Part 2: Assumption behind Communication theories :

Reality , Knowledge ,Values

In the previous chapter you learned the definition of a theory
and how to decide wheather theories are good or bad. This
chapter addresses some of the assumptions we make that
underlie the construction of various type of communication
theories. As a student of communications theory you need to
appreciate that each theorist approaches the study of
communication based on a unique worldview. In this chapter,
You will explore some of the dominant worldviews that
support the discipline.

How should I Understand the World around

Me?
Someone discovered long ago that it is easier to carry pile of
dirty laundry by putting it in a container with handles, and it
is easier to break something open to look at it we can first
find in crack in the surface. Term in theory work in the same
waythey work likehandles in allowing us to better
understand absract and complex idea.
Scholars have called this idea of theorizing about theory
Metatheory. Explains:Metatheory, as the meta-suggest.
Metatheory is not a specific theory or a spesific explanation
about some aspec of communication, but a way of talking
about or analyzing individual theories. It is a sort of theory
about how we theorize.
Theres three areas of assumptions that are important to
explaining and understanding theory: Ontology ,
epistemology , and axiology.

1.Ontology : The Nature of Reality and

What Humans Are Like
The first area of assumptions that sits beneath the surface of
theory deals with Ontology, or assumptions about the nature
of being or reality. It is importain to note here that Ontology
is not a single assumption,but a set of ideas about what is
real or what explains human behavior. Ontological questions
in communication include: Are you responses---Like you
ability to empathize with others---best understood in term of
temporary conditions(states) or in terms of general,relatively
enduring predispositions(traits)?

2.Epistemology: What We Know And How

We Know It
The study of knowledge is known as epistemology.
Epistimological questions address things such as how
certainly we can know what we know,whether we must
haveobservable evidance or are allowed to use our
intuition in determining what we know,and how
explicity we must know something before it counts for
knowledge.

3.Axiology: The Role of Values In Our

Research

The final set of questions most commonly found in

discussions of metatheory involve the role values
should take in our research and theory, an area of
philosophy called Axiology.
At one level, these questions include wheather we can
separate theory or research from the individual
interests or values of the on creating the theory or
conducting the research.
For example, can or should we openly use theory
and research to expose and combat racism or class-based
oppression? If we say yes,we accept that it is okay for values
to guide our work.
In recent decades many have taken the axiological view that
no theorist and no research can be absolutely value-free or
compelely objective or neutral picture of reality. This
acknowledgement is importain for study for ontology and
epistemology. It suggests that the values and world view of
the researcher claims to be neutral.
In sum, every theory rest on assumptions about what its
real, how we understand the world, what counts as
worthwhile evidance. The next section will discuss such
attempts at making more sense of the types of theory in
communications.

Are There Shortcuts I Can Take to

Understand These Assumptions?
Scholars often cluster theories into groups-based on similar
underlying assumptions, a sort of classification system of
general ways of seeing the world.
A paradigm is a general approach, more formally a paradigm
is a way of seeing the social and natural world,with a set of
Assumptions or beliefs about what that world is like (Kuhn,
1996).

Kuhn contended that (specifics) disciplines go through stage

of revolutionary science. Kuhn(1996) explains that as a
discipline moves in maturity,it land on a single paradigm for
a while(until the next revolution takes place). Gibson Burell
and Gareth Morgan(1979) place this prespective on two
dimensions.

1.The objective subjective dimension

First,the objective approach tends to believe in a social
world external to individual cognition that is, a real world
made up of hard,tangible and relative immutable things
theory and research try to uncover the laws of humans
behaviors.
The second approach is the subjective approach. This view of
the world holds that reality and meaning are always personal
and always chanelled through the society that contain them.
In subjective approach,people do not behave on impulse but
rather make deccisions based on free will(voluntarism). For
this reason the subjective approach is often called
interpretive and humanistic.

The different between two approach might be understood

better if we consider the principle behind the words objective
and subjective.

2.The Social Change/Status Quo

Dimension
Burrel and Morgan propose a second dimension that cuts
across the first one, this dimension raises question as to the
role of values in reseach. You can see that either subjective
and objective theories can seek to change the world. A
subject theories might seek to changes people individual

view of reality, or might seek to radically alter the social

structures believed to be external to observed. One type of
research that seeks to changed the wolrd is critical theory.

Why Cant We All Just Get Along?---The two

Dimensions And Two Debates
Two specific debates have arisen that regard the main
paradigms That we as communication students use as we
try to understand how and why we study communication.

Law Approach.

The theory seeks to uncover the

regularities of human behavior, the approach assumes that
people act much the same in response stimuli. If we wanted
to understand a communication behavior, say positive
reception of public relation champaign , we would try to
isolate those things, such as the visual content of a
message,the audiences demographic background, and so
on,that would help us to predict the audience response.

Rules Approach.

The rules approach contrast to the

laws approach in that it assumes that people have the ability
to make their own decisions. An importain aspect of this
perspective is that rules are created through communication
among a group of people, in sum, we would explains people
behavior in term of how it follows or breaks the rules of
situation.

System Approach.

The third approach popular in the

late 1970s was a system approach. Watzlawick, Janet beavin
and Don Jackson (1967) applied this approach to their
counseling of families.they suggested that the appropriate
unit of analysis was not individual member of families. If one
member changed her on his behavior, the rest of the system

will change. In Sum. A System is the ordered composition of

(material or mental) elements into a unified whole a system
can be as small as the mild of an individual.

The Following Points ON Paradigm debate:

1. we will discusse theories as scientific, humanistic , or
critical in this book because these are commonly
accepted as paradigms in our discipline today.
2. However, we should think of theories as either more
scientific or more humanistic.some theories combine
elements of both approaches for example,cultural
studies and American interpretativsm suggest that we
have shared social realities.
3. Any critically theory also has an onthological and
epistemological stance. In communication discipline,
most critical theories are more humanistic.