Documents Flashcards
What are documents usually?
Qualitative
Can be quantitative
What is a document?
Documents are usually secondary qualitative sources as the information already exists in written or audio/visual format
Examples of documents?
Government reports
Newspaper
Novels
Letters
Diaries
Pictures
Television and radio output
Police records
Parish registers
Minutes if meetings
Art
Previous sociological studies
Social work files
School records
What are the 4 types of document?
Official Documents
Personal Documents
Historical Documents
Media Documents
What are official documents?
Document produced by organisations like the govt departments and their agencies, buisness and charity’s
Schools like Ofsted reports and other official givt enquiries
These reports are a matter of public records and should be available for anyone who wants to see them
Official documents- are government reports public or private documents?
Public
Official documents- are company reports and accounts public or private documents?
private
What are personal documents?
First hand account of social events and personal experiences taht include the writers feelings and attitudes
Can be referred as life documents
Examples of personal documents?
Letters
Diaries
Photo album
Paintings
Drawings
Autobiographies
How did Aries’ study using personal document in his childhood study?
He used paintings sculptures poems and other pieces of art
Thsi is hood as he could get feelings of poems and pictures about how people feel about a certain topic during time
However only wealthy represented as they where the only ones who got portraits
How can documents be used in primary reaserch?
Sociologists can right own diary (Barker)
Willis asked the boys studied to keep a diary
Asking child to draw a picture of something
What was Valerie Heys study about personal documents?
She wants to study girls friendships through notes exchanged in lessons between girls in london comprehensive schools
Found that notes where mainly about relationships with eachother
Teacher disregarded notes as unimportant where as Hey beloved otherwise
Hey was worried about ethics as it invaded girls personal and private informations and no concent
What is historical documents?
Documents from the last that help give sociologists a picture if social change or important events that happened long ago that hey may not be able to find out about any other way
What are media documents?
These could include a range of media scourges including newspaper reports, TV, audience and website
Strengths of documents in social reaserch?
-Verstehen
-Only way of reaserching the past
-Interpretavist prefer life documents
-Practicle
-Ethical
Limitations from John Scott of documents in reasearch?
1) lack of authenticity due to parts being missing and forging
2) credibility as we don’t know why or someone’s motive for writing the document. Could be for distorting for political reasons
3) Meaning, can be difficult to interpret especially if there old
4) Representativeness- may not be representative especially in old documents. Many documents may dethrone with age and documents can be withheald from the public
What are media sources/ mass media?
Sources produced for entertainment purposes
Why do sociologists like media sources?
Because they tell us what media produces think people want and stereotyping
e.g. we find that violent crime is disproportionately featured in crime dramas whereas 75% of crime is less serious property crime
Do sociologists like news sources?
No because they are believed to be social construction
may reflect reality to an extent but also reflects the selection biases and personal prejudice of journalists and new editors
NB in UK
Journalists mainly coke from private schools so even though they say their not bias they can be
What are the two different approaches to studying media sources?
Formal (quantitative) content analysis
Quantitative content analysis: thematic and textual analysis
What is Formal (quantitative) content analysis?
Sociologists will look at qualitative media documents like newspaper tv and audio etc and attempt to turn it into quantitative data
This is ultimately is a quantitative approach to mass media and simply counting how many time a certain feature occurs in a given source
Most common way would be
-Word count or phrase count
-Counting the types of crimes in the media in a given period
-Analysis images in the media
Strengths of Formal (quantitative) content analysis?
-Minimises reasercher bias as it’s only a count
-Reliable and can be repeated
-Practical
Weaknesses of Formal (quantitative) content analysis?
-Can have different interpretations
-Tells you nothing about the message that is giving or how the audience interprets the message
What is Quantitative content analysis: thematic analysis?
Trying to understand intentions behind mass production of documents by subjecting a particular area of reportage to detailed investigation
Formal (quantitative) content analysis
Quantitative content analysis: thematic analysis example?
Soothill and Walby’s (1991) did a study of newspaper reporting of sex crime
They often found that the reporting tended to emphasise the danger of being raped in public places tended to ignore rape by partners and friends of victims
Sue sharpe and women’s magazines
Formal (quantitative) content analysis
Quantitative content analysis: textual analysis?
Involves examining how different words are linked together in order to encourage readers to adopt a particular view of what is being reported
Formal (quantitative) content analysis
Quantitative content analysis: textual analysis example?
A classic example of this is the Glasgow university media group who reported miners strike
found that minders demanded better working conditions
Managers offered better working conditions
Quantitative content analysis: thematic and textual analysis- strengths?
Detail of qualitative allows the reaserch to get full contexts in which media reporting takes places so it’s high in validyy
Quantitative content analysis: thematic and textual analysis- weekness?
Lack of objectivity and are reliant on reasercher down interpretation of the meanings of media texts
What sociologists prefer Formal (quantitative) content analysis?
Positivists
What sociologists prefer quantitative content analysis: thematic and textual analysis
Interpretivists
