A content analysis of three mass communication research paradigms: Social science, hermeneutics, and critical studies

Thomas Kuhn argued that fields of inquiry are marked by paradigms: sets of assumptions that define those fields and guide their inquiry. In mass communication, scholars have pointed to three paradigms of research: social science, hermeneutics, and critical studies. This dissertation was designed to examine how well researchers conform to the assumptions of these paradigms. To address this issue, a series of expected attributes was created for each paradigm, and a sample of published journal articles was assessed for those attributes.;The attributes were derived from four paradigmatic components that emerged from a synthesis of the literature: ontology, epistemology, purpose, and methodology. These were operationalized across 10 variables: ontology, epistemology, nature of the research question, theory, hypotheses, sampling, data collection, verification, data analysis, and generalization. Using these variables, expectations associated with each paradigm were derived.;The sample consisted of 245 recent scholarly articles in nine academic journals. For each article, coders determined the paradigm utilizing the nature of the research question as the superordinate variable. They then coded each article across the nine remaining variables. Statistical procedures were conducted to determine the level of paradigmatic conformity, to examine deviations from expectations, and to assess the strength of relationships among the variables.;Researchers in each paradigm conformed very highly (at least 90%) to paradigmatic expectations associated with four variables: ontology, epistemology, data collection, and data analysis. Conformity levels varied across the remaining variables. Social scientists conformed least often (less than 60%) with theory, sampling and verification; hermeneutic scholars with generalization; and critical scholars with theory and generalization.;A conformity index disclosed that, across paradigms, mass communication scholars adhered to expectations (mean score of 7.33 out of 9 variables), with hermeneutic researchers conforming highest (8.19), critical scholars second highest (7.37), and social scientists lowest (6.42). Contingency coefficients revealed weak relationships among almost all the variables.;These data suggest that scholars within these three paradigms are guided by the expectations associated with each paradigm. Occasional deviations point to two alternatives: modifying paradigmatic expectations and modifying the conduct of research.