Jan 24. Communications Research Methods

Question 1

Different ways of slicing the world: (Different epistemologies, or ways of coming to truth)

Answer 1

Positivism (AKA the scientific method) It’s true if we can test it and repeat it.
Postpositivism. The scientific method is good, but there are some things that can’t be known that way. For example, religious faith.
Social Constructionism: All meaning and truth is derived from social interactions, especially those involving symbols and signs, whose meanings are relativistic and change with context. Language is not simply a transparent medium that describes the world; it creates the world as we know it.
Postmodernism:…. Metanarratives that overarch everything and try to explain the world. Questions science as the one mode to truth. Promotes one worldview.

Question 2

Three Research Approaches to Mass Communication

Answer 2

• Quantitative Research focused on numbers, measurable outcomes, and statistics.
• Qualitative Research focused on observation being a “participant observer” and real human experience.
• Critical/Cultural (Semiotics, Framing, Media Ecology).

Question 3

Quantitative Methods

Answer 3

Media Effects/Direct Effects research usually uses quantitative methods
Positivistic
Experimental (Statistical) Research
Content Analysis
Survey Research
Strengths?
Weaknesses?

Question 4

Qualitative Methods

Answer 4

Also called “interpretive” research
Description
Focus on the voice of the participants, not the researcher
Ethnography
Focus Groups
In-depth Interviews
Strengths?
Weaknesses?

Question 5

Critical/Cultural Methods

Answer 5

Important thinkers: Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams, James Carey
Challenge quantitative methods/models for studying/understanding media (like the Direct Effects model)
Examine what audience do with their media, rather than what media does to its audiences
Uses and Gratifications theory
Encoding/Decoding
Reception Analysis
Looks at media representation
Takes issues of power into account
Strives for social change more than finding “facts”
Strengths?
Weaknesses?
Semiotics
Study of signs and symbols
Framing
Media frames stories in certain ways to make the message more easily organized, digestible
Agenda-Setting Theory

Question 6

Media Ecology

Answer 6

Study of media and its environment
Marshall McLuhan
The Medium is the Message
Neil Postman