The three P's to think about while reading about theories are partial, partisan, and problematic. When thinking about a theory and if it is partial, one must take into account if the theory is complete or if there are still parts of the story that have been left out. It is like the game telephone. After a phrase has been passed around to a number of people the phrase has been altered either completely or parts of the phrase have been left out. This is a common occurrence when a story is being traveled by word of mouth. People interpret things differently and that is why a story can be partial.
When a theory is partisan, it means that it is biased. The theory is told from the view point of the teller and may leave out the view points of others, which skews the information. When a theory is partisan it is also partial, but there is no way to be able to capture every persons view point. Say you are telling your friend a story. You are only going to re-enact the thoughts and actions that you yourself did. A person is not about to think about how the person in the corner felt about what happened to you because they do not know how that person felt; this is how a story becomes partisan.
The third part of examining a theory is determining if it is problematic. A theory is problematic because not all questions are answered. Have you ever been watching a child and they ask you why? And then you respond and they ask you why again? It is a continuous battle and no one can answer all the why's. It is a never ending battle and because of this people must interpret why for themselves.
The three p's are all interrelated and that is why a theory can change depending on the eye of the beholder.
About Me
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- Lil' Huss
- I am a junior at SJSU and am pursuing a major in business management and public relations.
I love how you correlated qualitative interactions of our youth (but not just in our younger days): the phone game, story-telling, infinite curiosity with the text's illustration of historical narratives in communication theories. It shows how subjective communication theories are. That with all the experiences and research there is always human interpretation and a sense that what someone believes may be the greatest truth for them. It is mindlessness not to question what is given to us in theory. All talk is partial, partisan and problematic is interesting to point out from the text. I remember the phone game thats how rumors gets started, but I guess rumors could be a bunch of interpretations if not for being the emotional lies...
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