Essay On Human Communication Pradigms

Humans characterize themselves for having the ability to create knowledge and throughout history there has always been the battle for what knowledge is and what isn’t. In every field of study scholars defend their status and are very picky in determining what to accept as contributing knowledge and what to discard. In the study of celestial objects we have astronomy and astrology; both systemsset their own bases and from there construct their theories of what they believe to be knowledge. In the field of human communications it’s the same, we encounter two perspectives of what is human communication and how it should be studied. On one hand we have de objective perspective and on the other the interpretative perspective. This essay will demonstrate witch of the paradigms I would use toview, and study the field of human communication.
I find the objective perspective a very useful one when we are studying nature, for example biology, physics or astronomy. Determinism in this case permits us to develop concepts and sciences that can be tested and proven true again and again; one cause has one effect that can be predicted. But when we are studying social factors determinism isnot so clear, it’s not even there I would say, one cause may have many effects that can’t be predicted and one effect can have more than one cause. Determinism is necessary to have an objective view and I don’t believe that in human communication we can establish theories based on determinism. If I were to study certain aspects of human communication it would be form an interpretative point ofview.
When thinking about truth, from an objective perspective there is only one, but from the interpretative there are multiple truths. Truth is subjective and depends on the context in which the people encounter themselves. For example, for a person in our culture a wooden desk would be a wooden desk and it would be used for supporting papers or something like that, but for an Australian aboriginein the outback it would probably be an odd looking piece of wood that could be used to make fire or even to protect themselves from the sun. Both interpretations of the same object provide two truths that are equally valuable, all depending on the context in which it is being observed. The meaning is in the mind rather than on the label “wooden desk”.
Both paradigms deal with theories but ina different manner. Objectivist use theory trying to prove universal laws, as in any kind of science does. But I cannot deal with the assumption that there are universal laws of human behavior, that concept to me seems like pure fiction. The interpretative point of view uses theory to make sense of things. Instead of trying to prove them true to create a universal law they use them to interpret aparticular communication text in a specific context.
I believe that knowledge is never neutral, it always has an effect on those who possess it, knowingly or unconsciously; scientist or objectivists tend to refuse any kind of responsibility from the result of their work. They tend to develop knowledge for knowledge sake. On the other hand interpretativists tend to research on socially relevantphenomena. They intend to, through their research, liberate people form any kind of oppression. This is the main reason I prefer the interpretative perspective than the objective. If we do not accept any kind of responsibility on our work we can investigate on how to create the biggest bomb ever without realizing the true effect it would have on our society (Hiroshima, Nagasaki), research would bemisled to benefit political interests instead of social necessities. The same concept could be applied to the mass producers of weapons, because they do not recognize any kind of responsible for the product they are putting in the market, they keep on producing easy-life-takers without anything on their conscience. I believe that we all are responsible for what we do and that we should do the...