ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the critical/cultural paradigm. Critical theory is different from other approaches to communication research since it looks for ways to change the relationships of power and overcome oppression. Much of philosophy is the effort to determine what makes humans different from other animals. Many philosophers embraced the earlier works of Hegel, which stressed the importance of change and freedom, while rejecting his later works about the importance of the nation and state even when the state was authoritarian. These philosophers were called the Young Hegelians and believed ideas to be the driving force in history. Marxism and postmodernism, while different on several key points, are not competing perspectives but two different outlooks within the same overall paradigm. A whole range of thinkers fills the space between Marxism on one end of the spectrum and postmodernism on the other.
