1、JRMC 8000 Joyce HONG1mid-term exam for JRMC 8000 Fall 20121. Based on the readings in your course pack, text book and class discussions, using your own words describe the major differences between these theoretical paradigms: post-positivism, critical theory, constructivism and post-modernism.Opinio
2、ns on RealityThe reality is controlled and predicted by human beings and reality is never perfect but will be consolidated by falsification. The critical theory concerns that the reality is contextual, and the aim of the theory is to emancipation, to break the established facts and prove they are no
3、t true, then people find out the reality when they become more sophisticated and informed. It denied the post-positivism for which ignored the human beings participation to the construction of the world, instead, it concerns that reality is created by human beings and is inevitably being subjective,
4、 relative.Constructivism concerns that the reality is what we constructed based on our multiple experiences, and so all the voices are equal and there is no absolute reality. Constructivism hold the opinion of relativism, which means that reality is always changing as constructors become more inform
5、ed and sophisticated.The postmodernism concerns that realities are what we interpret the world based on our own experience. There is no singular truth value and people present multiple JRMC 8000 Joyce HONG2truths or realities by just post voice and observation.EpistemologyFor the post-positivism, th
6、e investigator must be objective and value-free, so that they can see “how things really are”.The values of investigator influenced the investigated object and hence, rather than value free, the critical theory is value-mediate.(course packet,page110)the constructivism is similar to critical theory,
7、 the investigators and respondents are interactive, and the “findings” are created when different realities come to each other and the investigators began to introspect their own realities. The investigator are influenced by the external knowledge and then digest the knowledge and then to transform
8、or reconstruct their own realities.the post-modernism considers that there is no theory because there are so many and no one theory is more correct than another, besides, it concerns that theory should be transformed rather than abolished.1. MethodologyFor the post-positivism, the reality is based o
9、n the social scientific methodologies, basically, the findings are get through the experiments and generalization from JRMC 8000 Joyce HONG3research, but it also apply the qualitative techniques. And the investigators regard themselves as the “disinterest scientist”, they observe the investigated ob
10、jects in an objective way which although they acknowledge that the observed objects will be influenced by the researchers, they still pursue to be objective by discern the possible effects of bias.For the critical theory, the methodology is to reveal the nature behind the phenomenon in a dialectical
11、 way, to transform the ignorance and misapprehensions into informed consciousness.Constructivism mainly focus on the interaction between the investigators and knowledge, the investigator understand and create the knowledge based on their own experience and at the same time ,the external knowledge al
12、so facilitate the development of the constructivism itself, so that the investigators absorb the knowledge and reconstruct the knowledge as they have are informed and sophisticated. The postmodernism denied logical thinking and its based on the unscientific irrational thought process, its also subje
13、ctive and the reality can only form through peoples interpretations of the world individually. 2. Why is it impossible to integrate these paradigms? How are they mutually exclusive? Be specific.JRMC 8000 Joyce HONG4The answer is no, we cannot integrate these paradigms into a investigation of a mass
14、communication phenomena. As the four paradigms have different viewpoints on realities and different methodologies, they are mutually exclusive.For example, consider we are investigating the phenomena that the famous peoples voice would have great impact on voters when they make decisions for the pre
15、sident campaign. First, from point of the post-positivism, we need to do the research and surveys on the voters and measure the effects on them from the voice of famous people, and then we falsified what we find and finally get a result. During the whole process, the investigators should be objectiv
16、e.For the point of the critical theory, the investigators are interest in what the famous peoples voice actually represents in terms of politics. They reveal the nature of the politics and whose benefit of famous people stand for. The whole process is subjective and the aim of the investigation is t
17、o emancipate the voters mind and reconstruct or transform their mind from ignorance and misapprehension to more sophisticated and informed.For the viewpoint of the constructivism, the investigators just understand the phenomenon through their own experience, different investigator could have differe
18、nt understandings, and then through the interaction among the investigators and respondents, the investigators absorb the external information and reconstruct JRMC 8000 Joyce HONG5their understanding constructions. The investigators can not define an absolute explanation for the phenomenon but they
19、can construct a more consensus explanation as they are more informed and sophisticated.The post-modernisms view would be that the investigators will interpret the phenomenon individually and all investigators could interpret the voice of the famous people in their own mind and with their own experie
20、nce, all the interpretation are equal and there is no result or explanation for this phenomenon.So with the analysis above, we can see that the four paradigms are mutually exclusive and they cannot be integrated into an investigation of a mass communication phenomenon.3. What does Stuart Hall mean w
21、hen he titles “return to the repressed”?In his article, he mainly documents the cultural studies takes a critical look at culture, and it generally focus on the ideological ,oppressive implications of culture. It generally uses the semiotics, which is a similar way as language to use signs to expres
22、s the meanings, the meanings are produced through difference and associate relations. He also calls our attention to the idea of representation and discourse, in which culture signs are not just represent but also reconstruct the ideologies and practice. Besides, Hall also claims that culture is not
23、 singular and there are may cultures, these cultures vie for hegemony or power. Hegemonic culture is generally JRMC 8000 Joyce HONG6accepted because it co-operates certain elements of their cultures, the hegemonic culture is actually controlled by the elite. To Stuarts opinion, first of all, everyth
24、ing in this world is being created. For instance, ideologies are created to form what they call a hegemonic norm or common sense. To create that notion of common sense is to create a world that has a significant, thus knowledge is constructed to facilitate the interaction between one individual with
25、 the other. Besides, the process of knowledge construction carries ideologies that have a symbolic value to a particular group of individuals. in this way of constructing ideologies and knowledge, the world is constructed. So what the title mean I think is 4. What the James Carey add to more traditi
26、onal post positivist form of research?In Careys work, he add two elements to traditional post-positivism form of research. The first one is functional model. As the primitive research is antecedent causes, although it has advantage that it studies the psychology and social structures of the individu
27、als, when comes to the result, it can hardly achieve clear predictions of behavior. So in this case, we need to use the functional model to resolve the problem. Functional model puts emphasis on the utilization and consequences. It concerns that everything we do has its specific functions and every
28、social phenomenon has its own purpose and get together to maintain the social system. JRMC 8000 Joyce HONG7The other one Carey added is that we should pay attention to the content experience. Both causal analysis and functional analysis goes directly from the source to effect, so the link among the
29、content or the voice is ignored. the relationship between the outcome and the motivation is sometimes so vague that what we should do is not simply concern the cause and the consequence or the source and the effect, but should interpret the intrinsic symbols of the experience content in a systematic
30、 form and to investigate both the interacting symbols and the effect of the content has on the whole process of the communication. The third one is the culture studies, in Careys work , he compared the American studies and the British studies, and point out that the culture studies focus on the huma
31、n activity, which is also equivalent to the “culture”. So in the communication research, the aim is to understand the ways in which meaning is generated, disseminated and produced through various practices, beliefs and institutions.5. Find one current media effects or media audiences researchTitle:
32、The Duality of Structure in Chinas national television market: a network analysis of audience behaviorAuthor: Elaine J. Yuan and Thomas B. KsiazekFrom :RouteledgePage:180-204JRMC 8000 Joyce HONG8Larger social context: the television channel in China has step into a market era, and although it still
33、controlled by the government. There are 31 local TV channels and one center TV channel (CCTV). Many of the local channels have now already share a competitive market share with CCTV. Besides, with the socio-economic developments are different among different region in China, some provinces can affor
34、d more for the better programs and technologies. Therefore, the31 channels in the national market differ significantly in their household penetration.The research question: through the network analysis to see the co-evolution of structural attributes of channels and audience duplication over time.Me
35、thod of analysis: quantative research and qualitative researchThe findings: there is a two-way directions between the structural factors and aggregate agency, represented in patterns of audience duplication. And according to the analysis of the audience behavior data in Chinese TV market, it comes o
36、ut that the audiences tend to watch the channels with greater market share, higher household penetration rates and more drama programming.The relevance of those findings to society and to future research: these findings emphasis the importance of the theoretical and empirical ways of studying on aud
37、ience behavior and media environment.The paradigm used in the article: post-positivism. The reasons for the answer are the following. First of all, in this article, the realities are controlled and predicted by the JRMC 8000 Joyce HONG9authors with several hypothesis, and in order to prove these hyp
38、othesis, the author make points based on the scientific theories and use experiments and surveys. And many data based on the quantative research and the most important, the whole article based on a stance of objectivity. How the article fits into audience research based on McQuail?First of all, the
39、article also apply the structural tradition of audience measurement, in which the data are essential to the management and the size, is also important to know the social composition of audiences in the basic terms. Secondly, the fourth hypothesis claims that channels tend to develop a similar level
40、of drama programming as the average level of all channels they link to over time is supported and it fits for the gratification set as audience referred to the McQuail(page 410) which claims that multiple possibilities for audiences to form and reform on the basis of some media-related interest, nee
41、d on preference. Finally, according to the article, the audiences tend to flow to the channels with higher market share and higher penetrate rates. And this is fit for the “audience as defined by channel or content” in McQuail (page411), which claims that the audience is also consistent with marketing thinking, in which the audiences are regarded as the product of the media and they are in the sense of “followers” which cannot be measured.JRMC 8000 Joyce HONG10JRMC 8000 Joyce HONG11(Yan09)
