Communication Science Class 2 PDF

Communication Science Prof. Dr. Thomas Jacobs  02 The science of communication Disciplines, research questions, theories, concepts, debates, paradigms  The socIal sciences and its Disciplines ...

Communication Science Prof. Dr. Thomas Jacobs  02 The science of communication Disciplines, research questions, theories, concepts, debates, paradigms  The socIal sciences and its Disciplines  Social sciences Communication Political Science Economics Criminology History Psychology Sociology Anthropology Science Politics Economy Crime History Mind Relations Culture Communication Communication Friends talking; people writing a letter, making a phone call or using social communication media; politicians speeching,…  communication science Communication Communication science Friends talking; people writing a letter, What are the norms and assumptions making a phone call or using social informing friendly conversation? How communication media; politicians speeching,… do certain media affect the way people communicate? How do politicians persuade voters?….  Research Questions Lasswell’s formula (1948) What? To Whom? What content? What is the Who is the public? To whom meaning of the message? is the message addressed? What are the Who? characteristics of the Which individuals audience? Which organisations? Why? What is the (intended and actual) effect of the message? What does the message (try to) achieve? And How? Which channels are being used? What technology is being deployed? How is the message conveyed? Theories & concepts McQuail (2010) Societal Institutional Group Interpersonal Intrapersonal  McQuail (2010) Theory Societal Concepts Institutional Group Interpersonal Intrapersonal McQuail 2010  McQuail 2010 intrapersonal communication Theory A perspective on, a vision of, or a particular way of thinking about a certain topic ○ Theories help us make sense of how the world is, or should be, or will be ○ "there is nothing more practical than a good theory" ○ E.g. theory of survivor bias & Abraham Wald during WWII Theory A perspective on, a vision of, or a particular way of thinking about a certain topic ○ Theories help us make sense of how the world is, or should be, or will be Modes of explanation ○ Highlight particular aspects of a phenomenon (e.g. by conceptualizing those aspects) At the expense of other topics, connections, ○ Make certain connections interpretations, contexts!!! ○ Formulate specific interpretations ○ Contextualize within a certain context All theories simplify reality Which theory applies best to which phenomenon/in which situation/in which context? Theory A perspective on, a vision of, or a particular way of thinking about a certain topic ○ Theories help us make sense of how the world is, or should be, or will be Modes of explanation ○ Highlight particular aspects of a phenomenon (e.g. by conceptualizing those aspects) At the expense of other topics, connections, ○ Make certain connections interpretations, contexts!!! ○ Formulate specific interpretations ○ Contextualize within a certain context All theories simplify reality Which theory applies best to which phenomenon/in which situation/in which context? ○ Instantaneity ○ Hype ○ Manipulation ○ Generation gap Different types of Theories in communication science (Mcquail) = a theory about theories!!! Everyday theory Normative theory Operational theory Cultural theory Social-scientific theory Everyday theories ‘common sense’ = implicit theoretical claims ○ Individual, based on personal experience, help us make sense of what’s going on in the world ○ Used to develop the « ability to make consistent choices, develop patterns of taste, construct lifestyles and identities as media consumers » ○ Rarely systematic, often incorrect ○ Grounded in experience ≠ ideologically neutral; often strongly influenced by interactions with scientific, political, and other ideological discourses that have been shaped by particular interests ○ Can be used to distinguish different messages, genres,… Let’s test our everyday theories of communication Normative theories Prescribe and discuss how media should function ○ Should è implies certain values that are to be protected and honoured; not objective (though it may try to present itself as such) Answers to questions like? ○ What should the press do? Educate, criticize, investigate, entertain, distract, be objective and impartial, be partial,… ○ Who should control and/or in the media? Citizens, governments, investors, social groups,… ○ What should the media represent and/or show? What social realitiy is like, what it could be like, what it should be like,… ○ Should media be regulated, and if so, in what way and with which goals in mind? Not neutral either: often derived from larger social or political philosophies/ideologies Normative theories shape and legitimate specific media practices and institutions ○ But they also shape the expectations of the public with respect to the media that they use Normative theories Freedom of the press Freedom of speech Neutrality Pluralism Fairness Factual and accurate Right of reply Fourth estate, fourth pillar of democracy, Watchdog function Responsible and ethical Accountable Transparent … Operational theories « operational theory serves to guide solutions to fundamental tasks, including how to select news, please audiences, design effective advertising, keep within the limits of what society permits, and relat effectively to sources and society? At some points it may overlap with normative theory, for instance in matters of journalistic ethics and codes of practice » Practical, hands-on ideas that are assembled and applied by and that inform the actions and behaviour of media practitioners (practical wisdom) Mostly found in professional and organizational contexts Often derived from normative theories (more concrete, specific, useful; less general and abstract) Operational theories Protect your sources Do not give details of a suicide Differentiate on-the-record and off-the-record statements Give anonimity to people who are not in the public eye Cordon sanitaire Only publish information that can be verified by multiple sources Do not show graphic images Involve citizens and communities in the newsmaking process Rely on credible sources Give both sides of a conflict the opportunity to respond … Social-scientific theories General statements about the nature, workings, and effects of communication ○ rest on rational and logical arguments ○ based on systematic, objective, and independent observation and evidence ○ can be put to the test, can be validated or rejected ○ are coherent with other social-scientific theories ○ can predict accurately and reliably ○ can be adapted in light of new evidence ○ are succint and parsimonious (Occam’s Razor) = all theories that we will cover in this class! Social-scientific theories Social-scientific theories may ○ originate in a scientific discipline (history, sociology, anthropology, economy,…) ○ belong to a paradigm (critical, interpretative, positivist, poststructuralist,…) ○ provide a perspective (e.g. on the nature and the functioning of media, individuals, groups, society, and even social reality in its entirety) ○ posit a model (e.g. a model of communication) ○ propose a certain methodology ○ pursue a particular goal (understanding the world, formulating a critique of existing power relations, developing practical applications,…) è different social-scientific theories can differ in all of these dimensions (e.g. different goals, models, paradigms, disciplines, methodologies,…) Cultural theory Clearly argued and articulated, coherent, and systematic like social-scientific theories, but at the same time imaginative, ideational, and normative or even ideological ○ can therefore not be tested, validated, or disproven through observation A theory can be both cultural and social-scientific Can be evaluative and/or interpretative ○ judge cultural artefacts according to quality criteria (e.g. products of high culture/low culture; judge political strategies on their likelihood to achieve certain forms of social change,…) ○ or rather to challenge them (e.g. difference between highbrow and lowbrow and similar hierarchies irrelevant to understanding culture) ○ criteria for (rejection of an) evaluation/interpretation can be aesthetic, ethical, critical, emancipatory,…  Highbrow culture Behaviourism Cultural SST CT studies Poststructuralism Functionalism Canon Scientific debates Structure vs agency Structure ○ Actor is passive, undergoes messaging, consumes, accepts, imitates, assimilates ○ Actor is hardly self-conscious or conscious of process to which he is subjected ○ Actor is dependent on the social structures in which (s)he is embedded for behaviour, cannot act creatively or independently Structure vs agency Agency ○ Actor is an active player, difficult to influence or manipulate ○ Actor sends, constructs, or produces their own messages and meanings, uses media ○ He or she is self-aware, reflexive about the cultural, social, economic and political structures in which (s)he is embedded ○ He or she is (relatively) independent of the social structures that surround him/her, can act creatively and autonomously Structure vs agency Massive scientific and philosophical controversies – from full Marxist structural determination (Althusser) to voluntarist individual freedom (Hayek) ○ Lots of changes and evolution in how various traditions have approached this subject Today dominant view – humans are never 100% like structures or like subjects ○ Sometimes active agency dominant, sometimes passive structures ○ Structures guide and constrain agency, agency reproduces or changes structures (Giddens) (chicken-or-egg?) ○ Permanent tension that permeates not just communication science but all social sciences Contemporary examples: ○ Worries about the negative impact of social media influenced by structuralist perspective ○ Admiration for creativity of influencers and content creators driven by respect for their human agency Social Change Where does social change begin? Can (social) media change the world? Media-centric theories Society-centric theories ○ Media are engines or ○ Media are merely an expression of wider causes of social change social realities, social change is driven by evolutions in society as a whole ○ Media as a cog in the system (e.g. Marxism) Social Change Where does social change begin? Can ideas change the world? Materialist theories Cultural theories Changes in social relations can only Changes in social relations are occur when something changes in driven by the power of ideas how ownership and control are Neo-Marxism (Gramsci, Frankfurter materially organized in a society Schule, cultural studies): social Classic Marxism: the superstructure change occurs when ideas, of a society (ideas, politics, laws, identities, and worldviews change culture, art) are determined by its Socio-economic relations can be infrastructure (economy, technology) upended by a change in the culture in which they are embedded (Polanyi)  Social Relations How are social relations organized in the public sphere? How do humans relate to and interact with one-another? Conflict models Public sphere and media as a site (and outcome) of social, political, and economic struggles Conflicts between classes, genders, ethnic groups,… over material resources, meanings, identities, ideas,… Conflict is not necessarily bad! ○ Struggle for émancipation, equality, and liberation! (Mouffe) ○ Competition can spur creativity and innovation (markets) ○ Consensus can be a form of manipulation or hegemony, and hide the exercise of power Social Relations How are social relations organized in the public sphere? How do humans relate to and interact with one-another? Consensus models Public sphere and media are geared towards the establishment of a consensus E.g. Habermas’ theory of communicative action has rules for the development of a public sphere based on rational dialogue E.g. normative theories of the press: press should represent all groups in society to reach a consensus through pluralism E.g. functionalism: society consist of a set of sub- systems (media, police, family,…) that together ought to constitiute a healthy system Paradigms Communication science Debates Theories Concepts Communication science Debates Theories Concepts Communication science Paradigms Debates Theories Concepts What is a Paradigm? Theories can often be grouped together because they share a series of assumptions, a perspective, a goal, an origin,… ○ E.g. Marxism ○ When a group of theories and models together form a coherent system of thought that can guide and inform social-scientific research, we can speak of a ‘paradigm’ Paradigms are often highly stable, entrenched, taken for granted, and universally accepted within the research community ○ Marxists rarely question class Paradigms help scientists orient themselves, let scientists find their way through massive amounts of theories ○ Easy to identify how one relates to a new theory based on the paradigm to which it belongs Paradigm change Exciting scientific moment Usually not gradual, progressive or evolutive, but sudden, abrupt, and chaotic Driven by the fact that the paradigm has formulated a question, problem, puzzle, issue that it cannot coherently solve within its own system of thought ○ Medieval geocentrism cannot explain away Gallilei’s observation (made with methods and data internal to the extant paradigm) that the earth revolves around the sun, leading to the Copernican revolution and the rise of heliocentrism ("eppur si muove!!") Theory of how paradigms change: Thomas Kuhn, structure of scientific revolution Paradigms in the social sciences Key difference between exact sciences and social sciences: ○ in exact sciences usually only one paradigm that dominates (geocentrism replaced by heliocentrism, Newtonean physics replaced by quantum physics) ó in social sciences, conflicting paradigms can co-exist in permanent competition with one-another without replacing each-other – their dominance and prominence merely fluctuate over time, no logical or linear sequence of facts ○ Exact sciences disagree about given ‘facts’ and ‘observations’ (methodologically, analytically) ó social sciences also disagree about how to define, understand, model, investigate, and analyze reality (e.g. about how one finds facts, what constitutes a fact, how and when facts matter,…) (epistemologically, ontologically) ○ Exact sciences tend to have more coherent paradigms ó social-scientific paradigms have a lot of internal discussion and dissent, rival theories, models, concepts, methods, results within a paradigm; their boundaries are fluid and vague The liberal paradigm – dominant? Politically liberal and pluralist (US post-WWII): believes that we live in an open, democratic, free, and inclusive (and capitalist!) society Sees humans as individuals, unique ○ Functionalist (have a particular role within society) ○ Utilitarian (have a particular purpose within society) ○ Behaviourist (behaves in certain predictable ways – often « rational ») Has a functionalist approach to media ○ Media serve a particular role within a healthy society (e.g. 4th estate watchdog) Thinks of science in a positivist fashion ○ Seeks true, generalizable, reliable, replicable knowledge through quantitative, statistical, or laboratory research ○ Effect-oriented: research must be useful, focus on empirically measurable forms of behaviour, processes, and phenomena Dominant? By and large the most-used paradigm in the global communication sciences (also known as the functionalist, liberal-pluralist, or positivist paradigm) The ‘critical’ paradigm – a challenger? Politically often left-wing, ethically progressive, favours an emancipatory worldview that seeks to help the weak and the oppressed Thinks of human beings as social entities that are (over)determined by their environments (social, economic, cultural, historical,…) Sees the media as part of a complex web of power relations (manipulation, répression, but also potential for émancipation and rebellion) Critical social science seeks to emancipate and to politicize taken-for-granted power structures ○ Often an interpretative dimension, focus on inequalities, power ○ Frequently uses more qualitative tools Critical of ○ Pluralist liberalism (reproduces existing inequalities) ○ Functionalism (hides power dynamics) ○ Behaviourism (notion of the homo economicus, the male/female,… is essentialist and reductive) ○ Positivism (imitation of exact sciences is methodologically limited in social sciences) Why do paradigms and theories matter? They decide the questions we can ask as well as the way we can research and answer them! Critical research questions differ significantly from positivist research questions ○ What are the most popular social media channels? ó How do commercial social media exploit ‘digital labour’? ○ How can politicians use traditional and social media to attract more votes ó What type of a political strategy is most suited to promote a progressive, emancipatory project? ○ How can a company protect its image and reputation during a crisis ó What is the role of corporations in surveillance and the rise of autocracy? Ultimately, they determine how scientists see the world!