Penn State Greater Allegheny
Department of Communications
Fall 2014 CAS 204
Communication Research Methods
Instructor: Michael Vicaro
Email: mpv2@psu.edu
Office: 106A Main
Office hours: Monday and Wednesday 10:45am -1pm and by appointment
Class Meetings Tuesday 1pm-3:45pm
Class Room: Main 204
Course Description
This course will provide students with an introduction to fundamental concepts in communication as a field of inquiry. The course begins with an introduction to contemporary critical communication studies. This theoretical orientation challenges typical models of interaction that locate meaning within individuals and that relegate communication to the role of a tool for expression and control. By contrast, we will develop a model that locates meaning in social practices and views identities, perceptions, and beliefs as outcomes of communicative interactions. The course then explores this model of critical communication studies in several arenas, including intra- and inter-personal interactions, workplace communication, political communication, and digital media based interaction. The course culminates in a research paper that applies course concepts and vocabulary to study a communication problem/phenomenon of the student’s choosing.
Goals: Upon successful completion of the course, students will have
1.
Engaged with basic concepts in critical communication studies and applied these concepts to analyze and critique a variety of communication phenomena
2.
Studied interaction in an array of common communication situations, including interpersonal, organizational, political, and digital interaction.
3.
Developed critical thinking, writing, and presentation skills
4.
Written a term paper that may form the basis for an extended research project suitable for
COM 494.
Texts
You are not required to buy a book for this course. I will provide a number of articles and handouts to be posted on Angel.
Requirements/Assignments:
1.
Exam (100 pts): The exam will challenge you to demonstrate your developing skills as a critical communication theorist. It will be a take-home, written response to a set of questions that will require you to apply course concepts and vocabulary to examples of your choosing.
Due on or around the midterm period.

2.
Participation Portfolio (100 pts): The participation grade will be determined by evaluating your participation portfolio. There are a number of ways you can document your engagement and contribution to the course. Each student should focus most attention on in-class participation and journal writing, and then supplement with the other options as desired. Each element in your participation portfolio should provide a date and detailed description and analysis of your contribution. Due during the final exam period.
Required: a.
Journal: Each student should keep a typed or blogged journal documenting everyday experiences as a “communication theorist.” Record and analyze interpersonal interactions, workplace experiences, media and social media texts, etc. Examine and comment on these using course concepts and vocabulary. b.
In-class participation: Students can participate in class in a variety of ways: asking good questions; answering questions from the instructor or other students; discussing examples of course concepts; summarizing class discussion; playing “devil’s advocate” or taking other roles to complicate the discussion productively. Your contributions should be recalled, dated, and explained in your portfolio: what did you add, where did it come from, and how did it help shape the class meeting?
Suggested: c.
Class notes: Some students may wish to contribute to the class by posting good notes from readings and class discussions. Notes should be clear and well developed, and several students can collaborate weekly on this. d.
Advanced readings: Some students may wish to engage in some aspect of the course by doing some advanced readings. You may wish to learn more about a communication theorist we cover, add one we didn’t, or pursue any other aspect of communication theory—I’ll work with you to help select good readings and you can add to your portfolio by summarizing and commenting on the readings. e.
Lectures or other events: Some students may wish to add to the participation portfolio by attending and then commenting on a lecture or other similar event (live or mediated). OF course, you will need to summarize key claims and then analyze the event/speaker using course concepts and vocabulary. f.
Original contribution: Some students may wish to participate by producing an
“original contribution” to the course. Typically, students who take this option provide some readings in advance, offer some media or other text to think with, and then lead a class discussion designed to deepen the class understanding of key course concepts.
3.
Writing portfolio (100 pts): Each student will be asked to produce a set of writing assignments designed to introduce the form and main elements of a formal research paper.
The writing portfolio will include several thesis-driven “five paragraph essays,” thick descriptions of communication events, rhetorical or media criticism pieces and other occasional writings. Due: various times throughout the semester.
4.
Final project proposal (200 pts): Each student will produce a project proposal for a research project suitable to pursue in a capstone communication course such as COM 494. The proposal will include an abstract, a literature review, a theory/method section, and a plan of action. In addition, the student must produce a presentation that “pitches” the project to the class audience. Due: final exam week.

Attendance:

Active attendance is crucial for your personal success in this course and a responsibility you have to your fellow students. Prior notification of a legitimate reason for absence is required in order to be eligible to make up missed work.
Students with Special Needs
If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact your instructor and Victoria Garwood (Frable 102, vkg2@psu.edu
), the campus’ Disability Contact Liaison. Please do so at the very start of the semester so that we can provide appropriate support.
Academic Integrity
Students in this course will be expected to comply with Penn State’s Policy on Academic
Integrity. Academic integrity is the pursuit of scholarly activity in an open, honest and responsible manner.
Academic integrity is a basic guiding principle for all academic activity at The Pennsylvania State
University, and all members of the University community are expected to act in accordance with this principle. Consistent with this expectation, the University's Code of Conduct states that all students should act with personal integrity, respect other students' dignity, rights and property, and help create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the fruits of their efforts.
Academic integrity includes a commitment by all members of the University community not to engage in or tolerate acts of falsification, misrepresentation or deception. Such acts of dishonesty violate the fundamental ethical principles of the University community and compromise the worth of work completed by others. Any student suspected of violating this obligation will be required to participate in the disciplinary processes outlined in the guidelines on Academic
Integrity. www.psu.edu/dept/ufs/policies/47-00.html#49-2
Core Assumptions : The advanced communication theory we’ll study in the class challenges many common sense beliefs about communication in general and conflict specifically. Below is a set of core assumptions of this contemporary communication theory—
Note that you are not required to “believe” these things, but asked to treat them experimentally,
“as if.”
First assumption : Communication is what we are in . While many communication texts consider communication as a tool—as something we stand apart from and use only occasionally and instrumentally—we will, in contrast, consider communication as something we are in as a fish is in water. We are always “thrown” into an already meaningful World informed by long traditions of interaction. Our experience “now” of that World is shaped and colored by those presupposed meanings (from the past) along with our (future directed) projects.
Second assumption: Communication theory is a way of seeing. In this class, we will examine a wide range of experiences, objects, and events as if they were outcomes of communication practices . Most research (communication-centered and otherwise) somewhat naively takes subjective “feelings” and objective “things” for granted. However, for a Critical-
Interpretive Communication Theorist—both subjective interiority and objective facts/phenomena are the result of historically situated “ways of seeing/talking/interacting.” Communication theory,

then, offers a comprehensive view of human experience: just as a physicist can explain all things as outcomes of physical processes, and just as a neurologist can explain all things as outcomes of neuronal processes, we can describe all things (or almost all things anyway) as outcomes of communicative/discursive processes.
Third Assumption: Communication is a theory driven activity . Everyday people use implicit theories to organize experience and solve everyday problems; these theories become institutionalized in language and practice. As core problems and situations change, those theories become less useful and can lead to poor and at times dangerous or abusive responses— particularly when they are uncritically reproduced. Communication research can be an important ethical practice when it helps participants understand and, potentially, change the theories that underlie their everyday judgments and actions.
Fourth assumption: Communication research can make implicit theories explicit and take them as subject matter for negotiation. While homogeneous cultures can talk from their shared cultural assumptions and values, our heterogeneous cultures need to talk about them. By making implicit theories (about values and interests) explicit and talking about them, we can avoid the reproduction of old and potentially distorted meanings and help produce new, mutually beneficial meanings. While homogeneous cultures might seek to increase consensus, our heterogeneous cultures may benefit more by embracing conflict, dissensus, negotiation, and collaboration across difference.
Fifth assumption: Communication practices can either reproduce or challenge historic assumptions about power, knowledge, and social recognition. If personal and collective meanings are the outcome of communicative practices, they may be open to re-negotiation and collaborative re-theorizing in any given moment. This negotiation of meanings always takes place within particular power arrangements. Power may be relatively balanced, allowing for free and open negotiation/meaning production or it may relatively unbalanced (asymmetrical) leading to systematically distorted communication. We will work to develop techniques for challenging distortions and reopening closed communication practices.
* The primary questions will be not, what does an individual or group “really feel” or what does an event “really mean,” but rather, “how did you come to take on this meaning and this practice as naturally your own, who benefits from that way of seeing/speaking/acting, what alternatives are foreclosed, and how might we better participate in the creation of the meanings we must live by?”