Monday, June 8, 2009

Week 2 Blog Post #1 Chapter 3

I found the three P's of historical writing - partial, partisan and problematic - very interesting as well as completely true. When the authors' talk about how it is impossible to say anything and everything there is to say about something, this is a fact, because new possibilities and ideas can always occur. There is no complete history or story of anything, and with this they talk about how their theories and all stories are in fact only partial as well.

The second P - partisanship - talks about how when one tells stories or talks about events it comes from their own personal take of the event shown through their eyes. Though someone else could describe the same event but completely different because that was how they viewed it through their own eyes. People have different takes on everything and build their own opinions and rarely do people view and see things exactly alike. It is vital that people hear other perspectives of stories rather than only their own.

The third P - problematic - is about how we tend to come up with more questions than answers and the answers that are formed come from what is known currently not what can be completely known over time. I really like how the author's talk about how asking questions strike up conversation and invites everyone's opinion to be heard rather than just assuming the whole truth about an issue is known. This could help with widening people's perspectives rather than being limited to your views you are invited to see things how others see it

1 comment:

  1. I also wrote about the Three P's this week! I was very interested by the concept that all theories are subject to these fallacies, and how scholars accept those failings. I think by accepting that no theory can be infallible, especially since communication is such a hard field to study empirically, scholars are ensuring that communication theories stand up to the tests of time. By being a little flexible with each new theory, scholars ensure that older theories can be used as building blocks, and not simply discarded when a new idea comes along.

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