Communication studies expert, Dedy Nur Hidayat, PhD, asserts that students usually have difficulty to find a problem as a focus of research in their thesis in Guest Lecture “Theorising various paradigms in Communication Research”, delivered to Postgraduate Students of Communication Studies, Diponegoro University. ”Finding a research problem is not difficult because it begins from our curiousity. The problem is whether it includes communication studies or not”. Therefore, Dedy adds, students have to understand paradigms in communication studies, that the direction of their research becomes clear. In addition, students have to understand the prerequisites of each paradigm to be used that the mission of their research can be accomplished. In using positivistic approach, for example, students have to be in distance from the object of studies to ascertain the research objectivity, which is different from the non-positivistic approach that is more subjective in nature. In communication research itself, there are three main paradigms, including positivist, constructionist, and critical theory.
