Communication Studies as a Social Science 2018 PDF

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Communication Studies as a Social Science By mws This handout attempts to explain the scientific nature of the discipline of communication studies. It also outlines some of what communication studies scholars do and how they go about their work. Science Communication studies is a social science. It is an interdisciplinary social science that borrows heavily from the other social sciences: sociology, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, political science, economics, and history. What is science? Formally, science is a body of systematically arranged knowledge that shows the operation of general laws. It also refers to the logical, systematic methods by which that knowledge is obtained. Science describes, explains, and, most ambitiously, predicts. Science is divided into the natural sciences that look at physical and biological phenomena and the social sciences that study aspects of human behavior. The underlying assumption of all science is that there is some underlying order or pattern to the universe. Events, whether they involve molecules or human beings, are not purely random or haphazard. They follow a pattern that is sufficiently regular for us to make generalizations. A generalization is a statement that applies not to a specific case, but to all or most cases of the same type. For example, we might be interested in making a generalization about how people on a first date communicate with each other. Here we are not just interested in how Pedro and Hilda communicate when they go to McDonald's on their first date. We are interested in "first daters" in general. Generalizations enable us to place isolated and often seemingly insignificant events, such as Pedro's and Hilda's non-stop talking on their first date, into patterns we can understand. After we discover patterns and make our generalizations, e.g., that first daters talk non-stop, we can analyze relationships of cause and effect and thus explain why something happens. In this case, we discover that first daters talk non-stop because they wish to avoid the psychological discomfort of awkward silences in a situation in which their every move is being evaluated and scrutinized. After we explain the phenomenon, we can predict that it will happen again under the same conditions in the future. We can predict that Joe and Sue will also probably talk non-stop when they go out on their first date next Tuesday. Science's generalizations, explanations, and predictions are based on careful, systematic analysis of verifiable information, i.e., evidence that

can be checked by others and will always yield the same results. (This will be discussed in detail in due course.) There are usually exceptions to the generalizations we make. (In the social sciences, there are virtually always exceptions.) In communication studies, to make our generalizations we study large numbers of people and then we make statements about people as communicators in terms of probabilities and percentages. Say that we are studying communication patterns between men and women. We might assert, after investigation, that when an interruption is made in a conversation between a man and a woman, 75% of the time the interrupter will be the male. Or we might assert that in three out of four of these conversations, the male will control the topic. Given that we speak in terms of probabilities and percentages, we can never say how any one particular individual is going to act. We can say what percentage of people are likely to act (communicate) in a certain way if social conditions hold, but we cannot predict how a specific individual will act. There is, if nothing else, always choice at the individual level. And, again, there are exceptions to the generalizations we make. For example, life insurance folks tell us that smokers will die, on average, eight or nine years earlier than non-smokers. But you'll always find someone who says, "My ninety year old grandma has been smoking like a chimney for seventy years, and she's still going strong." Sure! But you must also consider that there are people who are dying fifteen or twenty years earlier than they would have. We are dealing with averages, percentages, and probabilities. Science versus Common Sense and Everyday Knowledge Why do we need scientific knowledge in the first place? Some complain that social scientific research is merely an expensive way of confirming what we already know. We, as human beings, communicate every day. We all have a lot of experience communicating. Why can't we just use our everyday experience and our common sense to understand communication? We can't because common sense and everyday knowledge have many weaknesses. We over-generalize. We draw conclusions about many based on only a few cases. Suppose you talk to three out of three hundred student demonstrators, all three of whom say that they are protesting the bad food served in the commons. It is tempting, but faulty, to infer that all three hundred are demonstrating for the same purpose. We naturally are not always the most careful of observers. We overlook a lot. For example, we are oblivious to many of our communication styles and patterns. Bill is not aware of the fact that he speaks differently to men than to women.

If you think that all men are hell-bent on dominating the conversation when they talk to a woman, you might ignore those who aren't. Often we claim that those cases that go against our expectations are merely exceptions to the rule. Our expectations come from different sources. Very often we have emotional stakes in our beliefs that cause us to resist evidence that challenges these beliefs. This may lead to closing one's mind to new information- taking an "I've made up my mind- don't confuse me with the facts" approach. Historically, people have rejected evidence produced by scientific investigation because it has conflicted with their religious beliefs. For example, Jane refuses to believe evidence of how the human capacity for speech has evolved over tens of thousands of years because she has an emotional stake in her religion that tells her that humans have been on the earth for less than 5,000 years. Similarly, we tend to believe what we want to believe and see what we want to see. We tend to accept whatever appears to be "logical" without further investigation. Here common sense can create barriers to understanding. Common sense is often vague, oversimplified, and contradictory. Science, on the other hand, attempts to be specific, to qualify its statements, and to prove its assertions. Common sense is often contradictory. Why should you "look before you leap," if "he who hesitates is lost"? How can "absence make the heart grow fonder," when "out of sight, out of mind"? Why should "opposites attract," when "birds of a feather flock together"? Social scientists would attempt to qualify these statements by specifying under what conditions opposites attract or birds of a feather flock together. And social scientists would ask, "What proof is there to support this assertion?" Social scientists, upon investigation, would probably reinterpret some of the old maxims. We have been told that "early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." Is this true? Maybe the social scientist would discover instead that early to bed and early to rise probably indicates unskilled employment. What about "waste not, want not"? Here the social scientist might discover that, in our consumer society based on disposables, waste not and there will not be enough work for people. In fact the results of scientific research often contradict common sense expectations. It was common sense that the world is flat. It was common sense that the earth is the center of the universe. . Similarly, that people have believed something for years and acted

accordingly does not make it true. Early Americans doubted that the average female, because of "innate inferiority," could do college work. But this did not prove the biological inferiority of women. Scientific research seeks to overcome the pitfalls of everyday inquiry and common sense by being objective and relentlessly hunting down facts. Science versus Other Ways of Knowing and Pursuit of the Truth in the Face of Opposition There are other ways of knowing besides scientific observation and reasoning. One can rely on tradition, authority, or mystical experience. One can rely on the horoscope included in the daily newspaper, the feelings in one's bones, or the way a chicken's entrails fall. All of these types of knowing, including science, involve trust. But the question is, "trust in what?" Scientists put their trust in the scientific method. In comparing science with other ways of knowing, it should also be pointed out that science deals with what is and why it is that way. It does not deal with what should be. That is the preserve of philosophy, religion, and ethics. In regard to these other ways of knowing, we also need to mention again that the personal, religious, or political concerns involved in them can lead people to deny or ignore unappealing information. For example, two social scientists from Stanford and the University of Chicago wrote a paper arguing that the falling crime rates of the 1990s might have been linked to the widespread legalization of abortion in the 1970s. Their thesis, supported by solid statistical models, posited that since poor, underprivileged women had fewer babies from the mid-1970s onward, and since unwanted, poor children are disproportionately likely to become criminals in their late teens, the soaring abortion rates of the 1970s and 1980s might be linked with an unexpected benefit. These academics also showed that those states that legalized abortion first in the early 1970s saw their crime rates drop first in the 1990s. This study was certainly not without flaws, but it did put forward important ideas worth discussing. But these ideas ran counter to the personal, religious, and political concerns of many Americans, so the work was vigorously criticized by many people, most of whom did not even take the time to analyze the findings. The work was savagely attacked by both antiabortion groups and abortion rights activists. So these academics had to withstand a considerable amount of abuse for their work. Similarly, a study published by the American Psychological Association assessing the effects of child molestation found that the lasting psychological trauma among adult survivors of abuse, particularly for men, was much less than feared. The results from 23 dissertations and 36

peer-reviewed studies showed that victims of child abuse seemed on average to be only slightly less well adjusted by the time they became young adults. The researchers also found that two-thirds of males who, as children or teenagers, had sexual experiences with adults did not react negatively. The scholars stressed that their findings did "not imply that the moral or legal definitions of or views on the behaviors currently classified as child sexual abuse should be abandoned or even altered." But, again, these findings were not pleasing to the American public, so they were immediately and vigorously attacked. Members of the religious right accused the A.P.A. of tolerating pedophilia and launched a crusade to punish the organization. And the House of Representatives voted 355-0 to condemn the study. Even in science, research supporting key societal values or interests tends to be more widely supported than research opposing the same. But most social scientists believe that it is important to challenge ideas held dear by society. There are no areas so sacred that science cannot explore them. Any question that can be answered by the scientific method is, in principle, appropriate subject matter for scientific inquiry, even if the findings outrage powerful interests or undermine cherished values. Yet science is not arrogant; it recognizes no ultimate, final truths. The body of scientific knowledge is nothing but the most logical interpretations of the existing data. It is always possible that new facts or new interpretations will shatter the existing assumptions. Status of the Social Sciences The social sciences are less advanced as disciplines than the natural sciences. One reason for this is that they are relatively young compared to the natural sciences. Even more important is the fact that the subject matter itself presents many problems. People are very complex. They are self-aware and capable of changing their behavior when they want to.

People behave in unforeseen ways for private reasons. Many factors influence their behavior. Historical, social, psychological, economic, organizational, societal, interpersonal, and many other factors are involved. So how can any explanation or prediction take all of this into account? No study or theory can. Social scientists cannot explain every possibility. But they can say that one factor is relatively more important than several others or that something will occur more frequently under one set of conditions than another. Thus communication studies (or psychology or sociology) is not less scientific than biochemistry or astronomy; it simply faces greater problems of generalization, explanation, and prediction.

It is important to remember that the basic philosophy and method of the natural and social sciences are the same. And for both the accuracy of general statements depends, in large part, on how the evidence is produced, on how the observations are conducted. Social science is not simply one person's opinions pitted against someone else's. There are rules of evidence and inference. Some evidence is better than others and some conclusions are more supportable. Debates are not merely matters of difference of opinion. It's understood that some statements are more supportable than others and that some arguments are better than others. It's understood that some things are more probable, while others are less. Objectivity Objectivity is a very important part of science. Social science differs from everyday inquiry in that researchers try to be conscious of what they are doing, how they are doing it, and what their biases are. Bias includes a scientist's temperament, inclinations, interests, concerns, and experiences. It includes the way a scientist's personal values and attitudes may influence his/her observations or conclusions. It can include the cultural milieu in which the social scientist is trained and works. It even includes the assumptions of the scientific tradition. In being objective, scientists strive to minimize distortions in observation or interpretation due to these biases. One important way of achieving objectivity is by including a section in one's published work describing the procedures used in one's study. These procedures, as well as the evidence and conclusions produced from them, can then be scrutinized and questioned by others. The study can even be duplicated by others to check the work. Another important way to achieve objectivity is through exercise of caution. One must be aware of one's biases and not allow them to distort one's work. One must relentlessly hunt down facts and not ignore those inconvenient to preferred theories. One must not manipulate data to prove a point. Although one cannot be value-free, one can strive to be as objective as possible. Indeed, one has to be open to bad news that might demonstrate that one's explanation is incomplete or wrong. Theory The facts that social scientists collect don't speak for themselves. It is theory that gives meaning to facts. If valid, it will correctly predict that similar relationships will occur in the future if conditions are the same. Theory places events in a framework that enables one to determine cause and effect, to explain, to predict. Theory provides a way of organizing the observable world.

Facts without theory are meaningless. They lack a framework in which to be understood. But theory without facts is little better than unproven speculation or poor philosophy. Theory and fact gathering go hand-inhand. You need research to test theory for science. Theory often inspires research, i.e., fact gathering, which is used to verify or disprove the theory. Research is conducted according to the scientific method. The Scientific Method Social scientific investigations are guided by the scientific method, which is a particular system of rules, principles, procedures, and guidelines for collecting evidence. Guided by the method, scientists collect evidence concerning certain phenomena in the social world, with an eye toward explaining that phenomena. Scientists follow the method to collect data in order to test their ideas in ways that can be replicated and checked by others. Science is an empirical endeavor. Social scientists pose empirical questions, i.e., ones that can be answered by observation and analysis of the world as it is known to the five senses. Social scientists, as scientists, are interested in empirical questions as opposed to philosophical questions such as, "What is the best form of government?" or "Does God exist?" Let us now delve more deeply into the scientific method itself. In order to understand the method the following terms must be understood: hypothesis, unit of analysis, population, sampling procedure, variable, operationalization, independent variable, dependent variable, correlation, causation, intervening variable, control, validity, reliability. Let us look at each of these in turn.

Scientists conduct studies to test their hypotheses. A study can support a hypothesis, refute a hypothesis, specify the conditions under which a hypothesis is true, or support a rival hypothesis. You might hypothesize that the average Comm. 10 student is brighter than the average UCLA student. Here the relationship you are asserting is one between membership in this class and intelligence. You might gain access to the IQ scores of all UCLA students and discover that the IQ of the average Comm. 10 student is ten points higher than that of the average UCLA student, thus confirming your hypothesis. You might also be interested in, and thus hypothesize about, what makes for a successful Comm. 10 student. You hypothesize that a particular type of behavior is related to being a successful Comm. 10 student. Let us develop this hypothesis and use it as a running illustration as we move through the other important aspects of the scientific method.

The unit of analysis is who or what is being studied. It is the major entity that you are analyzing. The following are examples of units of analysis in the social sciences: individuals, groups, institutions, societies, artifacts (like newspapers, books, or photographs), social interactions (like arrests, murders, or divorces), geographical units (like cities, census tracts, or states). In our quest for what makes for a successful Comm. 10 student, let us say that we are interested in all the students who have taken Comm. 10 in the 1990s- all 10,000 of them (we'll say there have been 10,000 to make matters easier). It is these 10,000 individual students that we are interested in. Here our unit of analysis is the individual student. Among them, what behavior has made for success in Comm. 10? (Before we leave unit of analysis concept, note that we could focus on successful Comm. 10 classes rather than individuals. We could decide to compare average classroom behavior/performance. So here the unit of analysis would be the group, the class. So rather than look at the behavior of each individual student we could look at the class aggregates in our analysis. Here, even though we have data at the individual student level, we use aggregates. Note that it is called unit of analysis because it is the analysis you do in your study that determines what the unit is.) These 10,000 students compose our population, which is the total number of cases possessing a particular characteristic (here, having taken Comm. 10). Luckily, to draw conclusions about this entire population, we do not have to study all 10,000 people. Through application of an appropriate sampling procedure, we can draw conclusions about the entire population by studying only a few of its members. The key lies in how the few are selected. The samp...