Author Archives: Manuel

Summary of Activity on this Site


Number of Posts: 5
Number of Comments: 4

About Manuel

5.08119E+15

Positivism vs Postpositivism

Positivism is an epistemological position that holds that the goal of knowledge is simply to describe the phenomena that we experience. The purpose of science is sticking to what we can observe and measure. Knowledge of anything beyond that is impossible. In the positivist view, the universe is deterministic. It operates by laws of cause and effect that we could discern if we apply the unique approach of the scientific method. Science is largely a mechanical affair. The key approach of the scientific method is the experiment, the attempt to discern natural laws through direct manipulation and observation.

However, since the middle part of the 20th century things have changed in our views of science. Probably the most important has been our shift away from positivism into what is called post-positivism.  Postpositivism recognizes that the way scientists think and work and the way we think in our everyday life are not distinctly different. Scientific reasoning and common sense reasoning are essentially the same process. There is no difference in kind between the two, only a difference in degree. Postpositivism recognizes that all observation is fallible and has error and that all theory is revisable. Where the positivist believed that the goal of science was to uncover the truth, the post-positivist believes that the goal of science is to hold steadily to the goal of getting it right about reality, even though we can never achieve that goal.

 

Hacking, Ian. (1983). Representing and Intervening, Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Creswell, J.W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry & research design: choosing among the five approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

 

What’s Manuel studying?

How corporate identity drives corporate communication goals.  

I’m trying to dig on the first of the Barcelona Principles of Measurement: “The Importance of Goal Setting and Measurement”. They were established in 2010 to systematize the best practices on PR measurement techniques all over the global PR community.

I’m approaching this issue by comparing objective and subjective values within a broad corporate identity framework.  Objective values can be deduced from the objective allocation of resources and sources of income, namely, the financial statements. While people encode values by means of narrative structures of a symbolic character.

 

  • What is the relationship between the objective values provided by the financial statements of Facebook, and the subjective values provided by the narratives of the users?

The purpose of the interviews is letting the participants generate/reproduce narratives about the company of interest to identify the predominant values. Every value must receive a score measuring the intensity with which it was regarded by the participants. This way we could compare them with the relative budgetary weight of the objective values provided by the financial statements.

 

Challenges:

They’re abundant : I’ve just found four papers on corp. comm. goal setting. The load of information provided by five interviews is far from enough to make me feel comfortable with the findings. I may need to use mixed methods in the future to extract more information after the regular interviews from the participants. Another solution would be working in a new longer sharper questionnaire.

Manuel’s Greetings

Hi guys. I’m Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez Pardo, MARP for… commercial purposes. I’m about to finish the Master’s degree and jump over the turbulent american job market. You can get to know me a little bit better through my last commercial.

http://youtu.be/aVFlQ7n6Acw

Chapter 2

Chapter 2. Philosophical Assumptions and Interpretive Frameworks

f29ae03ae7a001e8d92d2210.L._V192563935_SX200_

“Whether we are aware of it or not, we always bring certain beliefs and philosophical assumptions to our research” (pg. 15). Various philosophical assumptions and theoretical and interpretive frameworks are highlighted in this chapter. The process of qualitative research compiled by Denzin and Lincoln in 2011 is included five phases (pg. 17):

  1. The researcher as a multicultural subject;
  2. Theoretical paradigms and perspectives;
  3. Research strategies;
  4. Method of collection and analysis;
  5. The art, practice and politics of interpretation and evaluation.

The author also mentions three reasons why philosophy is important (pg. 18):

a. It shapes how we formulate our problem and research questions to study and how we seek information to answer the question.

b. These assumptions are deeply rooted in our training and reinforced by the scholarly community in which we work.

c. Reviewers make philosophical assumptions about a study when they evaluate it.

Writing philosophical assumptions into qualitative research, it says that in some qualitative studies they remain hidden, but actually they could be shown in various sections of qualitative studies where the audiences may ask about the underlying philosophy of study.

Qualitative research implies four profoundly important philosophical assumptions (page 21): Qualitative researchers assume multiple realities, formed or dependent on the subjective experiences of the people studied (ontological and epistemological assumptions respectively). Qualitative researchers proceed from the ground up collecting and analyzing data inductively, revealing their values and biases on their way up to a greater theory which would encompass all the findings (methodological and axiological assumptions respectively).

The assumptions mentioned are embedded within the following interpretative frameworks (pages [23,30]):

Pstpositivism: Its inquire implies a series of locally related steps and multiple levels of data analysis that resemble a scientific report or quantitative research. This framework tends to be reductionistic, logical, empirical, and deterministic.

Social Constructivism: It is more open to complexity. It relies on the participants’ perceptions through social and historical frames; there is a social construction of meaning.

Transformative Frameworks: It understands knowledge as basically non neutral and uses it to change society. The purpose of knowledge construction is to aid people to improve society through participatory and emancipator actions.

Postmodernist Perspectives: Devoted to power relations in the social sphere the individual or even the language, postmodernisms uses “deconstruction” as a tool to analyze communication.

Pragmatism: Nothing is more important than solving the problem, finding what works. Methods are secondary.

Feminist Theories: Center on making problematic the diverse situation of women and the institutions that frame those situations. It’s goals are to find collaborative and nonexploitative relationships to conduct transformative research.

Critical Theory: Critical theory perspectives are concerned with empowering human beings to transcend the constraints placed on them by race, class, and gender (p30). If one wants to dive deeper into this theory he gives suggestions about some central themes to explore, which could certainly help in guiding research. Critical race theory (CRT) is then discussed and this theory focuses theoretical attention on race and how racism is deeply embedded within the framework of American society (p31). This theory encompasses three main goals. The first goal is to present stories about discrimination from the perspective of people of color, as a second goal CRT argues for the eradication of racial subjugation while simultaneously recognizing that race is a social construct, and finally the third goal of CRT addresses other areas of difference, such as gender, class, and any inequities experienced by individuals (p31-32).

Queer theory: It is characterized by a variety of methods and strategies relating to individual identity. On pages 32 and 33, a good overview of the queer theory stance is given in bullet points. I found this overview very helpful in understanding the theory and how it relates to the topic of identity.

Disability theories: In this section Creswell states that disability inquiry addresses the meaning of inclusion in schools and encompasses administrators, teachers, and parents who have children with disabilities (p33).

Towards the very end of the chapter a table is given which links the philosophical assumptions of ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology with the interpretive frameworks. The table is helpful in understanding how these philosophical assumptions take different forms given the interpretive framework used by the inquirer. The table can be found on pages 36 and 37.



Comments:

"All right. I was concerned about the possible contradictions between the tests and the interviews, but this way I don't have to worry about it."
posted on Jun 13, 2013, on the post Chapter 7: Data Collection

"Let me attempt an answer Ellissa. These philosophical frameworks have two sides (page 35 last paragraph), in nature and use, and in its philosophical assumptions. We could call them existence and essence, or practice and theory in a wider sense. The social justice frameworks are highlighting their “in use” side by focusing on the object and aim of the studies rather than more basic philosophical questions. I guess that the fact that you can find many works on social justice from Postmodernist Philosophy and Critic Theory (Derrida, Foucault, Adorno, Horkheimer) supports this consideration. Lauren I agree with you in the advantages of a study that includes and understands the unavoidable biases of the researcher, and I think that the axiological assumption (page 20) tries to convey the necessity for the researchers to declare their biases up front, so the study can be interpreted and understood in that regard. I think it’s an ethical effort for making research transparent."
posted on Jun 12, 2013, on the post Chapter 2

"My research is quite likely addressing the study of narratives about the corporation, thus the first example posed in chapter 5 is considerably relevant to me. They use a “school-based narrative inquire” that I must consider in detail to copy or replicate its principles, because as they “research the ways in which expectations of academic performance and social behavior by teachers, peers at school, and parents at home played out in the life of an immigrant student” I could apply the same frame to see how external and internal corporation stakeholders play out in the development of a corporation. This may be an excessive assumption but the only way to check it out fully should be applying it and observe the results."
posted on Jun 12, 2013, on the post Chapter 5

"Following Mr. Creswell I'm tempted to use the Postpositivist framework and methodology in terms of data collection. I am looking forward to enhancing the first of the Barcelona Principles of Measurement: Importance of Goal Setting and Measurement. The elements informing "goal setting" are particularly interesting to me. They require both personal assessments about the current and former narratives as well as well as the perceived weight of the different elements forming them. I must gather tips and examples of how successfully combine Likert tests with personal interviews."
posted on Jun 12, 2013, on the post Chapter 7: Data Collection