James W. Chesebro

What Makes Qualitative Research Qualitative

The discipline of communication is marked by an increasing number of means of understanding. Given the recent research explosion, specialization has accordingly become a major way of dealing with research and methodological diversity. Within this context, this analysis is predominantly definitional, seeking to isolate the unique features of qualitative research. This analysis first provides a survey of six major definitions of and approaches to qualitative research. Second, commonly shared characteristics of qualitative research are outlined, including the role that natural setting plays in the research design, the role of the researcher as both observer and participant, how subjects influence the content of a communication study, the influence of subject intentionality on the research report, and the pragmatic uses of qualitative research. Third, it is suggested that qualitative research is theoretically unique, satisfying the requirements for grounded theory. Finally, it is concluded that qualitative research is increasingly finding its own identity when viewed in terms of the goals and procedures of quantitative and critical approaches to communication.

A construct for assessing ethics in communication

Ethical assessments have emerged as significant and unique issues in several contemporary speeches. When faced with the rhetoric of black power, student activism or the rhetoric of the Vietnam conflict, it seems essential that the rhetorical critic he able to identify, justify, and apply reasonable and constructive principles for assessments of the ethics of oral communication. Employing Kenneth Burkes theory of dramatism as a point of departure, this analysis describes and relates contemporary ethical standards and then concentrates upon when and how to apply ethical standards to communicative behavior.

The Role of the Internet in Presidential Campaigns

This essay examines the various roles and functions of the Internet predominantly in the Democratic primaries from January 1, 2008 through June 3, 2008. After tracing the emergence of the Internet in presidential campaigns since 1996, three functions of the Internet during the 2008 primary campaigns are examined. First, Democratic candidates employed their Web sites to create ideological unity, involvement, and commitment among their supporters and as a foundation for a new source of campaign funding, especially among small donors. Second, the Internet provides a foundation for tracking, if not predicting, the success of specific candidates at different stages in the campaign process. Third, while only an emergent force, the Internet increasingly appears to be functioning as an independent, if not discrete, sociopolitical system with unique modes of interaction, its own rules and procedures, and ultimately its own standards and guidelines for presidential campaigns. It is concluded that while the Internet can be usefully viewed strategically as an instrument to be manipulated by political candidates, it may be appropriate to also examine the Internet as a unique and discrete social system with its own ethos, pathos, and logos.

Goading the discipline towards unity: Teaching communication in an internet environment—a policy research analysis

This essay proposes a set of policy strategies and procedures for responding in a collective, comprehensive, and coherent way to the increasing demands to create online communication courses and curricula. Twelve specific policies focusing on inter‐department cooperation and standards, faculty development, assessment and feedback systems, and future research projects are outlined to achieve this objective. This essay specifically proceeds by first identifying the basic features (of a policy research analysis as a method for analyzing a social issue linked to technology, applies this method to the basic course taught in a web‐based learning environment, and then isolates and identifies twelve policy areas and propositions for dealing with a web page version of the basic course in ways that foster discipline‐wide cooperation, the shared use of resources, and a pooling of pedagogical insights relevant when responding to the technological changes embedded in the web page version of the basic course.

Communication, values, and popular television series—A twenty‐five year assessment and final conclusions

Employing a dramatistic system based upon the critical frameworks of Kenneth Burke and Northrop Frye, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of primetime network television series from the 1974–1975 season through the 1998–1999 season is presented. A total of 1,365 series are classified as either ironic, mimetic, leader‐centered, romantic, or mythical communication systems, and then examined for their value orientation. It is concluded that during the last half of the 1970s, prime‐time television series promoted the value of individualism as a primary standard for resolving symbolic conflicts. In the first half of the 1980s, they promoted idealism and authority. In the last half of the 1980s and early 1990s, prime‐time series promoted the use of authority as the predominant conflict‐resolution value. In the mid‐and late‐1990s, primetime television series primarily featured alternating‐if not paradoxical‐values of individuality and authority as central standards for resolving symbolic conflicts.

Media and political transformations: Revolutionary changes of the world's cultures

This essay posits that a relationship exists between the dominant communication technology of a nation‐state and the controlling political structure and process of a nation‐state. In other words, we suggest that how a nation‐state acquires and processes information is directly related to the type of political system employed to make and implement societal decisions. The ten‐year period from 1985 through 1994 provides an excellent opportunity to explore such a relationship, because it is the period when profound transformations occurred in the political identity, geographic boundaries, and power of nation‐states (such as the U.S.S.R. and Germany) while these same nation‐states also underwent an equally profound set of changes in their dominant communication technologies. Media profiles of 169 nation‐states in 1985 and 181 nation‐states in 1994 are compared and correlated to changes in their subsequent political orientations. In general, it is concluded that nation‐states are likely to adopt increasingly liberal political structures and processes as they shift toward the use of more individualistic and participatory communication technologies. A profound change in either the dominant communication technology or political structure and process can set off the cultural transformation.