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Theory in SC and the Cocreational Metatheory

Summary

This chapter lays the foundation for the discussion of concepts and theories in upcoming chapters by exploring several metatheoretic issues, including what theories are, two basic kinds of theory (lay and formal), the relationship of theory, practice and experience, and sender- and message-centered lay theories in SC. It then concludes with a discussion of the well-established instrumental metatheory (i.e., world view) in SC and introduces the new cocreational metatheory, built on a publics-centered view of what the field of SC is, how its major components relate to one another and what metatheoretic criteria will be used in the rest of the book to evaluate the strategic potential of the concepts, theories and plans used in SC campaigns.

Introduction

Metatheory

Do not let the term metatheory concern you (see Botan and Hazleton, 1989). It is used in two ways and both are easy to understand. First, a metatheory discussion just means talking about theories, such as comparing them. Second, a metatheory is the set of assumptions, values and beliefs we use when deciding what should be studied in a field, how that field should be approached, what is right and wrong and so on. For example, if we discuss, with the person sitting next to us, Pavlov's operant conditioning (Nobelprize.org, 2012; the famous salivating dog), that is a theoretic discussion. However, if you discuss how Skinner's theory does or does not meet your expectations of what a good theory should be like, that would be a metatheoretic discussion because you are discussing your theory about theories, in this case your theory about what makes other theories good or bad in your eyes. Similarly, if your supervisor says, "You don't need theories to do strategic communication when you work for this company," that is also a metatheoretic statement, although a naive one.

Metatheory is only one of a number of terms used to discuss these questions. The term metatheory is chosen because, as Hartel explained,

Bates has defined metatheory as "the philosophy behind the theory, the fundamental set of ideas about how phenomena of interest in a field should be thought about and researched" (Bates, 2005, p. 2). Elsewhere, metatheories are characterized as "the often unarticulated premises upon which empirical research and theorization is based . broader and less specific than theories, they are orientation strategies to the world" (Tuominen, Talja and Savolainen, 2002, p. 272). There are several near synonyms to metatheory. In some instances a metatheory could also be referred to as a theoretical framework, paradigm, sensibility, worldview, approach or perspective, although these terms are less precise. (2012, p. 1)

Some fields have just one dominant metatheory. Hartel (2012) used the example of how the natural sciences accept evolution as their "overarching perspective on life" to illustrate this. Hartel also pointed out that her own field of information sciences has 13 "major metatheories" (p. 1).

For some authors, metatheories and paradigms are essentially equivalent. For example, Hjørland (2005) said metatheories are "about the description, investigation, analysis or criticism of theories in a domain. They are mostly internal to a domain, and may also be termed 'paradigms'" (p. 5). Others, such as Ritzer (2014), citing his own earlier work, disagree, saying, "In fact, a paradigm is broader than a metatheory because it encompasses not only theories, but also methods, images of the subject matter of [sociology], and a body of work that serves as an exemplar for those who work within the paradigm (Ritzer, 1975)." Agreeing with Ritzer, Bates (2005) said,

The concept of a metatheory has a lot of overlap with the term "paradigm," which was given its modern understanding in science by Thomas Kuhn (1996 and earlier). In the terms used here, Kuhn considered a paradigm to be the metatheory, the theory, the methodology, and the ethos, all combined, of a discipline or specialty. So paradigm would have a broader meaning than metatheory. (p. 2)

Paradigms often have a metatheory at their core but, as Kuhn (1970) suggested, paradigms go far beyond to include "differences in assumptive world views, vocabularies, goals, and, maybe most important, loyalties" (Botan, 1993a, p. 108; see also Botan and Hazleton, 1989). A paradigm is also "a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them" (Caldwell, 2009, p. 1). The interesting thing about metatheories and paradigms is precisely that they include assumptions. This means they carry within them taken-for-granted beliefs about how things are or ought to be understood so they are often adopted, advocated, defended and even fought over with little thought as to their validity or usefulness. The role of metatheories in SC is discussed later in this chapter.

This chapter talks very little about specific theories because that is the job of Chapter 6. The goal in this chapter is to explore what SC needs from theories, how to decide which theory or class of theories is most likely to be useful in SC, and which are less likely to be useful. Then the chapter introduces the new cocreational metatheory around which this book is built. Thus this chapter is mostly a metatheoretic chapter.

What Theory Is

As Kaplan (1964), a theory is "a way of making sense of a disturbing situation" (p. 295) and Frey, Botan and Kreps (2000) wrote, "a theory is simply a generalization about a phenomenon, an explanation of how or why something occurs" (p. 30). Thus theories are the way we make sense of our experiences by organizing them and explaining how and why they happen. In this very broad sense, all humans are theory makers every day, particularly when we explain to ourselves how or why something works or can work (such as a campaign plan).

For example, when you first figured out that putting your finger too close to a flame hurt, you drew a lesson from that experience that was a very small low-level theory. That theory said something like, "The relationship between flames and my finger takes the form of pain." Your theory had two independent (predictor) variables, your finger and the flame, and one dependent (outcome) variable, pain.

Thus, you learned to avoid putting your finger, or any other body parts, too close to an open flame. Even smart people have to learn from such experiences, but the truly smart learn more because they form more complex theories from the same experiences. Thus some of us learned to keep our fingers away not just from open flames but from any source of high heat.

As discussed next, developing low-level theories is one important way humans learn because we can then transfer our experience to new situations in the form of these small, sometimes personalized theories. For example, when employers advertise for experienced applicants they do not really want someone who has just experienced things: they really want employees whose experience taught them lessons that can be applied in their new job. Thus theory and experience are dependent on one another in order to be really useful.

Minima for a Theory

At the very minimum, "a theory consists of at least two concepts and a statement explaining or predicting the relationship between those concepts" (Hazleton and Botan, 1989, p. 7). Recall the finger and flame example. The theory you developed was that bringing your finger into contact with fire results in pain. Note that you predicted not that the finger alone, or the fire alone, results in pain; only the relationship of the two results in pain.

No one would deny that Einstein's famous E?=?mc2 is a theory because it explains the relationship between mass and energy. But do all theories have to be at such a high level of abstraction to be real theories? No! For some people the example of your finger, fire and pain does not rise to the level of what they think a theory is because they only accept highly abstract or formal statements (on the far righthand side of Figure 7) as theories. In reality, there are many kinds, or levels, of theories that cover the whole distance from everyday commonsense theories (do not put your finger in fire) to E?=?mc2.

Figure 7 Formal-informal theory continuum

Along with language use, this ability to develop everyday commonsense theories is a big part of what differentiates humans from other animals and a big part of what makes SC an emerging field. Theory also helps make experience transportable and, thus, more valuable. Those with more experience can build more commonsense theories about their jobs, and the more such theories one builds the wider the range of jobs a person's experience can be applied to. For example, people with a lot of experience in political or nation-building communication campaigns can transfer much of their experience to other subfields within SC, such as public relations or product marketing. Indeed, SC practitioners in one subfield usually have experience and credentialing that can be applied in other SC subfields if they just think about it. There is no real need for a marketing communication person to apply only for jobs in product marketing...