Mass Communication Theory-Post-Positivist

Categories of Mass Communication Theory  : All these categories shares and increased understanding of  Social and Communicative life..

·         Postpositivist theory

·         Hermenutic  theory

·         Critical  Theory

·         Normative Theory

The above mentioned categories differ in their goals,  Ontology, Epistemology, Axiology.

·         Ontology :  The nature of Reality, What is knowable.

·         Epistemology :  How knowledge is created and Expanded.

·         Axiology :  Proper role of values in research and theory building.

These differences not only define the different types of theory, but they also help make it obvious why the definition of social science in mass communication  theory is necessarily flexible.

Postpositivist Theory

It is a systematic study of social world based on the models of Physical science. The idea that could be gained only through empirical, observable, measureable phenomena examined through the scientific method.

These are based on Sciences for their model to systematically study social world. Thus PPT is based on empirical observation guided by scinetifc method .

It recognizes that humans and human behavior are not as constant as elements of the physical world.

The Goal of PPT :  Explanation

                             Prediction

                                Control , like physical science.

For Example: To study Operation of Political advertising , a Post positivist  Comm. Researcher will predict which commercial will be most effective and control the voting behavior of the targeted citizens.

                                   

Its ontology accepts that the world, even the social world, exists apart from our perceptions of it; human behavior is sufficiently predictable to be studied systematically. (Postpositivists do, however, believe that the social world does have more variation than the physical world; for example, the names we give to things define them and our reaction to them—hence the post of postpositivism).

Its epistemology argues that knowledge is advanced through the systematic, logical search

for regularities and causal relationships employing the scientific method.

Its Axiology : the objectivity inherent in the application of the scientific method keeps researchers’and theorists’ values out of the search for knowledge (as much as is possible). Postpositivist communication theory, then, is theory developed through a system of inquiry that resembles as much as possible the rules and practices of what we traditionally understand as science.

Source: Baron and Davis.