PR 660 Chapter Notes - Chapter 21: Falsifiability, Conceptual System, Communication Studies

• School: Ball State University
• Department: Public Relations
• Course: PR 660
• Professor: Becky McDonald

Document Summary

When academic literature talks about theory, they use similes of animals to describe it and how it has developed certain ways of thinking along with the sets of theoretical and methodological axioms that make up a discipline. A good theory was described as a torso of an octopus and when theory grows into something with more than 8 arms, theory becomes a myriapus. There are so many allusions to animals in theory literature that guides to threats of theory and defenses are called a naturalistic social science. Academic journals can be seen as noah"s ark. Traditionally, the received view theory is thought of as a collection of scientific generalizations talking about the functional relationships of variables that are empirically measured. The goal of scientific theory has traditionally been: Theorists have been encouraged to create middle-range theories that create hypothesis about a de-eliminated phenomena range that can be thoroughly tested.