Analysing Media: Format, Style and Content Flashcards
What are the problems with analysing media?
- Need parameters around ‘media’
- This is fraught, but necessary
- ‘Unit of analysis’
- Gans and Leigh: Articles/transcripts
- Delli Carpini and Williams: focus groups conversations
- What media are studying?
- What ‘effect’ are we studying?
- Your question should inform your methods
- Systematic and accurate observation; respect for evidence; careful examination and description; caution and consideration of alternatives
What are the analytical approaches?
- Participant observation
- Archival research
- Content analysis & computational text analysis
- Narrative & Genre analysis
- Visual analysis
- Audience surveys
- Focus groups interviews
What questions do participant observation answer, what does it look like and what are the pros/cons?
- What kind of question does it answer?
- ‘Did Rupert Murdoch tell you to print that?’
- What would it look like?
- Ethnographic research
- Also talking to participants
- Pros and cons?
- Detail & Depth
- Expensive
What questions do Archival research answer, what does it look like and what are the pros/cons?
- What kind of question does it answer?
- ‘How did stories used to get told?’
- ‘What was public opinion about this?’
- ‘How has this process changed?’
- What would it look like?
- Looking through archives
- Looking at evolutions
- Pros and cons?
- Detail & Depth
- Extremely time heavy
What questions do Content analysis & computational text analysis answer, what does it look like and what are the pros/cons?
- What kind of question does it answer?
- What is in this news?
- What are the words in this news?
- ‘What does ___ mean to ___?’
- ‘It the ABC left-wing?’
- ‘Were Female perpetrators of torture in Afghanistan portrayed in the news using different language than the men?’
- ‘Has there been a change in ideologies among Conservative MP’s?’
- No question on input, inception of words/piece/etc
- What would it look like?
- Data mining
- Pros and cons?
- Inductive or Deductive?
What questions do Narrative & Genre analysis answer, what does it look like and what are the pros/cons?
- What kind of question does it answer?
- ‘How does the narrative/genre structure reflect the story?’
- ‘To what extent does the media use a narrative structure in the depiction of asylum seekers?’
- ‘Are the ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ of this story a result of imbued genre?’
- ‘To what extent are the actors in this story ‘genred’ into good vs bad
- What would it look like?
- Studying opinion pieces, biographies, as well as conventional news
- Pros and cons?
- Can only be used in particular contexts; but may be applicable where not obvious: Ikea opening a new store: Ikea as good guy
What questions do Visual analysis answer, what does it look like and what are the pros/cons?
- What kind of question does it answer?
- ‘What does this picture mean/imply/convey and what is it meant to mean/imply/convey to people?’
- What would it look like?
- Analysing non text
- Pros and cons?
- Pictures can (not often) carry more meaning and implication than any amount of words, so can be powerful
What questions do Audience surveys answer?
- What kind of question does it answer?
- ‘What do people watch; when and why?’
- ‘How did you react to this?’
- Campaign/election research (advertising efficacy etc.)
What questions do Focus groups interviews answer?
‘How does this media generate conversation?’
What are inductive and deductive logic?
- Deductive: A-priori idea of what you’re looking for: asking question based on theory
- Always liable to confirmation bias
- Most of life is deductive logic
- Inductive: don’t know anything beforehand
- To interpret results based on absolutely no theory is near impossible
- Data-mining software can inductively (objectively) generate results which will then have be deductively described
