| Sense-Making Home Page | Syllabi | . | . |
MODEL SYLLABUS
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN COMMUNICATION STUDIES:
DECONSTRUCTING COMMUNICATION THEORIES
CLASS FORMAT AND SCHEDULING:
Lecture and discussion, with 2 - 2 hour sessions per week.
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION:
An uncovering of the ways in which theories of communication incorporate
implicit and explicit images, assumptions and practices, using a variety
of challenges and perspectives as deconstructing tools.
CREDIT HOURS:
5 credits
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
The purpose of the course is show how a variety of challenges and perspectives
can be used as deconstructing tools to unravel communication theories and
examine the images, assumptions, practices, and premises hidden within.
While the major focus of the course is on examining communication theories
as developed in communication studies, the same tools can be usefully applied
to everyday theories of communication. Graduate students will be asked to
focus primarily on academic theories in their class applications. Undergraduate
students with interests in communication practice and design may wish to
apply class work to these everyday lay theories. In both cases, the intent
of "deconstructing" is not to marginalize theorizing or scientific
inquiry but rather to explore the potential of a variety of approaches for
creating the reflexive analysis which is a hallmark standard of all qualitative
approaches.
DEVELOPED IN 1996 BY:
Brenda Dervin, Ph.D., Professor (Communication), 3016 Derby Hall, 154 N.
Oval Mall, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA dervin.1@osu.edu. Note:
This syllabus was developed for curriculum committee review purposes and
as a model for alternative instructors. The readings come solely or primarily
from authors writing in the various communication fields. Actual presentations
of the class will vary and most versions will rely 30-50% on works from
sources in other fields.
ATTENDANCE POLICY:
While attendance is not a formal course requirement, there are four ways
in which missing class can hurt you. One is in your participation grade
for which attendance is a necessary pre-requisite. The second will be in
the resources you will be able to bring to bear on the take-home exams because
class lectures and discussions will necessarily impact the selection of
the exam questions. The third will be in the resources you will be able
to bring to bear on your class paper because class sessions will be in part
orient toward assisting students with their selected class projects. If
you miss a class you must acquire the missing notes from another student
and not from the instructor.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
For both undergraduate and graduate students, class grades will be calculated
based on:
| Class participation & discussion | 20% |
| Two take-home exams | 40% (20% each) |
| Class paper | 40% |
| Wk | FOCUS, READINGS, ASSIGNMENTS |
| 1 | INTRODUCTION |
| 2 | WHENCE COMMUNICATION THEORIES? WHENCE THE FIELD? Course text: +Krippendorff, The past of communication's hoped for future - Peters, Genealogical notes on 'the field' - Rakow, The curriculum is the future +Rosengren, From field to frog ponds - Rogers, The past and the future of communication study... *Shoemaker, Communication in crisis: theory, curricula, and power *Swanson, Fragmentation, the field and the future Reserve list: - Conrad, Was Pogo right? - Gross, There they go again - Gouran, The task scholars report in historical and future perspective - Wood, Toward the 21st century: The future of speech communication - Zarefsky, E pluribus unum: one partial vision Supplementary text: - Slife, Science and human behavior |
| 3 | INTRA-FIELD DISSENTS Course text: +Beniger, Communication -- embrace the subject, not the field *Craig, Why are there so many communication theories? - O'Keefe, Against theory - Shepard, Building a discipline of communication Reserve list: - Asante, The escape into hyperbole: Comm and political correctness - Berger, Evidence? For what? - Burgoon, PC at last! PC at last! Thank God almighty, we are PC at last! - Carey, Political correctness and cultural studies - Grossberg, Being politically correct in a politically incorrect world - Liska, On the death, dismemberment, or disestablishment of the dominant |
| 3 | CHALLENGES TO ACADEMIC PRACTICE Course text: *Monahan, The hierarchy of institutional values in the comm discipline - Newcomb, Target practice: a Batesonian 'field' guide for comm studies +Tracey, Scholarship as silence Reserve list: - Docherty, Scholarship as silence - Evans,"Masks": Literacy, ideology, and hegemony in the academy - Lannamann, Interpersonal comm research as ideological practice - Henderson, Paris is burning and academic conservatism |
| 4 | THEORIES OF THE SUBJECT AS CHALLENGE Reserve list: +Anderson, The nature of the individual in communication research - Beach, W. A., Orienting to the phenomenon +Ganguly, Accounting for others... *Grodin, The self in a mediated communication *Lindlof, Seeking a path of greater resistance: the self becoming method... Supplementary text: - Slife, Human images |
| *** | TAKE HOME EXAM #1 DUE AT BEGINNING OF FIRST
CLASS SESSION THIS WEEK |
| 5 | ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY AS CHALLENGE Course text: *Braman, Harmonization of systems: the third stage... Reserve list: - Brown, Logics of discovery as narratives of conversion... - Conrad, Rhetorical/communication theory as an ontology for structuration *Dervin, Information<---->democracy - Grossberg, Does communication theory need intersubjectivity? - Smith. Diversity and order in communication theory +Jackson, Method as argument - Jacobson, Theories as communication - Folger, Interpretive and structural claims about confrontations +Lannamann, Outside the boundary: A critique of comm as representation - VanOosting, ...Use of imaginative lit for comm theory...precautions *Warnick, Structuralism vs. phenomenology Supplementary text: - Slife, Ways of knowing...determinism...reductionism |
| 6 | THE CRITICAL CHALLENGE Course text: +McChesney, Critical communication research at the crossroads - Meehan, Rethinking political economy... +Schiller, ...Prospects for the study of comm as a social force Reserve list: - Hardt, The return of the "critical" and the challenge of radical dissent... - Hardt,Communication and the question of history *Medhurst, Resistance, conservatism, and theory building: A cautionary - Moffitt, Bringing critical theory & ethic[s]...to definitions of a "public" - Nerone, Theory and history *Real, The debate on critical theory and the study of comm... |
| 7 | THE CULTURE CHALLENGE Course text: *Grossberg, Can cultural studies find true happiness in communication Reserve list: - Davis, Beyond the culture wars: the agenda for res on comm & culture *Burrowes, From functionalism to cultural studies +Rakow, Some good news-bad news about a culture-centered paradigm +Real, The challenge of a culture-centered paradigm: - Stamp, Criteria for developing and assessing theories of interpersonal |
| 8 | FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP AS CHALLENGE Course text: +Steeves, ...Development communication and the challenge of feminism Reserve list: *Kramarae, Chronic power problems *Lugones, Have we got a theory for you! Feminist theory, cultural... +Steiner, Feminist theorizing and communication ethics - Wood, Telling our stories: Narratives as a basis for theorizing sexual |
| 9 | DECONSTRUCTION AS CHALLENGE Course text: +Jensen, The consequences of vocabularies Reserve list: *Biersecker, Rethinking...from within the thematic of differance - Cobb, A critique of critical discourse analysis: deconstructing and... - Desilet, ..The conflict between hermeneutics and deconstruction... *Jordon, On ethnography ...reading narratives or deconstructing discourse? - Laditka, Language, power, and play: The dance of deconstruction and +Pearce, Deconstructing gender differences in persuasibility: A bricolage - Sardar, The crisis of postmodernism |
| *** | TAKE HOME EXAM #2 DUE AT BEGINNING OF FIRST
CLASS SESSION THIS WEEK |
| 10 | TIME AND SPACE AS CHALLENGES Course text: +Dervin, Verbing communication: mandate for disciplinary invention Reserve list: - Beach, W. A., Maps and diggings *Brummett, Theorizing without totalizing - Dervin, ...From entities and states to processes and dynamics - Sigman, Toward study of the consequentiality (not consequences) - Sigman, (Re)situating social communication in consequentiality - Woodward, Toward a normative-contextualist theory of technology - Rosnow, The spirit of contextualism - Perry, Implications of a contextualist approach to media-effects research |
| 10 | COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AS CHALLENGE Reserve list: - Blumler, An introduction to comparative communication research - Carter, Comparative analysis, theory, and cross-cultural communication - Ito, Theories on interpersonal comm styles from a Japenese perspective... *Pearce, On comparing theories: Treating theories as commensurate or +Rosengren, Comparative communication research: from exploration to - Swanson, Managing theoretical diversity in cross-national studies of - Tehranian, Is comparative communication theory possible/desirable? |
| 10 | PRACTICE AND POLICY AS CHALLENGE Course text: +Avery, Making a difference in the real world - Noam, Reconnecting comm studies with comm policy Reserve list: - Arnett, Defining communication: a practical act *Conquergood, Between rigor and relevance: Rethinking applied - Eadie, Making a difference: The status and challenges of applied - Gandy , On building theory from the inside out - Miller, Some thoughts on the...dichotomy between pure and applied - Seibold,Theoria and praxis: Means and ends of communication research - Wood, Theorizing practice, practicing theory |
| 10 | AUDIENCE AS EXEMPLAR: Course text: +Morley, Active audience theory: pendulums and pitfalls - Jensen, ...Problems and potentials of historical reception studies Reserve list: - Anderson, The pragmatics of audience in research and theory - Ang, Ethnography and radical contextualism in audience studies *Ang, Living room wars: Rethinking media audiences for a postmodern... - Chang, Deconstructing the audience - Dervin, Audience as listener and learner, teacher and confidante - Dervin, Users as research inventions - Press, The active viewer & the prob of interpretation: Reconciling... - Radway, The hegemony of 'specificity' and the impasse in audience res... - Liebes, Notes on the struggle to define involvement in television viewing - Rosengren, ...Comparisons & confrontations: towards an audience.. - Webster, Victim, consumer, or commodity? Audience models |
| EX | |
| *** | FINAL CLASS PAPER DUE AT END OF REGULARLY SCHEDULED EXAM PERIOD FOR THIS CLASS |
| Return to Top |
Page last updated 2/25/98