Write a 8-10 page (of text --this page requirement does not include cover page or references) typed double spaced paper that applies a specific theory to a communication event/ artifact (worth 200 poi

Keywords: Eastern Communication Association; Interpretive Inquiry; Philosophical Hermeneutics An unending reconsidering of the question,What is qualitative communication research?, is theoretically and practically timely at any junction. Qualitative work must respond to the communication event before us, not simply to methods previously known. The Eastern Communication Association forges such a creative spirit on two fronts. First, we are the only regional communication association with a communication journal that has a specific focus on qualitative research. Second, other than the International Communication Association, the Eastern Communi- cation Association is the only association in the discipline with a division dedicated to the philosophy of communication. The Eastern Communication Association has a long history, both in tradition and innovation. It is the oldest of communication associations with a spirit of continuing experimentation. Respectful of ECA’s creative Ronald C. Arnett (Ph.D., Ohio University) is the chair of the Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies, Duquesne University, College Hall 340, Pittsburgh, PA 15282, USA. E-mail: [email protected] Qualitative Research Reports in Communication Vol. 8, No. 1, 2007, pp. 29–35 ISSN 1745-9435 (print)/ISSN 1745-9443 (online)#2007 Eastern Communication Association DOI: 10.1080/17459430701617887 tradition, this essay advocates the connection between qualitative research and interpretive inquiry, suggesting that qualitative research and philosophy of communication engaged in this essay as interpretive inquiry are more than distant cousins, but ongoing imaginative collaborators.

Qualitative Research Qualitative research is neither new nor methodologically set in stone. Scholars continue to expand the scope of what constitutes qualitative research in communi- cation. Only a few years ago, ethnographic inquiry was the province of anthropolo- gists and some in intercultural communication studies. The work of Geertz (1973) has permeated the discipline from intercultural to interpersonal to organizational communication. Additionally, we now consider the coordinated management of meaning (Pearce & Cronen, 1980) a theoretical given in the field; it brought the work of Habermas (1975) to the field of communication. The insight of standpoint theory (Harding, 1991) assists ongoing qualitative approaches to communication (Wood, 1997). The notion of dialogue has become a commonplace within the field of communication (Cissna & Anderson, 2007).

We have not seen the end of qualitative development in communication research.

Qualitative methods and theories often emerge from the inquiry itself. Qualitative research seeks not to impose, but to engage the communication event that centers a study. Qualitative research responds to the communicative event and is responsive to learning and innovations called forth from us, not imposed upon the focal point of study.

Qualitative research is responsive to the communicative activity under investigation.

A qualitative communication researcher must first ascertain why a given qualitative approach is appropriate for a particular communication activity. From a communi- cation perspective, the scholarly conversation begins not with the researcher, but with the communication event under study. Qualitative findings are responsive to and derivative of the communication event studied.

The demand of responsiveness makes the answer to the question ‘‘Is this the right qualitative method?’’ accountable to the communication event. Qualitative research begins with a willingness to listen, foregoing an impulse to impose a given method upon a communication event without making clearwhysuch a lens makes scholarly sense in a given setting. The qualitative emphasis on human subjects, human situa- tions, and human consequences places method at the call of a specific=particular communication event that centers the study. Qualitative research is responsive to the situation, which then shapes the method. In qualitative inquiry, method rests second to the communication event under investigation. The responsive connection of communication event studied and qualitative method highlights public account- ability, which Habermas (1975) termed the major contribution of the Enlighten- ment—making ideas and the manner in which they were=are gathered public.

Qualitative research and public disclosure assume a kinship between qualitative research and a scientific tradition, making public disclosure of the entire investigation process the first obligation of a researcher. The first step in making qualitative 30 R. C. Arnett research public is the articulation of the event under investigation so colleagues can witness the event. No matter how common a communicative episode, qualitative research has an obligation to frame the sources and structure of the event under investigation. Qualitative research necessitates public disclosure of all documents, events, methods, and insights. Unlike a journalist who protects the identity of a source, a qualitative researcher cannot offer indemnity for a person, document, or view of an event.

Hannah Arendt (1998) details the danger of losing a public domain, followed by Habermas. Both sought a public space that keeps conversation going that one can follow, question, and accept and=or reject upon public disclosure. Public disclosure is a communicative act that punctuates the beginning, the middle, and the end of qualitative research. Public disclosure professes thewhat, how, andwhyof the gath- ering of information, the understanding of that information, and discussion of impli- cations of the information within a given communication event. Qualitative communication inquiry begins with an assertion—if one cannot offer public ration- ale forwhatone sees (the communication event under investigation), forhowone examines the event (the method chosen), and thewhyof the significance of a parti- cular investigation, qualitative research gives way to subjective inquiry. The legitimate fear of quantitative scholars revolves around this issue of public disclosure, with appropriate suspicions that a private agenda guided the inquiry, unless public disclosure shapes a qualitative rendering of identifiable evidence.

Qualitative research and public evidence adheres to a responsibility to counter what is anathema to public disclosure, the privileging of subjective whim over public evidence.

Public rendering of evidence must guide the work. If another cannot duplicate in a general spirit a given engagement with a communication event and=or follow the sources and notes that offer turning points in the investigation, the evidence falls short of public verification. In qualitative research, public evidence ranges from documents to communicative acts and episodes. Unlike other forms of evidence citation, where sources have scholarly approval and have met the criteria of anony- mous review, a reader finds confidence in public evidence of events or episodes and texts that require documentation through stated occurrence and, if needed, inter- rater reliability. Each piece of evidence must stand public examination; the researcher offers public examination of context and the manner of seeing or understanding a given communication event.

Qualitative research is responsive, engaged in constant public disclosure, and obligated to offer a public context for any evidence claimed. Qualitative research works within an Enlightenment tradition that continues to advance both the natural and the human sciences—engage in public disclosure of the method, the evidence, and implications, permitting the public to accept or reject the findings and=or what they were based upon.

Interpretive Inquiry Interpretive inquiry, hermeneutics, has long worked to counter subjective inquiry. The modern rendition of hermeneutics begins with Dilthey (2002) and his differentiation Qualitative Research Reports in Communication 31 of the natural and human sciences, with both requiring a public commitment to the pursuit of truth. The length of this essay, of course, does not permit a history of hermeneutic theory, but it is possible to frame three major works that introduce inter- pretive inquiry as qualitative engagement of a given communicative event: Gadamer’s (1999)Truth and Method, Ricoeur’s (1984)Narrative and Time, and Schrag’s (1986) Communicative Praxis. Each of these authors’ works deserves and commands a detailed and thoughtful read. With some trembling, I offer a condensed framing of each and extrapolate public coordinates that bring their work into the qualitative arena. The following public coordinates do not approach the depth of their works, but are intended as beginning guidelines that point to insights into a creative alliance of qualitative communicative research and interpretive inquiry.

Gadamer lived a long life of 102 years, engaging hermeneutics that advanced the work of Dilthey, Heidegger, and Husserl. He and Ricoeur are the two principle figures associated with philosophical hermeneutics. Connecting Gadamer’sTruth and Methodto qualitative research suggests the following coordinates:question, text, and historicity=bias. One begins with a public question. Philosophical hermeneutics eschews the impulse to tell; if one has no question, then research is not underway, but something more akin to a subjective disclosure. The emphasis upon question takes us from raw subjectivism to public engagement of the text. One must proclaim the limits of the communication event and describe its parameters as a text in a man- ner analogous to the public function of book covers, framing the communication event as a ‘‘type’’ of public text.

Framing what constitutes the text works with a basic assumption that we can find ourselves in conversation about a common term only to discover that we understand the communicative event so differently it ceases to be the same text. The importance of public framing of the text responds to historicity=bias. Gadamer suggests that how we perceive rests in bias, not in objectivity. Instead of arguing for some way to be objective, the key is to make bias public, both in one’s question and in one’s framing of the text. The resultant insights that emerge from the question and text then have public admission of perspective. Gadamer’s work assists with textual analysis, making both the question and the definition of the text itself public.

In his trilogy,Time and Narrative, Ricoeur offers additional coordinates that add to the insight of Gadamer:emplotment, metaphor, and narrative. Ricoeur details the importance of emplotment as the public manner in which a story unfolds. A story comes to life with metaphors that carry a sense of meaning that acts as ‘‘meaning fulcrums’’ upon which the story moves from one issue or juncture to another. The notion of narrative takes public shape through the interplay of guiding metaphors and the shaping of emplotment of action. Ricoeur works within a tradition akin to that of Hannah Arendt, who stated that behavior only becomes action when a public, story-laden framework provides a meaning context.

Ricoeur’s engagement of philosophical hermeneutics is story-laden, beginning with metaphor that, once emplotted, begins to shape a given narrative. Ricoeur’s use of time resembles Gadamer’s understanding of bias, while additionally engaging Augustine, whom Arendt considered the first existentialist, for emphasis on the 32 R. C. Arnett co-present nature of past, future, and present. The present is that which claims public attentiveness; Ricoeur gives us tools for public mapping of a given story, offering insight for those wanting to do descriptive qualitative research on a given communi- cative event.

Schrag provides a prepositional rhetoric for engaging a communicative text. He examines the ‘‘by,’’ ‘‘about,’’ and ‘‘for’’ of communicativepraxis. Schrag shifts the conversation from information to communication that has an impact on others.

He provides an interpretive schema that locates the communication; it is the locality in action of the speakers, the content, and the audience that shape communicative praxis. The connecting links to the insights of Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur run through Schrag’s work.

Each preposition situates communication in a given bias, and the public rendering of communicative praxis moves us to employment of a given text. Schrag’s work provides public admission of communicativepraxisin action. When one meets a communicative event that requires further clarity of communication in action, Schrag offers useful engagement of a communicative event, rendering observation public and delineated.

Interpretive Inquiry as Qualitative Research Qualitative communication research isresponsiveto the communicative event, engages inpublic disclosureof method and findings, and engagespublic evidence.

Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Schrag provide us with an interpretive manner of engaging qualitative inquiry. Each engages in public disclosure that works with public evidence and is responsive to the questions, texts, and ways of making sense of the text.

A rudimentary outline of interpretive engagement as qualitative research might look like the following:

1. Responsive a. Question:Whatis it that is unknown that propels the inquiry?

b. Text:Howis the communicative event understood or publicly constructed?

c. Historicity=bias:Whydoes the bias of question and text construction reveal interests that keep the conversation going in the arena of public inquiry?

2. Public disclosure a. Metaphors:Whatis important and why?

b. Emplotment:Howdoes the story frame the metaphors engaged?

c. Narrative:Whyis there a public impact from the metaphors emplotted in a given story?

3. Public evidence a. By:Whatis the situated position of the person who gathers the evidence?

b. About:Howis the evidence significant andhowis it gathered?

c. For:Whyare others interested?

The key to this question-guided framework is its provision of a public qualitative communicative map that acknowledges the question, the text, and the manner of Qualitative Research Reports in Communication 33 making sense of the communicative event. These interpretive guidelines could be used to explain what Alexis de Tocqueville (2000) sought to do inDemocracy in America, allowing the communicative event to shape the qualitative engagement: I do not know if I have succeeded in making known what I saw in America, but I am sure of sincerely having had the desire to do so and of never having knowingly succumbed to the need to adapt facts to ideas instead of submitting ideas to the facts. (pp. 13–14) Tocqueville attended to the communicative event before him and made his obser- vation public.

This same interpretive frame of responsive meeting of the communicative event could be used to examine the manner in which Charles Taylor (1989) outlines his case for understandingSources of the Self. One of the author’s recent projects (Arnett, Fritz, & Bell, 2007) engaged this interpretive framework in detailing public disclosure with public evidence, illustrated by Hugo’s (1938) historical novelLes Miserablesand its creative appli- cation of what Michael Hyde (2006) terms ‘‘acknowledgment.’’Les Miserablesis a story centered upon one basic question, ‘‘How does the power of acknowledgment work?’’ Les Miserablesoffers an interpretive haven for those interested in acknowledgment.

One findsresponsiveness,public disclosure, andpublic evidenceworking to portray the human spirit in Hugo’s rendering of a life well lived under circumstances of war, poverty, and the returning face of pain.Responsiveness,public disclosure, andpublic evidencebegin to offer interpretive insight the moment the Bishop, in whose house Jean Valjean finds accommodation for the night, responds otherwise to Valjean’s stealing of silverware.

Valjean stays a night with the Bishop and steals the silverware. The authorities return Valjean to the Bishop, only to have the Bishop offer them thanks and then offer something like the following: ‘‘I gave him the silverware; thank you for bringing him back. He forgot to take the candlesticks. I must give these to him now.’’ Some- times communicative change comes from an odd sense of light—thank you for bringing him back; he forgot the candlesticks.

Interpretive inquiry is one way to make public temporal learning in qualitative research. We do not find an answer for all time. But, for a moment, at times, we can see before our eyes the power of one human communicator meeting another, reminding the researcher and the reader that method alone does not always change lives. Interpretive research works to record communicative events with responsiveness,public disclosure, andpublic evidencethat textures human science with human faces.

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