refers to the way an individual or group goes about tasks or solving problems. -most are familiar with the quantoid/ qualoid disputes, but the real break may be over a split between whether claims need to. be fixed in observation or in ideas. -how we gather the knowledge we gain
theory
According to Chaffee and Berger, a "set of constructs that are linked together by relational statements that are internally consistent with each other" is a useful definition of a ___________.
Paradigm
Achievements that share the two characteristics that it was: -sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing models of scientific activity. -sufficiently open- ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of to resolve -relates closely to normal science week 2 Kuhn -committed to the same rules as scientific practice
What is an anomalous finding and what does it mean for an existing paradigm?
An anomaly is recognition that nature has somehow violated the paradigm- induced expectations that govern normal science.
visualization and quantification
Crosby argued that the Western worldview of perceiving space, time, the material environment shifted in two main ways, __________ and _________ ,from 1250-1600.
Dimensional Emotion Theories
Emotions arise from combinations of more fundamental elements or dimensions
induction
Falsifiability is a criterion of scientific theory often credited to the work of Karl Popper. Popper arrived at this criterion by arguing that scientists do not actually use _____________; instead they consistently make conjectures and refutations.
warrant
Haack argues that the "social character of scientific inquiry" is actually a useful component of the enterprise. She contends that this social character helps scientists judge the degree of __________, or the degree of credence the group places in any claim.
Crosby says, on page 12, "we, who in W.H. Auden's words live in societies 'to which the study of that which can be weighed and measured is a consuming love' have difficulty imaging an alternative to our approach to reality. What does he mean by this? What are some of the alternatives that he proposes and describes for us?
He means that the human soul has a purpose of comparing examples and depends on its senses for information, and when we cannot understand the information that is making us curious, our minds become frustrated and or dizzy. Crosby describes how individuals as early as infancy begin to have curiosity and ability to measure- counting their toys, their cookies, etc. Math and the material world are summed to be related however, math beyond counting but it is not self- explanatory. If I was in a classroom setting, I would have loved to hear how my classmates interpreted this question as for me, it was mildly difficult to understand.
Ontology is exactly what exists in the real world. Epistemology are the ways that we know things and how we know them. Axiology are the values that underly when considering what and how we know things. How we gather the knowledge we gain, praxeologic, and if we want to know what communication is or what communication theory is, we must relate to these questions. According to Krcmar, they suggest that within communication's many subfields of media effects, organizational communication, and rhetoric, each one answers the four questions somewhat differently and can be understood differently at different levels. They go on to answer these questions that can be presented on a continuum.
In a few sentences explain the philosophical assumptions of ontology, epistemology, and axiology and how they are related to one another.
Determinism is the idea that people's behavior happens by factors outside their will. Biologically, one's genes, nature, reflect someone's behavior outside their will and environmentally, nurture, one's experiences may reflect their experiences and interpretation as well. Human agency is the possibility of humans acting based on intention. Our biological makeup has an affect on our human agency at the same time that our environment does. Undergrad, I double majored in media communications and family and child sciences. A topic often brought up was a child's behavior/ temperament was the makeup of their biological genes but also in the environment. If their parents did not let them express feelings, but their biological makeup was emotional, they then may have had an explosive temperament and constantly felt frustrated. Agency and Determinism are at opposite ends of a spectrum of theoretical positions- on one side, you have full agency, people can do as they choose. On the other, their behavior is predetermined and free will is an illusion at best.
In a few sentences explain the tension between ideas of determinism (environmental, biological) and ideas of human agency.
cultural identity theory
Individuals have multiple cultural identities that are created and sustained through communication deals with who constructs the social identities of cultural groups and the ways in which the identities are communicated
rhetoric
Invention, arrangement, style, delivery, and memory are the five canons of ___________.
What does sharing a paradigm mean for two researchers doing inquiry? What if they do not share a paradigm?
Men whose research is based on shared paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice. The committment and the apparent consensus it produces are prerequisites for normal science, for the genesis and continuation of a particular research tradition. (p.11) -acquisition of a paradigm and of the more esoteric type of research it permits is a sign of maturity in the development of any given scientific field.
normative What is normativity? What are some of the examples of normative ideas in media and communication provided? How does normativity fit into the philosophical positions we've been discussing?
Normative theory is the ideas of right and responsibility that underlie these expectations of benefit from the media to individuals and society. -its almost impossible to separate ideas about the objective relationship between media and society from normative or ideological considerations. normative theory of media covers both internally chosen purposes and the claims from outside about how they should conduct themselves. -normative expectation sources, the most fundamental being those that stem from the historical context that has shaped the role of the media institution. This has meant a close link between democratic political institutions and the role of the media as carrier of news and former of opinion. There are claims laid on the media as a while by the general public and expressed either as public opinion or by the public as an audience of a particular media publication. It stems from the many interests, especially economic but also cultural and social, that are affected by the mass media, particularly in respect of news and individuals. mcquail normative theory pdf rhetorical studies tend to take a normative stance
postmodernism
Often credited to social turmoil in the 1960s, ___________ is the view that social realities are constantly in flux, remade, reproduced, and have multiple meanings based on different identities, affiliations, perspectives, languages, and other individual, cultural, and group differences.
relativistic
One of the main critiques of Kuhn's work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is that science is ultimately _______________ because scientists use the existing knowledge, theory, and methods of their current paradigm to evaluate and interpret data.
What is pantometry? When and how was it "achieved" in Western society, according to Crosby?
Pantometry is a fixation on measurement. It is one of the ideas that appeared increasingly in the languages of Europe in the first half of the second Christian millennium, new words created for new tendencies, institutions, and discoveries, and surged in the 1200s (Crosby). Through groove with its connotations of repetitions and convenience, it became generally easy to apply and become useful.
true
Rhetoric is the study of persuasive speaking and/or writing that dates back to ancient Greece.
false
Scholars in the past have advanced multiple positions regarding potential paradigms in Communication; however, all scholars in Communication now agree that there is only one existing paradigm.
What is Susan Haack's argument about scientific inquiry? Is it better than other kinds of inquiry? Why or why not? What are her "helps" to inquiry?
Scientific inquiry is continuous with everyday empirical inquiry. There are modes of inference and procedures of inquiry used by all inquierers and special mathematical, statistical, or inferential techniques and special instruments, models, etc local to this or that area of science. The natural sciences are epistemologically distinguished, have achieved their remarkable successes, in part precisely because of the special decides and techniques by means of which they have amplified the methods of everyday empirical inquiry. -the sciences, though distinguished epistemologically, are not privileged; and that "there is to think that science is in possession of a special method of inquiry unavailable to historians or detectives or the rest of us" -John Dewey's observation that "scientific subject- matter and procedures grow out of the direct problems and methods of common sense" John B Conant's science and common sense -helps can inclide models, anologies, metaphors
What does Kuhn mean when he describes "normal science" as puzzle solving? What implications does that have for a field of researchers doing inquiry in a paradigm?
Solving a puzzle does not have a skill to its solution just like normal science. A scientific community acquires with a paradigm a criterion for choosing problems, that while the paradigm is taken for granted, can be assumed to have solutions. -A paradigm can even insulate (protect) the community from those socially important problems that are not reducible to the puzzle form, because they cannot be stated in terms of the conceptual and instrumental tools the paradigm supplies. These problems can be a distraction.
all of these
Some scholars have organized theory in Communication by drawing distinctions about what theories fall along different continua. Burrell and Morgan drew lines that result in four quadrants of theory: radical structuralist, radical humanist, functionalist, interpretive. What are the continua they created based upon? the nature of society all of these none of these human nature
embedded cognition
That humans are embedded processors, meaning that we use the physical world to scaffold thinking and thereby reduce the need to expend cognitive resources; and (d) That people's underlying automatic biological, motivational, and neurological systems respond automatically to media as if they were real -The embedded perspective (Clark, 2008) argues that we evolved in this world in such a way as to use the qualities of the world and the environment to bias our actions toward efficient and successful task completion and survival. As we move through our environment, we are surrounded by information, some of which is relatively stable and unchanging (e.g., the ground, buildings, roads, trees, and geographical forma- tions), while other aspects of the environment enter and leave our environment (e.g., a passerby, a car, a blowing trash bag, a cloud) or appear briefly and then disappear (e.g., a smile, a ray of sunshine, white caps on the water).
true
The "hypodermic needle" or "direct effects" approach to media effects stresses the argument that media have strong, relatively uniform influences on people's behavior.
false
The "received view" of the history of the field of Communication is so-called because it presents a potentially biased view of its development that privileges minority perspectives.
black box
The fact that conceptual and methodological tools to look in- side the black box of the human mind are only just becoming widely available to communication researchers should not be a cause for despair or abandonment. Quite the opposite, we believe that a cognitive ap- proach to mass media effects, by revealing the intervening processes in- volved in making sense of media messages, can only make an increasing- ly important contribution to our understanding of communication. -of the individual's inability to talk about what goes on inside the black box of the mind. This is true to the degree that media effects research for the last half century has relied on self-report measures. For instance, ask- ing respondents to indicate their own levels of attention has proved to be fruitful in surveys, where attention is conceptualized as interest in a par- ticular type of program -Inquiry in individual-level mass media effects has been limited by con- ceptualizing the human processor as an impenetrable "blackbox"with unknowable processes taking place between message reception and the traditional outcomes of learning, attitudes, or behaviors. Instead,we see these component processes as both important outcomes and predictors in their own right. In short, the perennial black box of mass media effects can be better illuminated by examining the black box of human informa- tion processing that goes on within it. -control f geigerandnewhagen
determinism
The idea that people's behavior is produced primarily by factors outside of their willful control. while drawing from marx, critical scholars did reject marx's notion of economic determinism and his optimistic argument concerning the inevitability of socialism.
reductionism
The position that "sciences, the social sciences included, can in principle be expressed in terms of the vocabulary of, and their laws derived from the laws of, physics" is called _________________.
paradigm
The results gained in normal research are significant because they add to the scope and precision with which the paradigm can be applied.
true
The study of how media and communication systems and content are influenced by political, social, and economic factors is part of political economy of communication scholarship.
semiotics
The study of how signs and symbols come to represent both concrete and abstract things/feelings/ideas is the study of ____________.
mature science
The successful transition from one paradigm to another via revolutions is the usual developmental pattern of ___- ____. It is not the pattern characteristic of the period before Newton's work, and that is the contrast that concerns us here.
ontology
What exists? What is really real? -we divide over whether the objects of our analysis have an indepenedent or socially determined existence
media agenda
Whereas the ''first level'' of agenda setting is focused on the relative salience (usually operationally defined as perceived importance) of issues or subjects, the ''second level'' examines the relative salience of attributes of issues, as McCombs (2005) and Ghanem (1997) have described in detail. These agendas of attributes have been called ''the second level'' of agenda setting to distinguish them from the first level that has traditionally focused on issues (objects), although the term ''level'' implies that attributes are more specific than objects, which is not always the case. weaver pdf
Falsifiability
a feature of a scientific theory, in which it is possible to collect data that will prove the theory wrong -a good theory is falsifiable. a theory that cannot be contradicted by any conceivable conservation is not part of science
warrant
a matter of degree; degrees of warrant of rival theories, furthermore, won't necessarily be lineraarly ordered. In the large grey area where either a more or a less optimistic attitude towards a somewhat- but- not- overwhelmingly warranted calim is reasonable, there is no easy step from degrees of warrant to "rules of acceptance and rejection." An as- yet- half- baked conjecture may be worth exploring despite being, thus far, unwarranted; most importantly, "the" best way to proceed is often for different members of the community to proceed differently.
Hypodermic Needle Model
a model of media effects, also called the "magic bullet," that claims media messages have a profound, direct, and uniform impact on the public textbook
Interpretivism
a research perspective in which understanding and interpretation of the social world is derived from one's personal intuition and perspective look at paper on interpretation
Telepresence
a set of technologies, such as high definition audio, video, and other interactive elements that enable people to feel or appear as if they were present in a location which they are not physically in.
the lonesome gal
a short radio program which achieved such popularity in 1951 that it was broadcast in 90 different cities. within a short time, the program speed from Hollywood where it originated to New York where it was heard each evening at 11:15, she was a lonesome gal without a name or history,her entire performance consisted of an unbroken monologue unembarrassed by plot, climax, or denouncement. On the continuum of par asocial action, this is the very opposite of self- contained drama. It is the reciprocal of the spectators para- social role. -simply spoke un a throaty, unctuous voice who suggestive sexiness belied feeling modesty of her words. -addressed to shy and lonely men who had always dreamed, in their inmost reveries, of finding a lonesome girl to comfort them. -the world is full of such lonesome girls she urged like herself, they were all seeking love and companionship. Fate was unkind, however, and they were disappointed and left in unrequited loneliness with no ne to console them -tried to create more directly and more controversiality in her monologue. Horton wohl 225
reductionism
a systematic investigation of smaller and smaller component parts of things.
WHAT IS A THEORY
also look at paper sent to her is a way that we advance to thinking about things. Chaffee (DATE) states that a theory can be an abstract scheme of thought. -connected by the world around us and our abstract thought; they are a set of constructs that are linked together by relational statements that are internally consistent with each other (Chaffee & Berger, p. 101
paradigm
an accepted model or pattern grammar example, 'amo, amas, amat' because it displays the pattern to be used in conjugating a large number of latin verbs functions by permitting the replication of examples any one of which could in principle serve to replace it.
ideology of human agency
assumes that the individual speaker is the origin of agency; that strategy is intentional; and that speaker, audience, and the ends of discourse necessarily coalesce (come together) in a web of purposeful action. for much of the history of rhetoric, the rhetoric's agency was not questioned; whether a rhetorical goal was realized or not was placed squarely on the rhetoric's shoulders.
implicit attitudes
attitudes that influence a person's feelings and behavior at an unconscious level
interpersonal communication
communication that takes place between individuals at a minimum is a-interactive, such that all parties are able to address each other and respond to one another b- individualized, such that communication are aware of each other as unique individuals, rather than solely as occupants of social roles, such as sales clerk, teacher, police officer, or audience, for example; c- relational, such that communicators are in ongoing interpersonal relationships with one another that assume future interactions, such as dating, marriage, family, or work group relationship. -a phenomenon that exists simultaneously in the empirical- material world in the form of, for example, words and nonverbal, behaviors, and in the world of individual cognition in the for of, for example, perceptions and emotions, and also in the social world in the form of, for example, symbols, shared meaning, and social rules and norms. ch.10
disposition theory
contend that enjoyment of media content is a function of a viewer's affective disposition toward characters and the story line outcomes as- sociated with those characters. The theories predict that enjoyment in- creases when highly liked characters experience positive outcomes, when highly disliked characters experience negative outcomes, or both. Con- versely, enjoyment decreases when beloved characters encounter misfor- tune or when hated characters meet with success. More about the theo- ries is provided below, but at this point it is enough to note the ultimate importance of character liking to the enjoyment process.
operationalization
deciding on how one would measure the theory. Conceptualization and operationalization are related because a theory moves from an abstract, to a concept, to the tangible operationalization (Krcmar et al).
science Communication
directed at filling in the 'deficit' in knowledge, with the hope that if members of the public only understood the scientific facts, they would be more likely to see the issues as experts do. The strategy is thus to inform the public by way of popular science outlets such as television documentaries, science magazines, newspaper science coverage and more recently science websites and blogs.
Functionalism
early school of thought promoted by James and influenced by Darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes function- how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish
Semiotics
how the basic units of messages, both verbal and visual, can be understood brings to light the relationship between the world of things and the world of signs, it is the study if signs, symbols, and signification. its concerned with how meaning comes to be created, not what something means. little john 4
According to Popper, what is a risky prediction? Should we make risky predictions, or not? Why?
if unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with theory, an event which would have refuted the theory. Confirmations should count only if they are a result of a risky prediction.
THE MAIN COMPONENTS OF A THEORY
include abstracts which vary in levels and are involved in the explaining, prediciting, and controlling of our wonders. Interpersonal influence influences abstracts as well (car shopping)
Induction vs. Deduction
induction is a process of reasoning (arguing) which infers a general conclusion based on individual cases, examples, specific bits of evidence, and other specific types of premises. (kid having asthma attack and dying) -deduction is a process of reasoning that starts with a general truth, applies that truth to a specific case (resulting in a second piece of evidence), and from those two pieces of evidence (premises), draws a specific conclusion about the specific case. (free access to public ed key factor to success, india working to become successful, therefore india should provide free access)
WHAT MAKES A THEORY GOOD?
is made up of not only what happens but why something happens and includes a set of predictable findings including why and how it works. -one that can be explained well, can be predictive, is in its simplest form, can sometimes be disapproved, the propositions that are put into place are not contradictory, it can create new hypotheses and interest
social maintenance
keeping your communication style regardless of the communication behavior of others
positivism
knowledge is limited to claims about the world that are unambiguously (positively) true, either because they are based on verifiable observations or because they must lofically follow from such an observation. (math measurements as this) -widely adopted by the natural sciences during and after the enlightenments, the application of such scientific thinking to human behavior is a more recent phenomenon and often attributed to the work of the 19th century scholars around august comte and emile durkheim. they argued that the same reasoning that restricted knowledge claims to verified observations and their logical consequences in the natural sciences also applied to human behaviors, which therefore be studied with a scientific approach.
arousal
mood- management theory- the notion that people employ media ti regulate their excitation. this theory argues that levels of excitation that vary within a normal range constitute a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for an individual's feelings of well- being
attitude
nabi on each emotion
Critical Theory
paper The main idea of this theory is that social and cultural arrangements impose the power of certain groups of people or just people in ways that dominate and oppress others. Critical theorists study the unequal and competing power relations create injustices in society (Littlejohn et al., 2016). The critical theory is not separate from the world but was created to examine real lived instances of overlooked and isolating dynamics to figure out ways society could be liberating. The critical theory argues for and analyzes the exploitation, ideology, and alienation to produce social change. This theory is considered critical because such social processes and conditions are being overdetermined by multiple sources while examining the ways that structures of domination in systems, language, etc, contribute to marginalization (Littlejohn et al., 2016). These theorists understand how complicated it is to create an ideal society where equality is real in the matter that all voices are heard, treatment is equal and everyone shares the same values. This theory raises consciousness and focus to expose the oppressive powers in society and help the people being oppressed because liberated, and recognize the groups being oppressed to help overcome these difficulties. Relating to communication, the critical theory is significant because itself is an oppressive social structure. It only fulfills the needs and recognitions of dominant groups. For example, just as mentioned in chapter four, in order for men to know if women are married there are two prefixes, Mrs. or Miss. But, men do not have two prefixes to expose their marital status. Language plays an important hand in assembling the world. It is not just how language works that plays a hand but also social interaction that has oppressions. For example, women are less likely to express when there is a discrepancy because they are not taken as seriously. Or, if they do decide to speak up, they are considered "rude" when men are considered "leaders" and "changers." When men have successful careers they are considered providers. When women have successful careers they are assumed to not care about family. Communication is so important in the role of critical theory because even though there are oppressive characteristics, language also has many qualities of liberation like protesting, creating new forms of language that will allow for competing ideologies to be heard. Six more prominent theories that fall under the critical theory include the Frankfurt School and theory of communicative action, cultural studies, post- structuralism, post- colonialism, feminism theory, and critical rhetoric.
postmodernism
paper the idea that social realities are always producing, reproducing, and changing through the use of language and other symbolic forms. Rather than being like modernism, and having a unified foundation, postmodernism saw reality as fragmented, local, situated, and fluctuating with polysemy as its main attribute- meaning any system, object, symbol, or sign has multiple meanings (Littlejohn et al., 2016). Not every human takes the world in the same way. Everyone grows up in a different atmosphere, in a different socio- economic class, and has different life experiences. Postmodernism is different from modernism because modernism describes how humans know the world as a whole and postmodernism suggests that the world can only be known in partial perspectives and in fragments that are depending on what the individual is experiencing in the moment. Communication and everything is temporary in postmodernism, nothing is permanent and therefore reality is not external and becomes apparent in the linguistic interaction amongst the individuals. The challenges in society in the postmodern process are between the fluid interests and ideas that were created in the communication practices, and there is not a single element that is solely responsible for power inequities, social structures, or other parts of society.
modernism
paper rejects past ideas and works toward new and nontraditional ideologies of art, literature, or thought and brings forward the idea as thinking as a means by which to discover the truth about the self and the world. Descaerte's brought forward this idea along with assaying to establish a foundation for knowing the world in the operation of the mind or reason while rejecting religion and tradition in an attempt to favor rationality over the system of belief (Littlejohn et al., 2016). This led to inspiring society to embrace change as a constant and allowing for rapid changes like scientific discoveries and technological innovations.
western world What are some of the major historical periods for the study of communication in the Western world and how have world events played a role in their development?
pooley and park control f plato, positivism influenced scholarship in the western world only during the renaissance adn enlighteenment, when it became a significant philosophical basis of natural science. -the logic is impeccable and the assumption that all humans are essentially the same represents one of the core ideologies of western culture. if all humans are the same cognitively and function at the same psychologically and socially, then it really should not matter who is in any particular study for its results to be generalizable
information processing
presents a unique characterization of individuals and of media messages. Conceptually, it emphasizes the way people make sense of, attend to, and remember television messages. Television messages in turn are defined in terms of psychological dimensions and attributes that are likely to influence these processes. These message attributes reflect how a message is constructed and presented as well as the more typical concerns associated with content and genre. Second, it utilizes a particular methodology, relying o n controlled experiments and implicit measures taken during viewing for gathering in- formation about these mental processes. -control f geigerandnewhagen
received view
research in the immediate postwar was laregely an american affair. New journals, press institutes, workshops, publishing houses, and departments across europe. There was a "regular system of exchanges and contacts" already underway in 1950s European communication research (515). pooley article control f
normal science
science conducted within an existing paradigm, as defined by Thomas Kuhn -research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice.
framing
selection and salience to select some aspects of perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/ or treatment recommendation for the item described. -diagnose, evaluate, and prescribe -define problems: determine what a causal agent is doing with what costs and benefits, usually measured in terms of of common cultural values -diagnose causes: identify the forces creating the problem -make moral judgements: evaluate causal agents and their effects -suggest remedies: offer and justify treatments for the problems and predict their likely effects -the communicator, the text, the receiver, the culture
direct effects
textbook also search for hypodermic needle
priming, framing
that agenda setting (and ____) rely on the theory of attitude accessibility by increasing the salience of issues and thus the ease with which they can be retrieved from memory when making political judgments, whereas ____ is based on prospect theory that assumes that subtle changes in the description of a situation invoke interpretive schemas that influence the interpretation of incoming information rather than making certain aspects of the issue more salient.
priming
the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response -making certain issues or attributes more salient and more likely to be accessed in forming opinions. -the alliance of priming and agenda setting has strengthened the theoretical base of agenda-setting effects by providing ''a better understanding of how the mass media not only tell us 'what to think about' but also 'what to think'
evolutionary theory
the appetitive motivational system evolved to help the orgnaism get food and mates in order to endure the survival of both the individual and the species. On the other hand, the cororallary aversive motivational system evolved to protect the individual from danger. According to the theory, these basic motivational stimuli are innate, but individuals also learn that certain stimuli signal positive or negative consequences. Therefore, through the process of learning, a given individual can come to generate positive or negative responses. In terms of mediated messages, then, aspects of media elicit automatic attention, which acts as a drain on the limiting processing system, whereas other aspects of media may garner controlled attention, which also acts as a drain on the limited- capacity system. These attended- to stimuli are then encoded.
Positivism
the application of the scientific approach to the social world -an approach to epistemology closely associated with natural science and scientific method. -based on the assumption of an observable, law- based reality. Law- based means that reality is regular in structure and behavior. -this regularity can be expressed in covering laws that apply to all matter regardless of observer. examples of such absolute laws are that matter attracts matter and that isolated systems conserve their energy. That "reality" is governed by such laws thus makes possible that logic and math can be applied to observations about reality, an alternative to the idea that math can be applied to oberservations, and that this application will result in true statements. ______ claims that these are the only statements that can be considered an authoritative source of knowledge.
Rhetoric
the art of using language effectively and persuasively
organizational communication
the basic tenet of systems theory that are relevant are wholeness, non-summativity, hierarchy, self- regulation, and openness. -wholeness- the property of systems that to understand them and their functioning, the whole system has to be considered, as all parts are dependent on each other. this means that parts of a system cannot be understood or investigated in isolation, but the system and all its interactions and complexity have to be investigated in order to understand how the parts perform. -non- summativity- refers to the notion that the whole is greater than, or different from, the sum of its constituent parts (or what is often referred to as a gestalt). hieratchy- refers to the property of systems that they themselves are constituted of smaller systems and simultaneously also constitute larger systems -openeness- refers to the property of systems that they interact with their environments in that they receive input from them and send output to them. this input and output can be in the form of information, money, material goods, services, or really anything socially meaningful that can be exchanged with others. ch. 11
agency
the capacity to make a difference. Agency has been a property of the communicator because to some degree, a communicator has and makes choices about how to respond in a communication interaction.
media frame
the central organizing idea for news content that supplies a context and suggests what the issue is through the use of selection, emphasis, ex- clusion, and elaboration
audience research/ audience autonomy
the concept of framing provides an operational definition for the notion of dominant meaning that is so central to debates about polysemy and audience independence in decoding media texts. from a framing perspective, dominant meaning consist of the problem,, causal, evaluative, and treatment interpretations with the highest probability of being noticed, processed, and accepted by the most people. To identify a meaning as dominant or preferred is to suggest a particular framing of the situation that is most heavily supported by the text and is congruent with the most common audience schemata. -a framing paradigm cautions researchers not to take fugitive components of the message and show how they might be interpreted inlays that oppose the dominant meaning. if the text frame emphasizes in a variety of mutually reinforcing ways that the glass is half full, the evidence of social science suggests that relatively few in in the audience will conclude it is half empty. to argue that the polysemic properties of the message conduce to such counter framing, researchers must show that real- world audiences reframe the message, and that this reframing is bot by product of the research conditions- for example, a focus group discussion in which one participant can lead the rest, or a highly suggestive interview protocol. entman
relativism
the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute.
appraisal theory
the human brain constantly evaluates external and inner environment events (appraisals) that become salient due to certain situational features (stimulus events). these events become relevant and meaningful because they seem to concern the organism's well- being. Emotions stem from such appraisals of relevant events: "the role of emotions is to provide self- referential value- coding of internal and external world events. different layers of the brain are involved in self- referential evaluations of stimuli events, depending on the type of stimulus event. some events, particularly those on the sensory- motor level trigger simple and innate appraisal reactions controlled by the instinctual brain. however, affective responses are not restricted to simple instincts and stimulus response sequences. processes that involve learned response schemes or even plans and action strategies at the conceptual level are thought to provoke more complex appraisal reactions.
opinion leaders
the influences stemming from mass media first reach these people who in turn pass on what they read and hear to those of their every-day associates whom they are influential this is called the two- step flow of communication -impact of personal influence- personal contacts appear to have been both more frequent and more effective than the mass media in influencing voting decisions -the flow of personal influence-OL are found every level of society and are very much like the people whom they influence -the opinion leaders and the mass media:
socialization
the process by which individuals internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a given society and learn to function as members of that society
conceptualization
the process of explaining your theory through language. According to Krcmar et al, a good theorist would be able to explain their theory precisely identifying and defining the concepts Conceptualization and operationalization are related because a theory moves from an abstract, to a concept, to the tangible operationalization (Krcmar et al).
political communication
the role of communication in the political process -agenda-setting: the media does not tell us what to think but what to think about -uses and gratifications
political economy
the study of the social relations, particularly the power relations, that mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources, including communication resources" (Wasko, 2005, p. 26). • Rooted in critical cultural theoretical approach but not the same as cultural studies look at Powerpoint political economy
discrete emotions theory
theory that humans experience a small number of distinct emotions that are rooted in their biology
Uses and Gratifications Theory
theory that looks at the ways media consumers choose media to meet their needs
paradigm
to be accepted as a ______, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted. a paradigm suggests which experiments would be worth performing and which would not. prerequisites of laws
Health Communication Strategies
use all types of communication channels to change behavior. Activities can impact knowledge, awareness, or attitudes. May also provide cues for action and provide reinforcement of behaviors. ch 15 textbook -diffusion of innovations -the health belief model- the idea that there are multiple positive and negative forces or motivations that push people toward or away from certain behaviors.
motivation
uses and gratifications theory
paradigm and venerable model
week 2 paper
epistemology
what do we know and how do we know it. what constitues knowledge and how is it derived the division tracks along a foundationalism that holds knowledge as a correspondence between mental impression and the true shape of the independently existent actual, and a social constructionism that holds knowledge as simultaneous enabled and constrained within social achievement.