Paradigms
of Research
Paradigms
 Frames of reference we use to organize our
observations and reasoning.
 Often implicit, assumed, taken for granted.
 Become entrenched, resisting change
 Shift requires revolutionary change in view
 New paradigms proposes unique ways of seeing and
explaining things that then take hold
Macrotheory and Microtheory
 Macrotheory deals with large, aggregate entities
of society or even whole societies.
 Struggle between economic classes, international
relations, interrelations among major institutions
 Microtheory deals with issues of social life at the
level of individuals and small groups.
 Social interactions, collective deliberation, social
perceptions, sense-making
Positivism
 View that science would replace religion (belief)
and metaphysics (logic) by basing knowledge on
observation through senses
 All social research descends from Comte’s view
that society could be studied scientifically.
 Coined the term “sociologie” - study of society
 Coined the term positivism, in contrast to what he
regarded as negative elements of his age.
Social Darwinism
 Influence of Darwin’s Origin of Species
 Process of evolution through natural selection
 Scholars began to apply Darwin’s ideas to changes
in the structure of human society.
 Shift to progressively “fitter” forms of society.
 “Survival of the fittest” - Herbert Spencer
 Arguably a misapplication of biological theory
Conflict Theory
 Karl Marx asserted social behavior could be seen
as the process of conflict
 To dominate and avoid being dominated.
 Focus on struggle among classes
 Social Relations of Production
 Capitalism and Alienation
 Class Struggle and Hegemony
Symbolic Interactionism
 Interactions revolve around the process of
individuals reaching understanding through
language and other systems - Mead & Cooley
 Meaning - Definition
 Language - Symbol System
 Thought - Negotiation
 Can lend insights into the nature of interactions in
ordinary social life, and help understand unusual
forms of interaction.
Structural Functionalism
 A social entity, such as an organization or a whole
society, can be viewed as an organism.
 A social system is made up of parts, each of which
contributes to the functioning of the whole, each
serves a purpose.
 This view looks for the “functions” served by the
various components of society.
Feminism
 Focuses on gender differences and how they
relate to social organization
 Attend to women’s oppression in societies, as well
as other kinds of oppression
 Critique of patriarchal structure
 Critique of dominant social order and norms
Social Cognition
 Study of mental processes underlying social
perception, judgment, and influence
 Human perception and judgment prone to
systematic biases and distortions
 Conceive of the social world based on “what is at
the top of our heads”
 Schemata - categories of knowledge
 These categories structure understanding
Group Exercise
 Get in groups of three and discuss what paradigm you
would use to study the relationships between news media
and advertisers…
 Be sure to explain what insights this paradigm would provide
 Five minutes and then collective discussion
Traditional Model of Science
 Four elements: theory, conceptualization
operationalization, and observation.
 Develop a Theory.
 Conceptualize it components
 Develop operational definitions that specify the process
involved in measuring a variable.
 Observe and measure of what is seen.
Generating Theories
 Theory:
 A “generalizable” explanation
 An organized framework of knowledge
 Identifying:
 Antecedent factors and processes
 Consequent factors and processes
 Contingent conditions
Hypotheses
 Testable statements derived from theories
 Observations used to test hypotheses
 Hypotheses “supported” or “not supported”
 Not “proven” or “disproven”
 When hypotheses are not supported:
 Theory is considered falsified (not useful)
Purpose of Systematiziation
 Designed to yield “objective” knowledge
 Different researchers using the same procedures would
produce:
 A. Similar results
 B. Similar conclusions
 Known as “inter-subjectivity”
Importance of “Control”
 Control in scientific observation:
 Isolating cause and effect
 Controlling for extraneous factors
 Removing the biases of the observer
 Clear conceptual and operational definitions
Knowledge Accumulation
 Identifying, defining, refining concepts:
 Operating on two levels:
 1. Concrete empirical observations
 2. Abstract, generalizable terms:
 E.g., “social conflict,” “social capital,” or “social status”
 E.g., “attitudes,” “motivations,” or “perceptions”
 Integration of the concrete and abstract
Nature of Scientific Evidence
 1. Gathered under controlled conditions
 Specified conditions of observation, procedures
 Permits replication by other scientists
 2. Evidence considered tentative
 Results could have occurred by chance
 Statistics used to estimate probability that results occurred by
chance
 Margin of error and confidence intervals
 3. Evidence describes patterns that are generalizable
 Evidence yields inferences to other situations
Frankfurt School Critique of
Social Science
 1. Inappropriateness of mechanistic approaches
 “Hard” science approach adapted to human behavior
 Humans not as predictable as molecules
 2. Some important concepts hard to measure:
 E.g., intelligence, social class, class struggle
 3. Focuses only on what currently exists
 Ignores possibilities of what could be
 4. Instrumental nature of knowledge collected
 Knowledge may reinforce rather than critique existing relations of
power in society