4.3 Critical Approaches to IPC Research
List of interpersonal communication theories under critical approaches:
- Relational dialectics Theory
- Narrative performance Theory
- Family of Feminist theories
Difference between postmodern critical approach and modern tradition is how power is conceptualized, but both agree that
power has impact on communicative life with the goals of emancipation and empowerment.
Critical modern hope to free people from socially oppressed system, but postmodern critical scholars view the world as
constant struggle for dominant discourses.
Power definition:
- Post-positivistic tradition: “as an individual level variable based on the various kinds of resources the individual posses” (Berger, 1994).
- modern critical: “as a systemic construct that exists external to the individuals who operate within those systems.” (L. Baxter and Braithwaite 2008, 273)
Critical Modern Tradition:
False consciousness: lack of awareness of constraints imposed by system (Pine, 1993).
goal: dismantle false consciousness to free people
Communication is a reflection of systematic constraint
Application:
Gender as a social system, gender is a range of ideals (masculine and feminism).
Relational Labor as a social system
Postmodern Tradition
Resist thinking of power as top-down, and advocate for power is bottom-up-and-out dynamics and power is constantly met with resistant, which means it is unstable and fluid.
Comminciaiton is the social world (not a reflection of it).
Application:
Uncertainty as positive precondition for change
Self-making instead of Self-disclosure: individuals are not intact.
To evaluate critical approaches to interpersonal communication, we need to consider:
- ethics: (1) how your position impacts what is identifiable, and that which is beneficial
- change: can your change emancipate the marginalized and oppressed?