lecture 1

critical vs mainstream thinking

critical thinking: empty rhetoric?

• 2 approaches:

  • all science is critical (mainstream)

  • opposed to mainstream thinking, close to Marxism

mainstream theory and positivism

• social science is modeled after natural sciences

• scientific knowledge by rational evaluation of empirical evidence

• learn world theough facts

• there is one truth

• we can control both natural and social worlds (bend to our needs)

Marxist reaction

• scientific knowledge is product human activity, result of human observation → not neutral = should be subject to critique and analysis of how? why if arose and whose interest it serves

• positivist is very 1-dimensional (reduced what it investigated → to objects to be manipulated/controlled) → positivist socila science is more ideology: tries to impose view on us characterized by instrumental rationality (= is using rationality to get what you want)

traits of positivism

• sociologism: social forces precede and constitute (dictate) the human psyche (disagree: there is still free will)

• empiricism: human sensory experience is the arbiter of factual knowledge → subjective in a way

• scientism: growth of knowledge is for benefit of humankind → problems, we don’t control everything

• naturalism: there is no essential difference between the social and natural sciences → there is

• progressivism: goal of steadily improving society while maintaining social order is to be achieved by adjusting human desires to the scientifically established laws of society → who is controlling destiny of who?

marxist reaction epistemology: positivism, interpretivism

• critical analysis not purely formal, limited to logic of science, but also material, critique of society

• epistemology: nature of knowledge

  • positivism: social and cultural world investigation not different to physical world, world can be objectively studied, science can make truth claims, we can’t know what’s actually there

  • interpretivism: focus on meaning, subjective, truth is a social construct, observable world is manifestation of underlying structures/patterns

critical realism and constructionism

social constructionism

• all human activity is contingent (part of its environment) = differs in different context

• claims to truth are arbitrary → look at context (problem: how know what’s true?)

critical realism

• distinguishes between real and observable world (biased interpretations, ideologically biased)

• real can’t be observes, exists independent from human perceptionn, theories, constructions

• world we know and understand constructed from perspective, experience, the observable

• unobservable structures cause observable events and social world can be understood if structures behind events are understood

• both social constructionism and critical realism stress competing views of reality are possible

focus on power relations

• critical about the interests being served by science

• critical thinking also critical to social engagement

two schools in communication studies

critical media studies: oppositional perspectives in communication studies

• repression thesis: media means for enforcing and deepening domination

• manipulation thesis: media as tools to manipulate people

• commodity thesis: media as spheres of capital accumulation (commodifying: turning things into things you can sell)

• reception thesis: potential for oppositional interpretations and actions, focus on receiver side, how we perceive things

• emancipation thesis: media as means of criticizing domination

• alternative media thesis: there are alternative ways of doing and making media

pol. economy

• develpoments media production, distribution, consumption

• their functions of capitalist economic and societal system

• structure

cultural studies

• way media culture engages in reproducing relations of domination and oppression

• huamn agency, meaning(making)

critical theory in communication studies

• pol. economy:

  • critical realism: things exist apart from experienced interpretation

  • focus on material world: access to resources, distribution power and social struggles

• cultural studies:

  • social constructionism: reality si social construction

  • focus on ideology critique and deconstruction

tension fields in social science

• objectivism vs subjectivism

• conflict vs consensus

Marxist inspiration

• criticl opposed to mainstream

• many critical studies self-contemplation (thinking you’re superior) instead of self-criticism (= problem)

• it’s possible for different critical schools to coexist

self-criticism

• uncompromising criticism everything: existing powers in society but also your own thinking