Class Notes

Qualitative Methods - 8/27/2013

·       Qualitative and interpretive methods experienced a significant resurgence in the 1960s; at this point, we have an extremely large field. For this reason, this course is going to be self-directed.

·       First six chapters of media research text should be read for next week.

·       We must be able to answer questions surrounding our definition of good work—how do I know I’ve done good work? How do I demonstrate this to others?

·       The narrative assignment requires that we investigate narrative theory and using it to photograph a narrative sequence. How do we know that the photos constitute a narrative and not just exist as a collection of photos?

·       Dump the photos on our websites; the websites should be just for this class.

Three components of interpretive research: the interpreter, the object, and the argument. The goal of interpretive research is to conventionalize the methodology to the point that the interpreter disappears. We need to know the location of the interpreter—their positionality. The idea of bias requires there to be objective truth. We must decide whether bias is defined in relation to an objective stance or just another, different biased stance. We can get around this language by using the idea of standpoints. We must be able to establish the value of our own particular standpoint. There is also the issue of epistemological practices and assessing one’s competence to interpret. We can only understand those things we are significantly close to—I cannot write about the experience of being religious/black/over 50. We will always have to recognize our incompetencies (and the degree to which we follow the conventions of research methods). The interpreter can also be understood through the 4 major –ologies—ontology, epistemology, axiology, and praxeology. Looking through these, we must limit our interpretive impediments.

The agent is a representative, and we must think about agency and agentry. We must reflect upon our role as an agent of our own epistemological background. Reflexivity is used to make us look good, though it’s an excuse for us to continue our own proclivities. How can we manage our reflexivity ethically? There are also issues of identity, since we are enacting the performance of our selves. We are always making truth claims, even if we don’t want to say so. This is an epistemology of truth making. As an interpreter, we are performing some recognizable line of action (methods with known positive and negative use). Praxeology is the meta-level of practice. My membership must also approve my goal—does academia care about knowing this? We must acknowledge the politics of identity; though subjugated groups often claim to have specialized knowledge, this only exists as far as the oppression does.

            The object of interpretation is also of great importance. It can be a text of any sort: linguistic, symbolic, performative (individual, organization, etc.). The main difference between interpretation and rhetoric or new criticism is that interpretation engages the other/the experience of the other. The object must have a level of coherence, which can depend on whether or not the production is competent. We must also be aware of modality, which refers to the mode of expression. One can perform different types of things different ways, and those ways are modalities (sarcasm, comedy, authoritarian). We should pay attention to authority and note whether or not our object has authority for its performance.

            The object of interpretation is anything meaningful to the interpreter and the argument. Objects can be encoded or extracted. The encoded text is one that was made as an intentional communicative artifact. An extracted text is one that was not necessarily meant as a communicative item. Empirical work cannot ethically deal with extracted texts—they are not meant for consumption and so they do not allow engagement. We must also ask about the level of intentionality (autonomic to purposeful) and collaboration (congregate to aggregate).

            The epistemological community that you belong to will largely determine the conventions of the argument. The particular university and communication department provides its own epistemological standards, an epistemic community. Ethically, we must go through and ask ourselves what are our pre-conditions for understandings? What are our proclivities in interpretation?

            The argument includes a master contract with forms conventions, and practical expression. It includes claims, evidence, and warrants, and there are always contributions and questions of instrumentality.  

            The episteme is our knowledge about our epistemological position in time and place. We are in the closing stages of the Enlightenment episteme, which broke away from the episteme of Authority. Prior to this, we had Tribal and Experiential epistemes, though all epistemes technically exist at the same time. The enlightenment includes ideas of enlightenment through empirical, realist, material, causal, deterministic, reductionist though, moving toward certainty and closure. This moves away from arguments based solely on authority, revelation, inspiration, local practice, and common sense. We are moving toward argumentation from ideation, social construction, and standpoint empiricism. This transition is due to a failure in the theory of the unity of knowledge, which states that science is no longer the only answer. Semiotic distinctions persist beyond science. Furthermore, social sciences cannot or fail to converge. The transition is also bringing out the recognition of multiple paradigms, including foundational and reflexive paradigms. Methodological individualism (the idea that all things are explained within the individual) contrasts with methodological holism (we should look to the group for explanations). There is even further development of disciplinary domains. We are increasingly contesting the ownership of knowledge and relying on value driven scholarship and rejecting the primacy of material science. Finally, knowledge is being recognized as political.

            We must acknowledge the episteme within the context of culture. There are seven major systems within culture: semiotic (meaning of language and action), epistemic (truth-making), ethical (right and wrong), aesthetic (beauty), economic (value exchange), political (allocation), and social (self, other, and relationships). These are the facets that should be considered when looking at an artifact—is anything being privileged or ignored?

            Theory is the necessity for the creation of public knowledge. We must decide what justifies our practice in any particular theory. The truth of a theory rests in its instrumentality, and it provides instructions for doing scholarship. It establishes ontology, epistemological terms, praxeological methods, and axiological justifications. Each theory resides in an epistemic communities. Theories require certain things: an object of its explanation, explanatory form, a method of connecting evidence to a claim, consequence of value, and the ability to generate explanations with a scope of performance. Even this way of reaching theory does not guarantee that it provides truth; it can accommodate both true and false executions. The truth of a proposition appears in its performance.

            There are four major areas of scholarship, occurring along two axes. One includes empirical (observation, measurement, presence, experience) to analytical (theory, frameworks, concepts, values). The other includes foundational (modernist: certainty, causality, closure) to reflexive (postmodernist: erasure, agency, indeterminacy). Theoretical saturation is the point at which we decide that there is enough evidence to support a theory. The text declares when it is saturated; or rather, using the text, the interpreter defines the saturation point. The point at which the two axes meet, creates four major spheres: empirical-foundational, empirical-reflexive, analytical-foundational, and foundational-reflexive.

            Cognitivism (empirical-foundational) is causal, with human behavior as the effect and cognitive structure as the cause. It enforces methodological individualism. Cognitivist theory relies on the idea that material practices of socialization operate on the brain, and those deterministic structure create observable behavioral outcome. The problem with this is that there is an empirical barrier—we cannot see into the brain, to see the cognitive structures. Critical theory (foundational-analytical) is emancipatory and political; it is typically non-empirical, and it argues from philosophical authority. It is characterized by essentializing and monolithic characterizations. It suggests that dominant interests control the production and media, which leads to the commodification of the individual and the massification of the consciousness. The problem with this is that it does not recognize why some can access the foundational truths and others cannot.

            Semiosis is important to understanding reflexivity. It is the capacity for one thing to stand for another. Without semiosis, there is only the eternal present, no past or future. There is both a world of meaning and a meaningful world. It is a social invention that is constructed through the min. The mind is a linguistic instrument and social invention. Therefore, the meaningful world is constituted through social construction. As long as the world is socially constructed, then it can be interpreted. The semiotic form is described through the Peircean Traid: sign (material trace, signifier), signified (ideational object, also a sign), and relationship (constructed, maintained, and supervised in social practices). This model denies representation and referentiality, and it undermines the stability of the sign. Knowledge processes move from the local to the global.

            Social action theory (empirical-reflexive) is hermeneutic, and action is embedded in a system of performance. It includes the recognition of agency, though linkages are probabilistic, not causal. It includes an interactive dualism, where rules motivate the routine, but the routines constitute the rules. This is a type of methodological holism: the explanation must reside in the group. It is also dynamic, focusing on process and integrating time. It must take into account equifinality, which states that any given point or situation can be precipitated from myriad, unknowable starting points.

            Deconstructionism (analytical-reflexive) rejects foundationalism, stating that all arguments are from an ideological standpoint, and all standpoints involve privilege. Deconstruction reveals structures and operations of privilege. It rejects referentiality, representation, and secure meaning. It critiques binaries, and is a return to local, experiential knowledge. It argues that everything is a text. Deconstructionism is interested in dualities rather than dichotomies. All signs references other signs.

            We must decide where we exist in this model. We have to argue for something!

Glossary of terms with no real meanings:

Theoretical saturation; close reading