Qualitative Research in communication

The commitment of communication scholarship: to study human symbolic action in the various contexts
of its performance.

The qualitative: Study the performances and practices of human communication.

Performances: are creative, local, and collaborative interactions of events, e.g., jokes.

Practices: form a coherent action that is indexed by the material of a particular performance, and they
are attributed by social actors as a presumptions of others-motives.

I will argue that qualitative research has the potential to change our attitude of domination because it is
sensitive to human forms of life in a way that traditional research cannot be.

Qualitative research has succeeded in adopting a different attitude, one that Habermas calls (rather
misleadingly) a “practical” interest: an interest in understanding other people

Is the question what’s matter; so far it is believe that qualitative research is just for descriptive
purposes.

moral paradigm is how things must be rather than how things are for the moment, something factual
rather than something normative.

The first presumes that all scientific investigation employs the methodology of logical procedures for
testing hypotheses.

The second one is by paradigms. “the basic belief system or worldview that guides the investigator” (p.
105), a worldview that takes a stand on ontology, epistemology, and methodology. I will recommend
that to redefine qualitative inquiry we need to question our paradigmatic commitments and those of
the forms of life in which we live. We need a form of research that is able to explore and investigate
moral paradigms and give us the tools to change them. As

The qualitative research

The basic tools of qualitative research – interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and analysis of discourse –
are reforged in order to articulate how our way of living makes us who we are and so empower us to
change this form of life

In qualitative research is important to clarify what and why of the investigation in order to do how.
Qualitative research is the basis for a radical reconceptualization of the social sciences as forms of
inquiry in which we work to transform our forms of life.

A change in attitude, for example:

 understanding of our place in nature.

  recognizing that humans are not identical, that there is no universal mental apparatus, and that
different traditions, customs, and ways of living have created a variety of ways of living: ways of
thinking, seeing, and being.
 changing our attitude of domination because it is sensitive to human forms of life in a way that
traditional research cannot be.

Qualitative research has succeeded in adopting a different attitude, one that Habermas calls (rather
misleadingly) a “practical” interest: an interest in understanding other people. That is not enough; we
have to aim at an “emancipatory” interest.

Uses of qualitative research

Historical ontology: criticize what we say, think, and do.

 tools (interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and analysis of interactions)

 tasks (to offer knowledge, provide critiques, and foster transformation)

What is sicence?
All scientific research, in both the natural and the social sciences, should pose significant questions that
can be investigated empirically, should be linked to relevant theory, should use methods that permit
direct investigation of the questions, should provide a coherent and explicit chain of reasoning to rule
out counterinterpretations, should replicate and generalize findings across studies, and should disclose
research data and methods to enable and encourage professional scrutiny and critique (see Feuer,
Towne, & Shavelson, 2002; Shavelson & Towne, 2002)

Testing a hypothesis logically is equal to a positivist.

cientific revolutions are “those non-cumulative developmental episodes in which an older paradigm is
replaced in whole or part by an incompatible new one”.

A fight among paradigms. A paradigm is made of ontological and epistemological assumptions. Moral
paradigms.

We need a form of research that is able to explore and investigate moral paradigms and give us the tools
to change them