Qualitative methods in Media and Communication
Week 1
Four principles of qualitative research
1. It’s about meaning-making, not about numbers. Meaning making refers to how
socially shared understandings of the world are developed.
2. It’s about the complexity of social life, not about finding causal relationships:
observes phenomenon in natural context.
3. It provides micro insights, not the macro picture.
4. It involves different epistemological, ontological and methodological positions.
Core features of qualitative research
1. Insightful= gives us a sense of how people make sense of the world in which they
live, how do our social processes come to be and become sustained?
2. Complex= we need to have a nuanced understanding of the social world, taking into
consideration power, culture, and knowledge
3. Emancipatory= we don’t want to say why things are the way they are, we want to
say that so we can begin to see possible ways to change
Triangulation= the use of multiple methods to increase the rigor of their analyses and to
develop in-depth understandings of social experience.
Ontology= the view on the nature of reality.
Epistemology= about the perceived relationship with knowledge. It’s the study of
knowledge.
Methodology= how we go about discovering and creating knowledge. It involves beliefs
related to how to study the social world.
Methods= concrete ways of studying the social world.
Paradigms= a set of beliefs that researchers use to guide their work.
Five types of paradigms:
1. Positivism= consider reality to exist and scientific truth to be knowable and findable
through testing that is free from human bias; objective observation of the world.
2. Post-Positivism= consider reality to exist but because people are flawed, they may
not be able actually to understand it; complex world. Positivist but light version:
there is a truth out there but we are not entirely sure we can actually get to it
because humans and their methods are flawed.
3. Constructionism= truth is not universally known; there are several ‘truths’.
Knowledge is filtered through shared meanings and reality is not independent of its
observer.
4. Critical tradition= focus on power relations; reality and truth to be shaped by context
(specific historical, cultural, racial, gender, political and economic conditions, values
and structures); aims to achieve fundamental and transformative social change,
interested in how power shapes the research process.
5. Participatory/Cooperative Inquiry= perspective that emphasizes the subjectivity of
practical knowledge and the collaborative nature of research; breaks down the
hierarchy between researcher and researched (interested in how researchers could
empower their own participant to become co-researchers).
,Transmission view of communication= communication as a process of sending, transmitting
or delivering information in order to control others; focuses on sending messages over
distances in order to distribute common knowledge and ideas (quantitative).
Ritual view of communication= people share customs, beliefs, ideas and experiences, a
process that reinforces and maintains a common culture (qualitative).
Big T= belief in a singular understanding of truth; unified reality; researchers as neutral and
objective observers who primarily use quantitative methods.
Little t= belief in multiple interpretations and understanding of truth; envision many
constructed, competing notions of reality; researcher is subjective; use qualitative methods.
Big data= although big data provides researchers with more information, for qualitative
researchers the additional data does not necessarily make it any more accurate or objective.
Its use also raises important ethical concerns regarding informed consent, privacy, corporate
and/or governmental control and restrictions on basic freedoms and liberties.
Reflexivity= the process where qualitative researchers reflect critically on their role as
researchers. It helps researchers understand how their interpretations are influenced.
Principles of ethically sound research
1. Informed consent: no one should be involved in research as a participant without
knowing about this and without having the chance of refusing to take part
2. Deception of research participants (by covert observation or by giving them false
information about the purpose of research) should be avoided
3. Participants’ privacy should be respected and confidentiality should be guaranteed
and maintained
4. Accuracy of the data and their interpretation should be the leading principle: no
omission or fraud with the collection or analysis of data should occur in the research
practice
5. In relation to the participants, respect for the person is seen as essential
6. Beneficence: considering the well-being of the participants
7. Justice: addresses the relation of benefits and burdens for the research participants
Week 2
Qualitative research questions should be:
Answerable
Open-ended
Interesting
Relevant
Feasible
Ethical
Concise
Ethnography= the qualitative method of observing, talking to and interacting with people in
their natural environments. It’s about telling stories: drawing audience into lives of the
respondents; replicating these experiences through producing data about social context and
a scientific focus. Focusses on the concept of culture.
, Thick description= a rich understanding of how people are experiencing their life; blending
of observation and interpretation; paying attention to the social context/contextual
information. It’s a construction of other people’s constructions.
Purposes of ethnography/observation:
1. Capture life as experienced by participants.
2. Describe and interpret observable relationships, between social practices and
systems of meaning, based upon first-hand experience and exploration of a cultural
setting practices.
3. Rely on natural settings: to capture behavior as it occurs in the real world
Two roles for giving access
1. Gatekeeper= granting access or not (e.g. a manager granting access to observe its
employees) no relationship between research/topic.
2. Sponsor= relationship between research/topic; advocates for your research, helps
you out with finding participants.
Ethics and observation= it’s a method built on trust and a relational process. Includes
informed consent because the researcher must recognize possible harm.
Autoethnography= autobiographical genre of writing and research; intertwining the
ethnographic wide-angle lens and the inward vulnerable self.
Three characteristics of autoethnography:
1. Written in the first person
2. Usually a single case
3. More literary than scientific writing
Strengths of ethnography/observations:
Flexible and emergent design
Social processes over time
Richer and fuller description of phenomena
Great to use with other methods
Relatively unobtrusive
Can create new ideas and validate other research
Weaknesses of observations:
Not everything can be directly observed x Time consuming
Transferability issues
Dependent on observer’s abilities
Requires an accounting of researcher’s positionality: reflexivity
Participant observation= fieldwork through which a researcher observes and interacts with
others. It’s about experiencing and recording events in social settings. Ethnography’s primary
methodological tool. You need access to a group, culture or organization. It’s an iterative
process and can be inductive or deductive.
Week 1
Four principles of qualitative research
1. It’s about meaning-making, not about numbers. Meaning making refers to how
socially shared understandings of the world are developed.
2. It’s about the complexity of social life, not about finding causal relationships:
observes phenomenon in natural context.
3. It provides micro insights, not the macro picture.
4. It involves different epistemological, ontological and methodological positions.
Core features of qualitative research
1. Insightful= gives us a sense of how people make sense of the world in which they
live, how do our social processes come to be and become sustained?
2. Complex= we need to have a nuanced understanding of the social world, taking into
consideration power, culture, and knowledge
3. Emancipatory= we don’t want to say why things are the way they are, we want to
say that so we can begin to see possible ways to change
Triangulation= the use of multiple methods to increase the rigor of their analyses and to
develop in-depth understandings of social experience.
Ontology= the view on the nature of reality.
Epistemology= about the perceived relationship with knowledge. It’s the study of
knowledge.
Methodology= how we go about discovering and creating knowledge. It involves beliefs
related to how to study the social world.
Methods= concrete ways of studying the social world.
Paradigms= a set of beliefs that researchers use to guide their work.
Five types of paradigms:
1. Positivism= consider reality to exist and scientific truth to be knowable and findable
through testing that is free from human bias; objective observation of the world.
2. Post-Positivism= consider reality to exist but because people are flawed, they may
not be able actually to understand it; complex world. Positivist but light version:
there is a truth out there but we are not entirely sure we can actually get to it
because humans and their methods are flawed.
3. Constructionism= truth is not universally known; there are several ‘truths’.
Knowledge is filtered through shared meanings and reality is not independent of its
observer.
4. Critical tradition= focus on power relations; reality and truth to be shaped by context
(specific historical, cultural, racial, gender, political and economic conditions, values
and structures); aims to achieve fundamental and transformative social change,
interested in how power shapes the research process.
5. Participatory/Cooperative Inquiry= perspective that emphasizes the subjectivity of
practical knowledge and the collaborative nature of research; breaks down the
hierarchy between researcher and researched (interested in how researchers could
empower their own participant to become co-researchers).
,Transmission view of communication= communication as a process of sending, transmitting
or delivering information in order to control others; focuses on sending messages over
distances in order to distribute common knowledge and ideas (quantitative).
Ritual view of communication= people share customs, beliefs, ideas and experiences, a
process that reinforces and maintains a common culture (qualitative).
Big T= belief in a singular understanding of truth; unified reality; researchers as neutral and
objective observers who primarily use quantitative methods.
Little t= belief in multiple interpretations and understanding of truth; envision many
constructed, competing notions of reality; researcher is subjective; use qualitative methods.
Big data= although big data provides researchers with more information, for qualitative
researchers the additional data does not necessarily make it any more accurate or objective.
Its use also raises important ethical concerns regarding informed consent, privacy, corporate
and/or governmental control and restrictions on basic freedoms and liberties.
Reflexivity= the process where qualitative researchers reflect critically on their role as
researchers. It helps researchers understand how their interpretations are influenced.
Principles of ethically sound research
1. Informed consent: no one should be involved in research as a participant without
knowing about this and without having the chance of refusing to take part
2. Deception of research participants (by covert observation or by giving them false
information about the purpose of research) should be avoided
3. Participants’ privacy should be respected and confidentiality should be guaranteed
and maintained
4. Accuracy of the data and their interpretation should be the leading principle: no
omission or fraud with the collection or analysis of data should occur in the research
practice
5. In relation to the participants, respect for the person is seen as essential
6. Beneficence: considering the well-being of the participants
7. Justice: addresses the relation of benefits and burdens for the research participants
Week 2
Qualitative research questions should be:
Answerable
Open-ended
Interesting
Relevant
Feasible
Ethical
Concise
Ethnography= the qualitative method of observing, talking to and interacting with people in
their natural environments. It’s about telling stories: drawing audience into lives of the
respondents; replicating these experiences through producing data about social context and
a scientific focus. Focusses on the concept of culture.
, Thick description= a rich understanding of how people are experiencing their life; blending
of observation and interpretation; paying attention to the social context/contextual
information. It’s a construction of other people’s constructions.
Purposes of ethnography/observation:
1. Capture life as experienced by participants.
2. Describe and interpret observable relationships, between social practices and
systems of meaning, based upon first-hand experience and exploration of a cultural
setting practices.
3. Rely on natural settings: to capture behavior as it occurs in the real world
Two roles for giving access
1. Gatekeeper= granting access or not (e.g. a manager granting access to observe its
employees) no relationship between research/topic.
2. Sponsor= relationship between research/topic; advocates for your research, helps
you out with finding participants.
Ethics and observation= it’s a method built on trust and a relational process. Includes
informed consent because the researcher must recognize possible harm.
Autoethnography= autobiographical genre of writing and research; intertwining the
ethnographic wide-angle lens and the inward vulnerable self.
Three characteristics of autoethnography:
1. Written in the first person
2. Usually a single case
3. More literary than scientific writing
Strengths of ethnography/observations:
Flexible and emergent design
Social processes over time
Richer and fuller description of phenomena
Great to use with other methods
Relatively unobtrusive
Can create new ideas and validate other research
Weaknesses of observations:
Not everything can be directly observed x Time consuming
Transferability issues
Dependent on observer’s abilities
Requires an accounting of researcher’s positionality: reflexivity
Participant observation= fieldwork through which a researcher observes and interacts with
others. It’s about experiencing and recording events in social settings. Ethnography’s primary
methodological tool. You need access to a group, culture or organization. It’s an iterative
process and can be inductive or deductive.
