Tippkeskuse metodoloogiline seminar 2Kultuuriteooria

10.11.2009

B.Malinowski „A Scientific Theory of Culture“,1941

„To observe means to select, to classify, to isolate on the basis of theory. To construct a theory is to sum up the relevancy of past observation and to anticipate empiricalconfirmation or rebuttal of theoretical problems posed.” “Our minimum definition implies that the first task of each science is to recognize its legitimate subject matter. It has to proceed to methods of true identification, or isolation of the relevant factors of its process”

Metodoloogia kui uurimisobjekti

1. kirjeldamine, piiritlemine, struktureerimine, objektkeele eritlemine (ontoloogilne aspekt)

2. uurimisvõimaluste tuvastamine, sobiva uurimismeetodi ja kirjelduskeele, teooria(te) ja teoreetilise mudeli aluste otsimine (epistemoloogiline aspekt)

1.Semiootika on täisväärtuslik teadus, mis uurib asju ja asjade omadusi läbi nende funktsioneerimise märkidena. Millegi märgina funktsioneerimise protsessi võib nimetada semioosiks. Semiootika uurib igasuguseid semioosis osalevaid objekte.Semioosi mõõtmed on semantika, süntaktika ja pragmaatika.

2.Semiootika on kõigi teaduste instrument ehk metateaduse organon.

Ch.W.Morris

1.Puhas semiootika kui teaduste ühendaja puhta semantika, süntaktika ja pragmaatika kaudu – metakeele loomine kõigi märgisituatsioonide üle arutlemiseks.

2.Kirjeldav semiootika kui kirjeldava semantika(metakeele seos tegelike olukordadega), süntaktika(metakeele struktuuri uurimine) ja pragmaatika (metakeele loomine ja kasutamine) kaudu metakeele kasutamine. Ch.W.Morris

Distsiplinaarse semiootika ja selle uurimisobjekti probleem

Üldsemiootikad (semiootika, semioloogia, globaalsemiootika)

Valdkonnasemiootikad (kultuuri-, bio-, sotsiosemiootika)

Objektisemiootikad:1.Materjalisemiootikad (kirjandus-, muusika-,

kunsti-, keele-, tõlke- jms semiootikad)2.Kategooriasemiootikad (ruumi-, aja-,

visuaal-, narratiivi-, multimeediasemiootika etc.)

Semiootilised distsiplinaarsed variatsioonid:

Semiootiline antropoloogia vs etnosemiootikaSemiootilised teooriad distsipliinides

Semiootika kui semiootika abil semiootikat uuriv distsipliin

Metodoloogiline evolutsioon

Keel (modelleeriv süsteem)TekstKultuurSemiosfäär (ajalugu kui sünkroonia ja diakroonia ühendus)

Plahvatus vs järjepidevus

Semiosfääriline holism

1.Keeleline (sünkroonia-diakroonis)

2.Tekstiline (osa-tervik)3.Funktsionaalne

(staatika-dünaamika)

Plahvatuslik holism

1.Ajaline (erikeeleline dialoog)

2.Metakeeleline(autokommunikatsioon)

3.Heuristiline(enesemudeli loomine)

“ The challenge of cultural analysis is to develop translation and mediation tools for helping make visible the differences of interests, access, power, needs, desires, and philosophical perspective” (Fischer 2006:363).

Fischer, Michael M.J. 2006. Culture and Cultural Analysis. Theory, Culture & Society 23:2–3, 360-364.

Plotkin, Henry 2001 Some Elements of a Science of Culture. Harvey Whitehouse (ed). The Debated Mind. Evolutionary Psychology versus

Ethnography. Oxford, New York: Berg, 91-109.

• In other words, a complete explanation of culture, if such a thing is ever possible, is going to comprise a synthesis of all human science. Such a synthesis poses significant conceptual and methodological problems, but also difficulties of another kind for those contributing to this science. Scholars from different disciplines are going to have to be tolerant of one another, open to ideas from other areas of knowledge“ (Plotkin 2001:91).

A Theory Map for Media Studies and Cultural Theory

Theory Traditions, Philosophies, Affiliations, and Prior Methodologies

Media, Communication, and Information Theory since 1950s

(McLuhan, Goody, Innis, Havelok)

Structuralism and Linguistics since 1960

(de Saussure, Jakobson, Lévi-Strauss, Chomsky)

European-French neo-Marxism and Critical Theory

(Benjamin, Debord, Adorno, Althusser)

European Philosophy, "grand tradition" including hermeneutics

(Hegel, Marx, Husserl, Gadamer, Heidegger)

Sociology of media

(Hall, Fiske)

Semiology/ Semiotics

[signs and meaning; intertextuality, interpretation]

(de Saussure, Peirce, Lotman, Barthes, Eco)

Received Academic and Professional Disciplinary boundary assumptions (and differences between US and French/ European disciplines)

(US acdemic disciplinary tribes; "human sciences" vs. science and technology)

Modern French philosophical and intellectual traditions

(Sartre, Bergson, Bachelard, Derrida)

US-UK Cultural Studies: cultural analyses of gender, race, class, ethnicity, identities

(Hall, Jameson and followers)

Reception Theory: history of cultural reception, interpretive communities

(Jauss, Iser, Fish, Roger Chartier, etc.)

Post-Structuralism, Discourse Theory, Deconstruction

(Derrida, Foucault, Lacan)

Recent Marxian theory, 1980s-present

(Jameson, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Virilio, French po-mo, Zizek)

Anglo-American Philosophy of Language

(Wittgenstein, Austin, Searle, Rorty)

Feminist and gender studies

Materialist Social History

(Braudel, Foucault)

Media Studies

New Media Studies (post-digital)

Post-Structuralist Sociology

Bourdieu

American Pragmatism and Critique of Theory

Ricard Rorty, Stanley Fish

Popular Culture Studies

Political-Economy and quantitative methodology for the study of media and communications

Visual Culture Studies

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Mediology and recent interdicplinary approaches

Mediology as a metatheory and point of view for analyzing media and institutions: A method for recombinant theory and practice in media and communication research

Martin Irvine, 2005-2009

Academic and Professional Disciplines Surrounding the Study of Visual Culture

Media Studies Art History and Art Theory Semiotics

Cultural Studies Film Studies Visual Rhetoric, Graphic Design, Literary Theory

Visual Arts (painting, photography, video, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, all hybrids)

Visual Culture: Objectifications, Legitimized

Subject Matter

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art and Representation

Sociology and Anthropology of art, media, and communication

Architecture and Design Museums and Art Curatorship

Communications (TV, film production, advertising, graphic design)

Institutional Theory and Social Network Theory

Mediology Complexity Theory

Tying It All Together: Applied Media Theory

Media Object

Institutional Contexts & Preconditions

Dialogic EncodingIntertexts & Intermedia:Prior, Contemporary, &

Presupposed works and genres

Dialogic DecodingCommentary, Supplements,

Ongoing Interpretation

Ideologies &Discursive Practices

The Media System:technologies & social hierarchies of media;social & institutional

history of media.

Receivers/Reception/Audiences:Media construction of subjects:

implied receivers and subjectpositions of interpreters

Subjectivities & Identities:

class, ethnic, national& gendered identities;

sexualities

Producers/Production/SendingShared codes and Contexts

of Production

The Cultural Encyclopedia:Learned Codes, Genres, Symbolic

Correspondences.Binary oppositions and semiotic

structures of meaning.

Economic and Industry Contexts;Consumer Market Conditions

THEORY

a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena

What is a system?

a system is a complex object whose parts or components are held together by bonds of some kind. These bonds are logical in the case of a conceptual system, such as a theory; they are material in the case of a concrete system, such as an atom, cell, immune system, family, or hospital. The collection of all such relations among a system’s constituents is its structure (or organization,or architecture) (Bunge 2004, 190).

Bunge, M. 2004. How does it work? The search for explanatory mechanisms. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34 (2): 182-210.

Pickel, A. Rethinking Systems Theory: A Programmatic Introduction. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 2007, 37(4), 391-407.

Tony Ward 2006

Susan A. Lynham. The General Method of Theory-Building Research in

Applied Disciplines. Advances in Developing Human Resources Vol. 4, No. 3 August 2002 221-241

Susan A. Lynham. The General Method of Theory-Building Research in

Applied Disciplines. Advances in Developing Human Resources Vol. 4, No. 3 August 2002, 221-241

S. A. Lynham. The General Method of Theory-Building Research in Applied

Disciplines. Advances in Developing Human Resources Vol. 4, No. 3 August 2002 221-241

Flyvbjerg, B. Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research. Qualitative Inquiry Volume 12 Number 2 April 2006 219-245.

ALESSANDRO DURANTI. On theories and models. Discourse Studies2005, Vol 7(4–5): 409–429.

THESIS 1 OR THE PRIMACY OF INTERACTIONTHESIS 2 OR THE RECOGNITION OF THE HISTORICITY OF CURRENT TERMINOLOGY

THESIS 3 OR THE PROBLEMATIC RELATION TO ESTABLISHED DISCIPLINES (E.G. PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY)

THESIS 4 OR THE INEXTRICABLE LINK BETWEEN ANALYSIS AND DOCUMENTATION

THESIS 5 OR THE COMMITMENT TO EXPLICIT UNITS OF ANALYSIS

THESIS 6 OR THE NEED FOR EXPLICIT EVALUATIVE PRINCIPLES

THESIS 7 OR THE REFLEXIVITY OF INTERACTION

A metatheory is a set of interlocking rules, principles, or a story (narrative), that both describes and prescribes what is acceptable and unacceptable as theory -the means of conceptual exploration - in a scientific discipline. For example, the prevailing metatheory might prescribe that change of form (transformational change) is, or is not, a legitimate way of understanding developmental change.

Willis F. Overton. METATHEORY & METHODOLOGY IN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. 1998.

Willis F. Overton. METATHEORY & METHODOLOGY IN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. 1998.

A methodology is a set of interlocking rules, principles, or a story, that describes and prescribes the nature of acceptable methods -- the means of observational exploration - in a scientific discipline.

Four alternative research approaches