Midterm Communication Research Methods Name_______key_________________

Total points: 49 pts

Fill in the Blank (6 pts).

1. Modernism, then, in the sense of modernity and modernization, evinces great faith
in the ability of ___reason_____________ to discover absolute forms of
knowledge.

2. ____Comte______________ is seen as the founder of positivism.

3. Without____dialogue____________, there can be no conscienticization.

4. Signifier is __a form, symbol__________, signified is ___an idea_____________

and the linguistic sign is arbitrary according to___Saussure__________________.

Complete the sentence (2 pts).

5. Where modernism purports to base itself on generalized, indubitable truths about

the way things really are, postmodernism….

Postmodernism abandons the entire epistemological basis for any such claims to
truth.

Identify the theorist/epistemologist (4 pts).

6. Which of the Frankfurt scholars had difficulty finding acceptance for his work in
the Institute? Habermas

7. Who wrote that reflection without action is empty verbalism? Freire

8. Who extended hermeneutics beyond the realm of biblical exegesis?

Schleiermacher and/or Ast.

9. Which feminist epistemologist was concerned with “outlaw emotions?” Jaggar

Definitions of Terms (8 pts).

10. Define the term paradigm.

An overarching conceptual construct, a particular way in which scientists make sense

of the world or some segment of the world.

11. What is Mead’s definition of a person?

 Every person is a social construction. We come to be persons in and out of
interaction with our society.

12. What is the concept of dasein defined as?

Phenomenology of the human being

13. Define the term objectivism.

The epistemological view that things exist as meaningful entities independently of

consciousness and experience, that they have truth and meaning residing in them as
objects, and that careful research can attain that objective truth and meaning.

Categories (5 pts-1 pt extra credit for each additional category you name)

14. Name three of Tong’s seven categories of feminism.

Liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, radical feminism, psychoanalytic feminism,
socialist feminism, existentialist feminism, postmodern feminism

15. Name two of Milner’s five characteristics of structuralism.

Positivism, anti-historicism, demystification, theoreticism, anti-humanism

Short Answer (9 pts)

16. Why is Feyerabend considered by some to be an enemy of science?

His attitude toward ‘normal science.’ He alleges it is based on indoctrination and

constitutes a threat to academic freedom. He is provocative and forceful in his
critique of normal science, radically questions the role of reason in science. He
emphasized sociology as the new direction for science.

17. Define the difference between verification and falsification.

No statement is meaningful unless it is capable of being verified. A statement can be

verified because what is predicated of the subject is nothing more than something
included in the very definition of the subject.

An advance in science is not a matter of scientists making a discovery and then

proving it to be right. It is a matter of scientists making a guess and then finding
themselves unable to prove the guess wrong, despite strenuous efforts to do so.
 Popper believes that , in engaging in observation and experiment, scientists are called
upon not to prove a theory (verification) (they can never do that) but to try to prove it
wrong (falsification).

18. What does it mean to “get back to the things themselves,” and how does this idea
differ from symbolic interactionism?

The ‘things themselves’ are phenomena that present themselves immediately to us as

conscious human beings. Phenomenology suggests that, if we lay aside, as best we
can, the prevailing understandings of those phenomena and revisit our immediate
experience of them, possibilities for new meaning emerge for us or we witness at least
an authentication and enhancement of former meaning. It presumes there are “things
themselves’ to visit in our experience. Symbolic interactionism is a constructionist
perspective that argues that the meaning of things is derived from and arises out of the
social interaction that one has with one’s fellows. In this line of thought, our cultural
heritage can therefore be seen as pre-empting the task of meaning making,
Phenomenology invites us to do exactly that, engage phenomena in our world and
make sense of them directly and immediately, bypass the cultural filters that arise out
of symbolic interaction.

Long Essay (15 pts).

 Given the array of epistemological and theoretical perspectives you have

encountered, where do you find yourself on the epistemology continuum? Why,
how so? What kinds of research questions and topics would you deal with and
what kind of methods would you utilize and why?