Kuhn Saw Revolutions As Paradigm Shift

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From ancient smoke fires to modern day tweets, the evolution of communication has been a scintillating journey, possible only due to the constant improvements in technology. These changes have not only changed the way people live their personal lives but also their social lives. Modern day political revolutions have become successful owing to the modernized communication technology. This was evident in the case of the Arab Spring (2015) and the role of social media in highlighting the tyranny and oppression of the authoritarian regimes.
In this paper our focus will be on the study of evolution of the way people communicate. We will use Kuhn’s idea of paradigm shifts and apply it in this case. However, we do believe that not all changes are …show more content…

Kuhn saw revolutions as paradigm shifts in the society. “A Paradigm is made up of the general theoretical assumptions and laws and the techniques for their application that the members of a particular scientific community adopt.” A paradigm is characterized by what he calls a period of normal science. With the course of time, problems begin to accumulate and there comes a time when the existing knowledge is not able to answer the questions raised by science. This is the point of crisis and is followed by a revolution. The characteristic of a revolution is that it leads to a paradigm shift. Kuhn defines paradigm shift as something that can be “popular or not so popular shift or transformation of the way we humans perceive event, people, environment and life together. I can be national or international shift and could have dramatic effects- whether positive or negative- on the way we live our lives today and in the future.” The shift to a new paradigm moves us to what Kuhn calls a new normal science and the process continues. (Chalmers, …show more content…

Such as books helping in educating themselves but being very selective to the kind of text they were exposed to. Newspapers acted as a public forum for debates and sharing of information. Whereas Radio helped in creating a unified national identity for masses and at the same time acting as a source of entertainment. Whereas Internet created a more anonymous and decentralized form of media, out of the control of government. Thus, communication evolved over time with technological innovations and will also be experiencing the same in the coming

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