Paul’s Questions for 11-2
In the Hopf reading, the section on the principle of informed consent made me think of the observation Alex and I did at the Austin High School football game at the beginning of the semester. Again, this was a group setting with thousands of people there, unaware of our plans to observe. The German Code of Ethics apparently wants “temporarily deceived participants” to be given the chance to withdraw from participation after the fact. I understand that in certain cases you can’t explain the true purpose of an observation ahead of time, because it might spoil things. But in a public setting, what is ethical when you unintentionally recognize someone. Whether in Germany, or anywhere else, are they fair game to identify if relevant to the research?
The so-called “Springdale case” was interesting to me as a working journalist, because my news director has always maintained that we must do our best to minimize harm. That’s not to say that harm won’t be done. In fact, my news director argues that someone is inevitably harmed by a news story, so it’s our obligation to minimize that harm as much as possible through the words that we use and the images that we show. But ultimately it is up to journalists, or at least their editors, to make the determination of weighing this harm against the greater good. In the Springdale case, the participants were given fictitious names and a fictitious setting, yet were easily identified due to their roles. Even so, it was published for scientific progress. In the spirit of what my news director believes, is this what Hopf means in terms of research when stating that it’s not acceptable for committees of research ethics to make such publication decisions?
The Altheide and Johnson reading states that analytic realism is “based on the view that the social world is an interpreted world, not a literal world.” It also says that reflexivity means the observer is “part and parcel of the setting, context, and culture” being observed and represented. Isn’t this the case when journalists approach a story? While the reporter may not be part of the story that’s seen or read, clearly his or her view of the world has had an influence in the final product. What is observed may not be what was intended. A person arrested for a crime who is wearing a Chicago White Sox baseball cap, for instance, may be described as a baseball fan, when in fact is only wearing the cap because of gang colors – the interpreted world versus the literal world. At least ethnographers do, or should, strive to address the problems of validity, as this reading describes, “with straightforward and honest integrity.”
Also in the area of validity, I liked the description of ethnographers in the Altheide and Johnson article. It says that most ethnographers focus on the processes subjects use to create activities, and the established order involved. The article also states ethnographers use descriptions of language, nuances and routines as their foundation in reporting their findings. To me, it’s like comparing information in an encyclopedia on a topic to a news story on the same topic. If the topic is how surgery is done, for example, the encyclopedia may provide a step-by-step description, but the news story would detail the decision-making, routines, and feelings involved. Is this a fair analogy?
Hammersley (1992) is quoted in the Altheide and Johnson reading, stating that “research is a process of inquiry which is collective not individual,” and that assessing ethnography is more about “what we intend by ethnography.” Couldn’t the same thing really be said about quantitative analysis as well? There may be numbers and statistics used to make a case, but really, isn’t the method developed for both quantitative and qualitative research based on our individual beliefs?
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Yonghwan's Questions
1. We did a group assignment (News Program Analysis), a discourse analysis of 60 minutes reporting a sort of unknown prison called Supermax in which inmates are terrorists and gangs. We found that each person had different interpretations on latent meaning and implicit patterns of the text. This may emphasis the interpretive position of the researcher when it comes to “reading” a text. Then, what seems to be differences of positions they (literature) refer? Individual background? Stereotypes or bias? How can we explain what makes different interpretations?
2. Turned to triangulation for showing a validity of the research, in our case, it turned out two researchers showed different analysis or interpretation on a same text. Then does this mean a low validity of the study or a flexibility of qualitative research?
3. It seems to me that a discourse analysis and a metaphorical analysis are closely related each other. What’s the relationship between these two analyses? What’s similarity and difference between these two analyses? When I did a group assignment, I found several metaphors such as “a clean version of hell” and “the perfect of isolation.” And I interpreted that these metaphors may employ/indicate a powerful system of the US for maintaining the US security. Is this making sense?
4. It has been stated, which is interesting to me, that “Foucault’s theory of the social order, discourse practices enact and reinforce dominance relations, by which social position, relations, and identity are constructed”; and “while cognitive metaphor research focuses on isolating the governing type of discourse material, and explains metaphor’s unique role in conceptualizing the social order, Foucault’s model offers a more comprehensive explanation of the discourse processes by which the social order is established and maintained” (in Ana’s piece). In which sense they are different? What could be examples of these two models/approaches?
5. I am still not clear on what are the differences of thematic analysis, critical discourse analysis, ideological analysis, genre analysis, and cultural analysis in terms of interpretative strategies? More practically when it comes to doing research, which research question or topics are most appropriate for each analysis? (which I asked last week) In addition, what seems to be examples of semiotic and Marxist analysis?—anyone who shows examples of research questions and appropriate topics, and method for each analysis?
2. Turned to triangulation for showing a validity of the research, in our case, it turned out two researchers showed different analysis or interpretation on a same text. Then does this mean a low validity of the study or a flexibility of qualitative research?
3. It seems to me that a discourse analysis and a metaphorical analysis are closely related each other. What’s the relationship between these two analyses? What’s similarity and difference between these two analyses? When I did a group assignment, I found several metaphors such as “a clean version of hell” and “the perfect of isolation.” And I interpreted that these metaphors may employ/indicate a powerful system of the US for maintaining the US security. Is this making sense?
4. It has been stated, which is interesting to me, that “Foucault’s theory of the social order, discourse practices enact and reinforce dominance relations, by which social position, relations, and identity are constructed”; and “while cognitive metaphor research focuses on isolating the governing type of discourse material, and explains metaphor’s unique role in conceptualizing the social order, Foucault’s model offers a more comprehensive explanation of the discourse processes by which the social order is established and maintained” (in Ana’s piece). In which sense they are different? What could be examples of these two models/approaches?
5. I am still not clear on what are the differences of thematic analysis, critical discourse analysis, ideological analysis, genre analysis, and cultural analysis in terms of interpretative strategies? More practically when it comes to doing research, which research question or topics are most appropriate for each analysis? (which I asked last week) In addition, what seems to be examples of semiotic and Marxist analysis?—anyone who shows examples of research questions and appropriate topics, and method for each analysis?
Sungsoo's Questions
Q1. I think that Eco’s notion, “if sign can be use to tell the truth, they can also be used to lie (Berger, p13),” elucidates one of the strong point of the semiotics. It enables us to catch the nature of symbol manipulations by the oppressive power. Dictators and its friends always tried to mask their oppressive nature by producing images and rhetoric.
Q2. Berger suggests useful ways of interpreting the television grammar by showing the way how camera works to convey its images: fade in, fade out, pan down and pan up etc (p 31). As Berger notes that semiotics analysis need to focus on the TV program. I see many possibilities of research in this area.
Q3. My answer to Berger’s question in Ch2, “each of us has to decide whether Marxism still makes sense” is that Marxist perspectives have fundamental limitations to analyze the period we are living: it is based and developed in the early stage of capitalism, mass production and mass consumption. There is no class conflict or class consciousness without class.
Q4. According to Van Dijk, the central issue of critical discourse analysis is reveal how discourse plays in reproducing social dominance: how hierarchical social relations are enacted, sustained, and legitimated through discourse. However some critics argue, “How can we explain Hollywood movies that usually describe “the rich” as greedy and selfish, “the core class” as conspiracy-oriented snob?”
Q5. It seems to me that neither Herman and Chomsky’s views on media, news media marginalize dissent and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public, nor Entman’s argument, corporate-owned media have strong power to organize the public opinion, have explanatory power on Internet age we are living now (Santa Ana, Section 6). They seem to reiterate old Marxist’s perspectives: media as an apparatus of ruling class or media owned by ruling class sing a song of their own. We cannot say that corporate-owned news media support the interest of military-industrial complex. Although some corporate-owned news media are supporting conservatives, there are many news media owned by corporate company or family that do not support conservatives.
Q2. Berger suggests useful ways of interpreting the television grammar by showing the way how camera works to convey its images: fade in, fade out, pan down and pan up etc (p 31). As Berger notes that semiotics analysis need to focus on the TV program. I see many possibilities of research in this area.
Q3. My answer to Berger’s question in Ch2, “each of us has to decide whether Marxism still makes sense” is that Marxist perspectives have fundamental limitations to analyze the period we are living: it is based and developed in the early stage of capitalism, mass production and mass consumption. There is no class conflict or class consciousness without class.
Q4. According to Van Dijk, the central issue of critical discourse analysis is reveal how discourse plays in reproducing social dominance: how hierarchical social relations are enacted, sustained, and legitimated through discourse. However some critics argue, “How can we explain Hollywood movies that usually describe “the rich” as greedy and selfish, “the core class” as conspiracy-oriented snob?”
Q5. It seems to me that neither Herman and Chomsky’s views on media, news media marginalize dissent and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public, nor Entman’s argument, corporate-owned media have strong power to organize the public opinion, have explanatory power on Internet age we are living now (Santa Ana, Section 6). They seem to reiterate old Marxist’s perspectives: media as an apparatus of ruling class or media owned by ruling class sing a song of their own. We cannot say that corporate-owned news media support the interest of military-industrial complex. Although some corporate-owned news media are supporting conservatives, there are many news media owned by corporate company or family that do not support conservatives.
Marcus' Questions
Q1) I thought Ana’s “Brown Tide Rising” was an interesting read, and in a way, it made me think of those ‘chicken and the egg’ scenarios in media research – did the media begin referring to Hispanic immigration with storm metaphors, and then politicians picked it up, or were the media responding to language used in the public already? It reminded me of agenda setting theory, which struggles with the same question of timing.
Q2) It also made me wonder about terminology used in stories on actual severe weather. It’s been a really calm hurricane season – which is great, don’t get me wrong – and Austin is usually pretty temperate, so maybe we just don’t see those stories very often, but what words do the media use to describe actual floods and storms? Is it the same language used to describe immigration, or does it just seem like it should use those classic weather terms, and it really isn’t? It’s one of those questions that sounds like a no brainer at first, but it might not be after all.
Q3) I think using Sherlock Holmes as an example for semiotic analysis works perfectly – particularly since there’s a new Holmes movie coming out in December. The plot is, of course, preposterous, and Hollywood has taken a clear departure from the old Arthur Conan Doyle stories, but for at least a few years, when today’s kids hear “Sherlock Holmes” they’re going to think of Robert Downey Jr., not the hounds of the Baskervilles. Another example of different images meaning different things to different people, and the same iconic image being used for very different ends.
Q4) I liked Berger’s usage of Agatha Christie to explain semiotics, and I liked the idea of decoding a mystery as an example of decoding images and meanings. But there’s a critical assumption there that, I think, goes unsaid – it assumes that readers can “crack the case,” so to speak, and there are plenty of mysteries out there where it’s just impossible for the audience to do so. Viewers may be able to solve Murder on the Orient Express based on the clues the story gives out, but what about the Usual Suspects, or Reservoir Dogs? Or even the new Sherlock Holmes, which, once again, is preposterous? Stores aren’t always designed to be unraveled, so is there a sense that some images cannot be definitively decoded?
Q5) I thought Berger’s commentary on Marxism made some sense, particularly his comment that “each of us has to decide whether Marxism still makes sense.” And I think much of it has to do with the loaded baggage – much of it appropriate for semiotic analysis – that terms like Marxism and Communism carry; your average American is going to associate both with the Soviet Union and/or Russia, and possibly its cranky judo-master of a leader. Those words aren’t going to trigger concepts of power relationships or academic analysis; more often than not, it’ll be images of nuclear –nucular? - weapons. And for those few of us that have experience with company towns, like me, that bear some resemblance to classic socialist economic systems, the words have further different meanings.
To comment on Sebastian’s post, I don’t think it has to do with “American exceptionalism;” I’m not even really sure how exceptional most Americans think we are, since there’s a difference between loud patriotism and honest-to-God egocentrism. Our politicians, maybe not, but that’s another story. But I do think we have a unique perspective on Marxist ideologies, rooted largely in the Cold War, that gives us a different interpretation on Marxism than scholars from other nations – but that’s not exceptionalism, that’s classic semiotics.
That being said, I can fully understand the other perspective as well – American culture, and academic ideas, are very prolific, and we do mass produce both for wide export. So I can understand why we would be considered dominant, and why any ideas we don’t favor could feel repressed; I just don’t see it that way. I think yes, we tend to be a bit hegemonic, but I don’t think we’re actively trying to quash Marxist ideology in an academic sense; we have our own reasons for not embracing the ideology, and the two are incidental to me.
Q2) It also made me wonder about terminology used in stories on actual severe weather. It’s been a really calm hurricane season – which is great, don’t get me wrong – and Austin is usually pretty temperate, so maybe we just don’t see those stories very often, but what words do the media use to describe actual floods and storms? Is it the same language used to describe immigration, or does it just seem like it should use those classic weather terms, and it really isn’t? It’s one of those questions that sounds like a no brainer at first, but it might not be after all.
Q3) I think using Sherlock Holmes as an example for semiotic analysis works perfectly – particularly since there’s a new Holmes movie coming out in December. The plot is, of course, preposterous, and Hollywood has taken a clear departure from the old Arthur Conan Doyle stories, but for at least a few years, when today’s kids hear “Sherlock Holmes” they’re going to think of Robert Downey Jr., not the hounds of the Baskervilles. Another example of different images meaning different things to different people, and the same iconic image being used for very different ends.
Q4) I liked Berger’s usage of Agatha Christie to explain semiotics, and I liked the idea of decoding a mystery as an example of decoding images and meanings. But there’s a critical assumption there that, I think, goes unsaid – it assumes that readers can “crack the case,” so to speak, and there are plenty of mysteries out there where it’s just impossible for the audience to do so. Viewers may be able to solve Murder on the Orient Express based on the clues the story gives out, but what about the Usual Suspects, or Reservoir Dogs? Or even the new Sherlock Holmes, which, once again, is preposterous? Stores aren’t always designed to be unraveled, so is there a sense that some images cannot be definitively decoded?
Q5) I thought Berger’s commentary on Marxism made some sense, particularly his comment that “each of us has to decide whether Marxism still makes sense.” And I think much of it has to do with the loaded baggage – much of it appropriate for semiotic analysis – that terms like Marxism and Communism carry; your average American is going to associate both with the Soviet Union and/or Russia, and possibly its cranky judo-master of a leader. Those words aren’t going to trigger concepts of power relationships or academic analysis; more often than not, it’ll be images of nuclear –nucular? - weapons. And for those few of us that have experience with company towns, like me, that bear some resemblance to classic socialist economic systems, the words have further different meanings.
To comment on Sebastian’s post, I don’t think it has to do with “American exceptionalism;” I’m not even really sure how exceptional most Americans think we are, since there’s a difference between loud patriotism and honest-to-God egocentrism. Our politicians, maybe not, but that’s another story. But I do think we have a unique perspective on Marxist ideologies, rooted largely in the Cold War, that gives us a different interpretation on Marxism than scholars from other nations – but that’s not exceptionalism, that’s classic semiotics.
That being said, I can fully understand the other perspective as well – American culture, and academic ideas, are very prolific, and we do mass produce both for wide export. So I can understand why we would be considered dominant, and why any ideas we don’t favor could feel repressed; I just don’t see it that way. I think yes, we tend to be a bit hegemonic, but I don’t think we’re actively trying to quash Marxist ideology in an academic sense; we have our own reasons for not embracing the ideology, and the two are incidental to me.
Is this blog a metaphor?
As I said last week, it seems like we can never have enough explanations about the signifier and the signified: people will get confused no matter what. And speaking of confusion, I think I agree with the idea that “everything can be analyzed semiotically” (p. 5); why didn’t Berger offer up examples of how the idea can be “questionable”? In my humble opinion, using Sherlock Holmes as an example to explain signifiers and signifieds was brilliant. Likewise, Eco’s work was explained in a very simple way and had very good examples. Isn’t propaganda the art of creating signs that lie beautifully?
Finding Baudrillard here was a treat. A brilliant and misunderstood thinker, Baudrillard´s ideas must hold the record for being the ones most taken out of context. As usual, hyperreality was only granted a few paragraphs and the three branches that grew from it were totally ignored. Why is this? Why can’t people realize that Baudrillard was very right in what he was pointing out?
I also had a small problem with the fact that Berger discussed “codes” (p. 15-16) without ever mentioning culture. Thankfully, he then mentions culture as soon as he begins his discussion on connotation and denotation. The perfect example of this is given on page 27 when it is stated that: “In order for parody to be effective, audience members must be familiar with the original text…”
For my thesis, I used something that could be compared to Propp´s functions (along with some Foucault), but I don’t think so much space should’ve been dedicated to his work in this chapter…especially after hyperreality was dispatched with by a couple of paragraphs. Could it be said that Berger has more of a quantitative mind?
It was great to see Ana clearing the idea of “socially engaged scholarship” (p. 17). It was also interesting to see that the author brought back the idea that “power-defining discourse practices become so automatic that people do not notice them as they go about their everyday lives” (p.18). In that case, why is discourse analysis never presented as a way to understand ourselves? Why has it become so specialized (i.e. working on a single text)? Should we blame academia for not making discourse analysis available to the general public?
Ana also writes about how public discourse reproduces “societal dominance relations” (p. 21). If we take this idea and the one discussed in the previous paragraph, could we say that the main difference between the public and the “powers” is intent? Doesn’t all this come back to cultivation theory and, in some degree, to a hypodermic-needle idea in which power creates a discourse that gets absentmindedly repeated by the masses?
I agree that metaphor is way more than “poetic color and superficial ornamentation” (p. 26) in most cases, but it can also be used just for that: decoration. The thing that we really need to pay attention to is the fact that the decoration is usually used to paint over something else, to hide true meaning. Also, the discussion about “love as madness” was interesting, but doesn’t it prove that even metaphors can become overused morsels of discourse?
It was interesting to see that the author used “unpacking” (p. 36) to talk about decoding; did he “mean” something by it? In my humble opinion, the first part of the chapter explains metaphors in everyday life pretty well, so much so that the discussion about metaphors in law and social policy were a tad boring and long.
The author calls mass media “undeniably powerful” (p. 50) (he says they “have tremendous power” in the same page) in his discussion of it. Nevertheless, access is mentioned only in passing: should we assume that he expected us to know something about the trickle-down effect of mass media? Last but not least, the discussion in which he included Martín-Barbero (whom I was very glad to see mentioned here) was not complete because Stuart Hall was missing. A conversation about mass media, homogeneity (or lack there of) and culture cannot be had without Hall’s three decoding schemes. So why did Ana wait so long before finally bringing Hall into the discussion?
Finding Baudrillard here was a treat. A brilliant and misunderstood thinker, Baudrillard´s ideas must hold the record for being the ones most taken out of context. As usual, hyperreality was only granted a few paragraphs and the three branches that grew from it were totally ignored. Why is this? Why can’t people realize that Baudrillard was very right in what he was pointing out?
I also had a small problem with the fact that Berger discussed “codes” (p. 15-16) without ever mentioning culture. Thankfully, he then mentions culture as soon as he begins his discussion on connotation and denotation. The perfect example of this is given on page 27 when it is stated that: “In order for parody to be effective, audience members must be familiar with the original text…”
For my thesis, I used something that could be compared to Propp´s functions (along with some Foucault), but I don’t think so much space should’ve been dedicated to his work in this chapter…especially after hyperreality was dispatched with by a couple of paragraphs. Could it be said that Berger has more of a quantitative mind?
It was great to see Ana clearing the idea of “socially engaged scholarship” (p. 17). It was also interesting to see that the author brought back the idea that “power-defining discourse practices become so automatic that people do not notice them as they go about their everyday lives” (p.18). In that case, why is discourse analysis never presented as a way to understand ourselves? Why has it become so specialized (i.e. working on a single text)? Should we blame academia for not making discourse analysis available to the general public?
Ana also writes about how public discourse reproduces “societal dominance relations” (p. 21). If we take this idea and the one discussed in the previous paragraph, could we say that the main difference between the public and the “powers” is intent? Doesn’t all this come back to cultivation theory and, in some degree, to a hypodermic-needle idea in which power creates a discourse that gets absentmindedly repeated by the masses?
I agree that metaphor is way more than “poetic color and superficial ornamentation” (p. 26) in most cases, but it can also be used just for that: decoration. The thing that we really need to pay attention to is the fact that the decoration is usually used to paint over something else, to hide true meaning. Also, the discussion about “love as madness” was interesting, but doesn’t it prove that even metaphors can become overused morsels of discourse?
It was interesting to see that the author used “unpacking” (p. 36) to talk about decoding; did he “mean” something by it? In my humble opinion, the first part of the chapter explains metaphors in everyday life pretty well, so much so that the discussion about metaphors in law and social policy were a tad boring and long.
The author calls mass media “undeniably powerful” (p. 50) (he says they “have tremendous power” in the same page) in his discussion of it. Nevertheless, access is mentioned only in passing: should we assume that he expected us to know something about the trickle-down effect of mass media? Last but not least, the discussion in which he included Martín-Barbero (whom I was very glad to see mentioned here) was not complete because Stuart Hall was missing. A conversation about mass media, homogeneity (or lack there of) and culture cannot be had without Hall’s three decoding schemes. So why did Ana wait so long before finally bringing Hall into the discussion?
Alex Questions - Oct. 25
I was a communication studies major for two years before I switched to RTF as an undergrad and remember being exposed to semiotics in the 1980s. And I’ve always accepted this expanded definition of “text” in semiotics to include all kinds of signs, symbols, TV programs, etc. and how they comprise something of a language in and of themselves. But then this connection to linguistics starts to lose me a little. Is a background in linguistics really all that necessary to do good semiotic examinations?
It’s clear that Marxist theory can still be valuable in terms of critical approaches to examination media as manipulation, etc. But the themes of a conflict in class systems, I think, still complicate modern approaches to media criticism. Is there a post-Marxist approach or theory emerging into modern media critiquing that does not attempt to view everything into a dichotomy of class struggle?
I found the Murder on the Orient Express chapter enjoyable reading. And I can see the value of it as a required reading assignment as an example of analysis. But was it textual analysis? Discourse analysis? Semiotic analysis? A bit of all of the above? I ask because there were times that I did not feel I was reading an academic chapter so much as reading a story about a popular story.
Otto Santa Ana evoked Sweetser in describing polysemy as homonyms with distinct meaning, using the example of “over” (p. 30). So I understand that the use of a word takes on distinct meanings depending on the context and use of the word. Is this one way of approaching metaphor? That is, analyzing the distinctions of meaning based on context? Or am I misunderstanding polysemy?
It’s hard for me to read a work like Santa Ana’s Brown Tide Rising without getting worked up. I guess it’s too real to me not only as a Latino but also as a journalist… one of a small group of national Latino journalists at that. I am particularly sensitive to language, in particular. As I was re-reading this chapter (I read the book when it first came out) I started thinking about recent issues like new Supreme Court judge Sonia Sotomayor, and how her “wise Latina” comments were taken out of context and how news outlets like FOX insisted on mispronouncing her name as Soto – mayor. I always felt something insidious was behind that deliberate mispronunciation and it makes sense in the context of this book and chapter. I don’t really have a question but this observation. Is it possible for a researcher to be too close to a subject that subjectivity starts to get lost? When I read Santa Ana, I personally feel he is preaching to the choir.
Teresa's questions
1. It seems that mastering a language is necessary for conducting a semiotic analysis. For ESL people, this represents a huge barrier. Are there any examples of semiotic analyses conducted by non-native speakers? From what I could gather, I saw no example of this, which I find it amusing and discouraging at the same time.
2. Berger mentions that Marxist scholars face the danger of knowing the answers before asking the questions. I wonder whether any deductive approach to science faces the same problem: we have a preconceived idea of what is going on and we conduct our research study to demonstrate that this is or isn’t so. If several studies replicate an initial finding, the results become a theory. Does Berger’s critique really apply to Marxist theory only or to the deductive approach in general?
3. Discourse analysis can be approached from two different perspectives: (1) as a linguistic practice (e.g., van Dijk) and as a social practice (e.g., Foucault). In practice, how these two approaches are manifested in a research study or analysis?
4. In order to conduct an ideological analysis, the researcher should be immersed or deeply understand that ideology, so as to make sense of the codes and symbols that reflects the ideology in the text. But if the researcher is so immersed in that culture or ideology, how he/she can question assumptions that became natural or taken for granted? What’s a good practice to follow before doing an ideological analysis?
5. When Santa Ana talks about “the media” he means “mainstream media.” The advent of the digital media represents greater possibilities for the creation of alternative sources and voices; therefore, what are the consequences for the representation of marginalized or underrepresented groups? Does the creation of more alternative media diversify the hegemonic representation of certain groups or they become mere echo chambers of the mainstream media? Also, given that many of these alternative media have allowed the expression of polarizing views, I wonder whether the representation of these groups improves or worsens.
2. Berger mentions that Marxist scholars face the danger of knowing the answers before asking the questions. I wonder whether any deductive approach to science faces the same problem: we have a preconceived idea of what is going on and we conduct our research study to demonstrate that this is or isn’t so. If several studies replicate an initial finding, the results become a theory. Does Berger’s critique really apply to Marxist theory only or to the deductive approach in general?
3. Discourse analysis can be approached from two different perspectives: (1) as a linguistic practice (e.g., van Dijk) and as a social practice (e.g., Foucault). In practice, how these two approaches are manifested in a research study or analysis?
4. In order to conduct an ideological analysis, the researcher should be immersed or deeply understand that ideology, so as to make sense of the codes and symbols that reflects the ideology in the text. But if the researcher is so immersed in that culture or ideology, how he/she can question assumptions that became natural or taken for granted? What’s a good practice to follow before doing an ideological analysis?
5. When Santa Ana talks about “the media” he means “mainstream media.” The advent of the digital media represents greater possibilities for the creation of alternative sources and voices; therefore, what are the consequences for the representation of marginalized or underrepresented groups? Does the creation of more alternative media diversify the hegemonic representation of certain groups or they become mere echo chambers of the mainstream media? Also, given that many of these alternative media have allowed the expression of polarizing views, I wonder whether the representation of these groups improves or worsens.
Sebastián's questions 10/25
Within textual analysis, we can adopt a discourse, an ideological or a metaphoric approach. What are the boundaries between these different approaches? All of them seem to be strongly interrelated. For example, through discourse analysis we are searching for latent themes or ideas that organize the discourse. In order to become meaningful, however, these latent principles must refer to shared ideologies. On the other hand, many of these latent issues become manifest in the discourse through the use of metaphors.
Santa Ana seems to place so much power in the media that he reminded me of propaganda theory and the bullet theory of media effects. I agree that if we are going to conduct a textual or content analysis of media representations we have to be convinced (or, at least, convince others) that the media are powerful so as to justify the importance of research and our findings. But if we focus on media messages only and not on audience responses, don’t we risk overstating the potential power of messages? Isn’t this too much of a media-centric approach? If so, what are the risks of becoming media-centric?
We learn that in semiotic analysis oppositional relationships between concepts is crucial. Concepts don’t have a meaning per se but in relation to other terms, and this relation is always on some topic that connects them. However, I can see that there are several dimensions on which apparently oppositional concepts can be related. Taking the example of rich versus poor, the topic may be wealth, but also a number of other things: information, education, leisure time, health, and –dare I say it?— happiness. How does one make the case for a topic as the connecting theme between concepts, when it may be that several of them apply? Does this matter at all?
I have some questions for semioticians: From a communication perspective, which types of research questions are better addressed through semiotics? If everything is a sign, does that mean that semiotics is a method to study the whole human experience? If the appropriation of signs is what drives advertising, how does this idea apply to news consumption, that is, what does news consumption signify?
On a minor note: I was particularly attracted by Berger admitting the resistance of U.S. scholars to deal with “foreign” ideas, such as semiotics and Marxism. I wonder the role that American exceptionalism plays in explaining this resistance. Perhaps there is a Marxist explanation: the U.S. is the dominant class, hence foreign ideas are seen as, literary, second-class.
Santa Ana seems to place so much power in the media that he reminded me of propaganda theory and the bullet theory of media effects. I agree that if we are going to conduct a textual or content analysis of media representations we have to be convinced (or, at least, convince others) that the media are powerful so as to justify the importance of research and our findings. But if we focus on media messages only and not on audience responses, don’t we risk overstating the potential power of messages? Isn’t this too much of a media-centric approach? If so, what are the risks of becoming media-centric?
We learn that in semiotic analysis oppositional relationships between concepts is crucial. Concepts don’t have a meaning per se but in relation to other terms, and this relation is always on some topic that connects them. However, I can see that there are several dimensions on which apparently oppositional concepts can be related. Taking the example of rich versus poor, the topic may be wealth, but also a number of other things: information, education, leisure time, health, and –dare I say it?— happiness. How does one make the case for a topic as the connecting theme between concepts, when it may be that several of them apply? Does this matter at all?
I have some questions for semioticians: From a communication perspective, which types of research questions are better addressed through semiotics? If everything is a sign, does that mean that semiotics is a method to study the whole human experience? If the appropriation of signs is what drives advertising, how does this idea apply to news consumption, that is, what does news consumption signify?
On a minor note: I was particularly attracted by Berger admitting the resistance of U.S. scholars to deal with “foreign” ideas, such as semiotics and Marxism. I wonder the role that American exceptionalism plays in explaining this resistance. Perhaps there is a Marxist explanation: the U.S. is the dominant class, hence foreign ideas are seen as, literary, second-class.
Sun Ho's Quesetions - 10/26
Week 9: October 26 – Semiotic, Marxist & Metaphorical Analysis
1. In chapter 1, Berger (2005) wrote about semiotic analysis of television. Although my group's assignment wasn't grounded on semiotic analysis, there was one thing I kept thinking about while writing up my analysis and Berger also mentions about it in the chapter:
"...in its [semiotic analysis'] concern for the relationship of elements and production of meaning in a text, it ignores the quality of the work itself" (p. 34).
He says it may be like "judging a meal by the quality of the ingredients, without any concern for how the food was cooked or how it tasted like." For example, see how the signifier and signified are defined when camera work and editing techniques are examined: e.g. pan down (signifier) - power, authority (signified); cut (signifier) - simultaneity, excitement (signified). It indeed is exciting to look at the "ingredients" but after a while you think, okay what was the meal again? How was it cooked? Does it taste good? I completely agree and would like to think about some of the solutions to it.
2. Berger concludes chapter 2 by saying, "ultimately, each of us has to decide whether Marxism still makes sense...if not, he or she should approach media analysis from another viewpoint" (p. 70). Interesting to see this part where he recognizes the primacy of individual subjectivity when talking about Marxist analysis..!
3. Berger starts chapter 5 by explaining the process of code-breaking in these analyses using Agatha Christie's work, Murder on the Orient Express: "All kinds of signs and significations are observable, but the connections among them are not obvious. Once we see how they are related and 'break the code' the mystery is solved" (p. 143). As an example, the author examines the story in multiple dimensions including oppositions, social and political dimensions of class vs communality of interest. I guess my thoughts are going back to our conversation last week about interpreting one's grandmother's activities as feminist or not. In journalism and mass communication research, I think we need to be more careful in assembling the codes and making sense of the meanings - but what makes our analyses more powerful when we deal with news programs?
4. Ana (2002) provides a great framework on topics of metaphor and public opinion. Methods and examples included in section 7 was particularly interesting. However, the author once compares journalistic writing with fiction writing about similar political topics and concludes that "the metaphors in newstexts are relatively underdeveloped stylistic devices." Now can journalistic writing be compared to fiction writing in these analyses?
5. Faux & Kim (2006) suggest a multileveled dialectical analysis for examination of photographic images. I really enjoyed reading the first two sections, layering of the image and dialectical perspectives. However, after reading the methods section, I had to read again the above two parts to find out how their method matches the concept of multileveled dialectical analysis. Is it only me who wanted to hear more about their method?!
1. In chapter 1, Berger (2005) wrote about semiotic analysis of television. Although my group's assignment wasn't grounded on semiotic analysis, there was one thing I kept thinking about while writing up my analysis and Berger also mentions about it in the chapter:
"...in its [semiotic analysis'] concern for the relationship of elements and production of meaning in a text, it ignores the quality of the work itself" (p. 34).
He says it may be like "judging a meal by the quality of the ingredients, without any concern for how the food was cooked or how it tasted like." For example, see how the signifier and signified are defined when camera work and editing techniques are examined: e.g. pan down (signifier) - power, authority (signified); cut (signifier) - simultaneity, excitement (signified). It indeed is exciting to look at the "ingredients" but after a while you think, okay what was the meal again? How was it cooked? Does it taste good? I completely agree and would like to think about some of the solutions to it.
2. Berger concludes chapter 2 by saying, "ultimately, each of us has to decide whether Marxism still makes sense...if not, he or she should approach media analysis from another viewpoint" (p. 70). Interesting to see this part where he recognizes the primacy of individual subjectivity when talking about Marxist analysis..!
3. Berger starts chapter 5 by explaining the process of code-breaking in these analyses using Agatha Christie's work, Murder on the Orient Express: "All kinds of signs and significations are observable, but the connections among them are not obvious. Once we see how they are related and 'break the code' the mystery is solved" (p. 143). As an example, the author examines the story in multiple dimensions including oppositions, social and political dimensions of class vs communality of interest. I guess my thoughts are going back to our conversation last week about interpreting one's grandmother's activities as feminist or not. In journalism and mass communication research, I think we need to be more careful in assembling the codes and making sense of the meanings - but what makes our analyses more powerful when we deal with news programs?
4. Ana (2002) provides a great framework on topics of metaphor and public opinion. Methods and examples included in section 7 was particularly interesting. However, the author once compares journalistic writing with fiction writing about similar political topics and concludes that "the metaphors in newstexts are relatively underdeveloped stylistic devices." Now can journalistic writing be compared to fiction writing in these analyses?
5. Faux & Kim (2006) suggest a multileveled dialectical analysis for examination of photographic images. I really enjoyed reading the first two sections, layering of the image and dialectical perspectives. However, after reading the methods section, I had to read again the above two parts to find out how their method matches the concept of multileveled dialectical analysis. Is it only me who wanted to hear more about their method?!
Friday, October 23, 2009
Paul's Questions for 10/26
Paul’s Questions for 10/26
If signs, according to Saussure, “have meaning because of relations, and the basic relationship is oppositional,” aren’t there exceptions to this? For example, if an airplane is the “topic,” then one set of oppositional “concepts,” I suppose, is fly and crash. But couldn’t you associate an airplane with travel and a hobby, for instance? This may be a stretch, but does the topic always have to have opposing concepts to be semiotic in nature? Another example: a Volvo represents wealth, but also reliability. Or is it simply a matter of looking for oppositional concepts to really make semiotics insightful, as far as Saussure is concerned?
The Berger chapter on semiotics states that associations change, and we have to be on our toes to catch those changes. For instance, I look at how air travel has changed. Early on it was associated with glamour, and today it is more of a chore that’s potentially dangerous in the wake of 9-11. But I’m curious to know if these associations changed based on not only time, but also age, or a generational gap. My Palm Pre means a “great calendar” to me, but to my 8-year-old son Josh, it represents more games to play.
When it comes to the idea of material culture and semiotics (Berger, pg. 11), it seems to me that the researcher must be a historian of sorts when it comes to considering body ornaments and meaning. A tattoo, for instance, seems to have been something the fringe of society would get, but today has become more commonplace. And this is from my perspective as a middle-aged white male who is an American. But a young person doing the same research may look at a tattoo the way I look at wearing a wristwatch – something everyone may do if they choose. Another tattoo example involves a female co-worker of mine in her 30s who has lots of tattoos. She got them when she was a Marine, which seems to be part of their culture. Yet those who did not know that she used to be a Marine may mistake her for, perhaps, a biker. Don’t you have to be very careful using material culture in this type of research?
The area of music and sound effects in semiotic analysis hit close to home as a television journalist. It seems that all of my past news directors, and my present one, all discourage the use of music and sound effects, and this area of our reading provides a tangible area of research to, I think, back up their reasoning. Well-written news stories should convey the true meaning of a story, without these artificial aids. Let the facts speak for themselves, right? However, my former news directors, and current one, also allowed for exceptions in long-form stories such as documentaries and series – but only when used sparingly and appropriately. For example, providing historical background, one might use music from that era. However, I’m also very much aware that using inappropriate sound bites, or poor writing, can also mislead much like the use of music and sound effects. They all can be used to communicate lies, as Eco points out.
If, as Levi-Strauss describes, syntagmatic analysis reveals manifest meaning and paradigmatic analysis reveals latent meaning, isn’t this an ideal way to examine a television news story? If, in this type of analysis, the researcher is more concerned about what a character “means” rather than what he “does,” it seems to me that it’s worth exploring. Often times, an individual viewer might find latent meaning from a story that was not intended by the reporter. For instance, doing a feature story on one school’s mascot is intended as a cute profile of a hard-working teenager, but may be misinterpreted as endorsing that school over its rival, because the rival’s mascot was not also featured. This is a simplistic example, but to me points out the usefulness of such research to prepare working journalists for this possibility. A harder news example is when the photograph of Barack Obama wearing Middle Eastern clothing was spread during the campaign. Conceivably a reporter could have used this image to show his diversity, but a viewer took it to mean he was a Muslim, and therefore a terrorist. This is an unfair connection (Muslim-terrorist), but one that was made by many Americans. Of course, in this example, the photograph was actually spread by political enemies and used in this light by news reporters.
If signs, according to Saussure, “have meaning because of relations, and the basic relationship is oppositional,” aren’t there exceptions to this? For example, if an airplane is the “topic,” then one set of oppositional “concepts,” I suppose, is fly and crash. But couldn’t you associate an airplane with travel and a hobby, for instance? This may be a stretch, but does the topic always have to have opposing concepts to be semiotic in nature? Another example: a Volvo represents wealth, but also reliability. Or is it simply a matter of looking for oppositional concepts to really make semiotics insightful, as far as Saussure is concerned?
The Berger chapter on semiotics states that associations change, and we have to be on our toes to catch those changes. For instance, I look at how air travel has changed. Early on it was associated with glamour, and today it is more of a chore that’s potentially dangerous in the wake of 9-11. But I’m curious to know if these associations changed based on not only time, but also age, or a generational gap. My Palm Pre means a “great calendar” to me, but to my 8-year-old son Josh, it represents more games to play.
When it comes to the idea of material culture and semiotics (Berger, pg. 11), it seems to me that the researcher must be a historian of sorts when it comes to considering body ornaments and meaning. A tattoo, for instance, seems to have been something the fringe of society would get, but today has become more commonplace. And this is from my perspective as a middle-aged white male who is an American. But a young person doing the same research may look at a tattoo the way I look at wearing a wristwatch – something everyone may do if they choose. Another tattoo example involves a female co-worker of mine in her 30s who has lots of tattoos. She got them when she was a Marine, which seems to be part of their culture. Yet those who did not know that she used to be a Marine may mistake her for, perhaps, a biker. Don’t you have to be very careful using material culture in this type of research?
The area of music and sound effects in semiotic analysis hit close to home as a television journalist. It seems that all of my past news directors, and my present one, all discourage the use of music and sound effects, and this area of our reading provides a tangible area of research to, I think, back up their reasoning. Well-written news stories should convey the true meaning of a story, without these artificial aids. Let the facts speak for themselves, right? However, my former news directors, and current one, also allowed for exceptions in long-form stories such as documentaries and series – but only when used sparingly and appropriately. For example, providing historical background, one might use music from that era. However, I’m also very much aware that using inappropriate sound bites, or poor writing, can also mislead much like the use of music and sound effects. They all can be used to communicate lies, as Eco points out.
If, as Levi-Strauss describes, syntagmatic analysis reveals manifest meaning and paradigmatic analysis reveals latent meaning, isn’t this an ideal way to examine a television news story? If, in this type of analysis, the researcher is more concerned about what a character “means” rather than what he “does,” it seems to me that it’s worth exploring. Often times, an individual viewer might find latent meaning from a story that was not intended by the reporter. For instance, doing a feature story on one school’s mascot is intended as a cute profile of a hard-working teenager, but may be misinterpreted as endorsing that school over its rival, because the rival’s mascot was not also featured. This is a simplistic example, but to me points out the usefulness of such research to prepare working journalists for this possibility. A harder news example is when the photograph of Barack Obama wearing Middle Eastern clothing was spread during the campaign. Conceivably a reporter could have used this image to show his diversity, but a viewer took it to mean he was a Muslim, and therefore a terrorist. This is an unfair connection (Muslim-terrorist), but one that was made by many Americans. Of course, in this example, the photograph was actually spread by political enemies and used in this light by news reporters.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Yonghwan's Questions
Week 8: October 19 – Qualitative Content Analysis – Discourse & Ideological
1. It has been stated that analyzing media content was no longer understood as objectively examining or collecting data but as a “reading”; and this term highlighted the interpretive position of the researchers. Then what seems to be the interpretive position of the researchers? Quantitative research position vs. qualitative position? Can researchers’ demographic factors also be the case?
2. Continued to the previous question, it seems that even critical researchers whose research perspectives are generally similar may show different results of textual analysis with a same content due to the interpretive position of the researchers. For example, researchers with feminist theory and researchers with Marxist’s theory may have different focus on the content and show different results of the analysis because of different theoretical frameworks. It seems to me that this is one of the advantages of qualitative research, which is flexibility or openness. However, it seems very important to have valid and appropriate theoretical frameworks to “read” text. Then what seems to be theoretical frameworks or tool for textual analysis? What kinds of theoretical frameworks or tools have been used for this? For example, when conducting ideological analysis, what can be possible ideologies applying to analyzing text (other than elite vs. mass; racism; imperialism etc, which have been traditional ideologies)?
3. It has been stated that cultural studies or textural analysis “acknowledged the autonomy of cultural practices or objects as signifiers in their own right, independent of the intentions of the authors and producers or reception of the audience.” (Fursich, 2008, p. 240). I am little confused with this statement. What’s meant by this statement and what seem to be advantages of noticing this argument in terms of doing textual analysis?
4. It seems to me that textual analysis and framing perspectives may have similarity in a sense that textual analysis allows the researcher to discern latent meaning, but also implicit patterns, assumptions and omissions of a text; and framing also touches on how realities and news frames are constructed. Other than numbers, what seems to be differences of textual analysis and framing perspectives in terms of reading text?
5. What are the differences of thematic analysis, critical discourse analysis, ideological analysis, genre analysis, and cultural analysis in terms of interpretative strategies? More practically when it comes to doing research, which research question or topics are most appropriate for each analysis?
Week 7: October 12 – Design, Process, Evidence & Analysis
1. When I conducted a focus group interview, I was wondering what is the best way of moderating the interview. I sometimes felt myself talking too much about the topic and interrupted participants; and I was worried about how my behaviors affect what participants want to talk and behave during the interview, which may affect the results of the study. What’s appropriate role of the researchers in terms of their moderating role?
2. I’m not familiar with retrospective studies and (from my understanding,) I haven’t seen that kind of studies. What seems to be examples of retrospective studies and what could be appropriate topics for retrospective studies?
3. What are the differences between qualitative research and quantitative research in conducting longitudinal studies? In quantitative research, longitudinal studies are conducted mainly to demonstrate causality between variables. What seems to be the cases for longitudinal studies in qualitative research and what is that for?
4. Regarding generalization, it has been stated that “whether generalization should be permissible or not within the qualitative approach is a debate that will not likely be resolved given the strongly held beliefs of the scholars on each side. So it is best to accept the range of beliefs. However, once a scholar establishes his or her position, we as readers can check to make sure that their beliefs as reflected in their design support the level of generalization in their research” (Potter, p. 133), which seems interesting to me. A major issue concerning generalization is sampling. Different from quantitative research, qualitative research’s sampling is rather purposive or convenient as for access issue, instead of random sampling or national sample. Then what seems to be ways of generalization in qualitative research other than representative sampling?
5. What are the differences of semiotics/semiology and discourse analysis? It seems to me that they are closely related each other in that the social and ideological dimensions of language can be the concept of connotation, which is a second-order signifying system, uses the denoted sign and attaches another meaning to it. What seems to be each case’s research topics/questions in communication research respectively? How they differently applied to communication research?
1. It has been stated that analyzing media content was no longer understood as objectively examining or collecting data but as a “reading”; and this term highlighted the interpretive position of the researchers. Then what seems to be the interpretive position of the researchers? Quantitative research position vs. qualitative position? Can researchers’ demographic factors also be the case?
2. Continued to the previous question, it seems that even critical researchers whose research perspectives are generally similar may show different results of textual analysis with a same content due to the interpretive position of the researchers. For example, researchers with feminist theory and researchers with Marxist’s theory may have different focus on the content and show different results of the analysis because of different theoretical frameworks. It seems to me that this is one of the advantages of qualitative research, which is flexibility or openness. However, it seems very important to have valid and appropriate theoretical frameworks to “read” text. Then what seems to be theoretical frameworks or tool for textual analysis? What kinds of theoretical frameworks or tools have been used for this? For example, when conducting ideological analysis, what can be possible ideologies applying to analyzing text (other than elite vs. mass; racism; imperialism etc, which have been traditional ideologies)?
3. It has been stated that cultural studies or textural analysis “acknowledged the autonomy of cultural practices or objects as signifiers in their own right, independent of the intentions of the authors and producers or reception of the audience.” (Fursich, 2008, p. 240). I am little confused with this statement. What’s meant by this statement and what seem to be advantages of noticing this argument in terms of doing textual analysis?
4. It seems to me that textual analysis and framing perspectives may have similarity in a sense that textual analysis allows the researcher to discern latent meaning, but also implicit patterns, assumptions and omissions of a text; and framing also touches on how realities and news frames are constructed. Other than numbers, what seems to be differences of textual analysis and framing perspectives in terms of reading text?
5. What are the differences of thematic analysis, critical discourse analysis, ideological analysis, genre analysis, and cultural analysis in terms of interpretative strategies? More practically when it comes to doing research, which research question or topics are most appropriate for each analysis?
Week 7: October 12 – Design, Process, Evidence & Analysis
1. When I conducted a focus group interview, I was wondering what is the best way of moderating the interview. I sometimes felt myself talking too much about the topic and interrupted participants; and I was worried about how my behaviors affect what participants want to talk and behave during the interview, which may affect the results of the study. What’s appropriate role of the researchers in terms of their moderating role?
2. I’m not familiar with retrospective studies and (from my understanding,) I haven’t seen that kind of studies. What seems to be examples of retrospective studies and what could be appropriate topics for retrospective studies?
3. What are the differences between qualitative research and quantitative research in conducting longitudinal studies? In quantitative research, longitudinal studies are conducted mainly to demonstrate causality between variables. What seems to be the cases for longitudinal studies in qualitative research and what is that for?
4. Regarding generalization, it has been stated that “whether generalization should be permissible or not within the qualitative approach is a debate that will not likely be resolved given the strongly held beliefs of the scholars on each side. So it is best to accept the range of beliefs. However, once a scholar establishes his or her position, we as readers can check to make sure that their beliefs as reflected in their design support the level of generalization in their research” (Potter, p. 133), which seems interesting to me. A major issue concerning generalization is sampling. Different from quantitative research, qualitative research’s sampling is rather purposive or convenient as for access issue, instead of random sampling or national sample. Then what seems to be ways of generalization in qualitative research other than representative sampling?
5. What are the differences of semiotics/semiology and discourse analysis? It seems to me that they are closely related each other in that the social and ideological dimensions of language can be the concept of connotation, which is a second-order signifying system, uses the denoted sign and attaches another meaning to it. What seems to be each case’s research topics/questions in communication research respectively? How they differently applied to communication research?
Sungsoo's Questions
Questions (10/18)
Q1. As Stuart Hall says in Grossberg interview, modernism and post-modernism are essentially and wholly based on western constructs. How can the people who do not have experience of modernity or Society that have not reached to the modernity be analyzed by the perspective of postmodernism?
Q2. In these context postmodernists are based on the perspective of linear and developmental historical assumptions: modernism and postmodernism in time series. This character seems to let modernist to have a kind of historical goal: criticize and overcome the capitalistic oppression.
Q3. As Marcus notes (p509), the “hackers’ may have produced some of meanings such “nobleness,” “creativity,”, or their anti-institutional logic overwhelms the possibility of this objection being given legitimate voice in the early 1990s, is it still in effective today?
Q4. Fursich’s suggestion on text-only analysis that we need more flexible research method seems to me very interesting articles. I agree on his notion that textual analysis has to evaluate media content in its own right as a creative (and often collaboratively-produced) moment in the circuit of culture often beyond the intentions of the actual producers. Accordingly, media content is not just raw material that can only be authenticated in specific audience readings (p 246). I think that traditional cultural studies can be fall into the fallacy that the media running by capitalist have absolute power over the audience: Owell’s Big Brother or Hobbs’ modern version of Leviathan.
Q5. As van Dijk notes, most of our knowledge and beliefs about the world derives from news reports. However not all information that enables us to deal with the reality comes from media: we are living in reality, that is, we interact with the nature and society, not just reading or viewing or surfing. Many deviants come from the information-controlled country such as Soviet in the past or North Korea today say that people do not believe government-running media, maybe only media they can read or view, it show the limit of the media: media is not all-mighty.
Questions (10/11)
Q1. Potter points out that it is important for researchers to maintain marginality- a distance between themselves and that what is being studied. However he notes that it cannot be answered in general manner that which way is better than others. He just shows three available options: passive observer, active participant, and active observer (p 102~103). In my opinion, the stance which the researchers choose affects the conclusion. So we need established standard for choosing adequate research activity to obtain validity of qualitative research.
Q2. Potter notes that qualitative approach essentially relies on three types of evidence-gathering methods: document examination, interview, and observation (p 95). Some qualitative works which based on document examination argue that their researches are analyzing macro level. How can these kinds of research be justified?
Q3. Regarding to researcher identification (p 100~101), can deception be justified in term of academic ethic?
Q4. Potter notes that good conceptual leverage lies in the correspondence between evidence and conclusions (p 129). How about the researches of the critical scholars who usually use a high level of inference, such as Schiller who argues broad changes in culture as a result of corporate control of media or Meehan who argues that the industries are only providing “artifacts” that are designed to assemble the consumerist cast for measurement and sale? Do they use adequate conceptual leverage?
Q5. In chapter 9, Potter introduces the 20 possible methods analysis in qualitative approach. His conclusion is that method is tool so they acquire their value according to how useful they are in helping the researcher move from evidence to conclusions. In my opinion, the methods tend to decide conclusion, so Potter should have been more critical to deal with each methods: what is strong and what is weak point of each methods.
Q1. As Stuart Hall says in Grossberg interview, modernism and post-modernism are essentially and wholly based on western constructs. How can the people who do not have experience of modernity or Society that have not reached to the modernity be analyzed by the perspective of postmodernism?
Q2. In these context postmodernists are based on the perspective of linear and developmental historical assumptions: modernism and postmodernism in time series. This character seems to let modernist to have a kind of historical goal: criticize and overcome the capitalistic oppression.
Q3. As Marcus notes (p509), the “hackers’ may have produced some of meanings such “nobleness,” “creativity,”, or their anti-institutional logic overwhelms the possibility of this objection being given legitimate voice in the early 1990s, is it still in effective today?
Q4. Fursich’s suggestion on text-only analysis that we need more flexible research method seems to me very interesting articles. I agree on his notion that textual analysis has to evaluate media content in its own right as a creative (and often collaboratively-produced) moment in the circuit of culture often beyond the intentions of the actual producers. Accordingly, media content is not just raw material that can only be authenticated in specific audience readings (p 246). I think that traditional cultural studies can be fall into the fallacy that the media running by capitalist have absolute power over the audience: Owell’s Big Brother or Hobbs’ modern version of Leviathan.
Q5. As van Dijk notes, most of our knowledge and beliefs about the world derives from news reports. However not all information that enables us to deal with the reality comes from media: we are living in reality, that is, we interact with the nature and society, not just reading or viewing or surfing. Many deviants come from the information-controlled country such as Soviet in the past or North Korea today say that people do not believe government-running media, maybe only media they can read or view, it show the limit of the media: media is not all-mighty.
Questions (10/11)
Q1. Potter points out that it is important for researchers to maintain marginality- a distance between themselves and that what is being studied. However he notes that it cannot be answered in general manner that which way is better than others. He just shows three available options: passive observer, active participant, and active observer (p 102~103). In my opinion, the stance which the researchers choose affects the conclusion. So we need established standard for choosing adequate research activity to obtain validity of qualitative research.
Q2. Potter notes that qualitative approach essentially relies on three types of evidence-gathering methods: document examination, interview, and observation (p 95). Some qualitative works which based on document examination argue that their researches are analyzing macro level. How can these kinds of research be justified?
Q3. Regarding to researcher identification (p 100~101), can deception be justified in term of academic ethic?
Q4. Potter notes that good conceptual leverage lies in the correspondence between evidence and conclusions (p 129). How about the researches of the critical scholars who usually use a high level of inference, such as Schiller who argues broad changes in culture as a result of corporate control of media or Meehan who argues that the industries are only providing “artifacts” that are designed to assemble the consumerist cast for measurement and sale? Do they use adequate conceptual leverage?
Q5. In chapter 9, Potter introduces the 20 possible methods analysis in qualitative approach. His conclusion is that method is tool so they acquire their value according to how useful they are in helping the researcher move from evidence to conclusions. In my opinion, the methods tend to decide conclusion, so Potter should have been more critical to deal with each methods: what is strong and what is weak point of each methods.
Teresa's qs
Last week
In the chapter on data gathering, Potter includes in the classification of researcher identification the possibility of being identified as member of the group but not as a researcher. Also in the classification on sampling, Potter also includes as a category no information on evidence selection. By providing categories for the first and for the second the author legitimizes what for me is unethical (in the first case) and poor work (in the second).
Semiotic analysis is going beyond the study of textual signs. For example, there are studies that focus on the signifying behavior of “outsiders” (e.g., drug users and criminals). Can behaviors and people’s characteristics also be considered signs? I would like to know more about this semiotic analysis and where it is going.
I was pleased to read Flick's observations that requiring theory development to
qualitative research is sometimes an excessive burden. When I read most journal
submission guidelines in communication, theory construction is always regarded as
paramount. Yet, there are other, equally important goals for research, such as
application or replication. Of course, for the theory-oriented researchers, it is
sometimes a burden to think about the practical or policy implications of their theories. But if we are to become a field of relevance in the social sciences (esp. if we want to receive more funding and grants!) then we should spend as much effort on theory development as in application of our research.
Flick discusses different research designs, among them case studies. As any other aspect of a research project, the choice of what case to study should follow a consideration of the research question. But I still wonder if the choice of case studies should focus on "exceptional" or "unexceptional" cases. On the one hand, "unexceptional" cases seem to me a good choice if one is trying to analyze in depth a unit that is representative of a larger population or trend. For instance, studying how a local community newspaper is tackling the challenges posed by the new media environment. On the other hand,"exceptional" cases could be a good choice if one is trying to study the effects of a particular characteristic and draw conclusions about this aspect. I?m thinking on Everbach's study of the all-female led Sarasota newspaper. My question, then, is what criteria should researchers follow when identifying a case that would be significant for the research design?
From the readings, I concluded that discourse analysis is the same as framing. The only thing is that while framing is considered as theoretical approach, discourse analysis is considered a method. What do you think about this?
This week
Van Dijk’s article asserts that news is perhaps the most frequently engaged discourse practice by the people. Would this be outdated with the advent of the blogosphere and social media. Because the discourses in, for example, SNS are socially and collecticely constructed, it is harder to link them to the producer and its cultural, economic, and political context. How ca we do a discourse analysis in these new spheres?
van Dijk notes that most discourse analysis in media research has been conducted in the UK and Australia (and I'd add Latin America), not in the US. Why? What are the historical causes that explain this phenomenon? Is it because the political culture in the US is less inclined to admit ideological cleavages, as opposed to Europe and Latin America where left and right have always been part of the mainstream?
van Dijk defines the news schema as the classic inverted pyramid, AP style. But this way of narrating news events has changed considerably with the online format. Hyperlinks, for example, now allow users to construct their own story when reading an article online. What is the news schema in online journalism?
van Dijk discusses the ideological nature of the Mail by describing its coverage of the deportation of an immigrant. I was wondering if this implies that texts can be
ideologically "neutral." Is there such a thing? If everything is ideological, then what is the utility of using ideology as a characteristic of a text?
In the conclusion of her essay, Fursich states that we shouldn?t let methodological
concerns overshadow original research questions. But I was wondering if meaning analysis is possible without considering methodology simultaneously. We say that research questions go first and methods second, but it?s a fact that good research questions are those that are doable (given time and resource constraints). So, perhaps, a more realistic approach is to think about research questions and ways of answering these questions at the same time, not one after the other.
In the chapter on data gathering, Potter includes in the classification of researcher identification the possibility of being identified as member of the group but not as a researcher. Also in the classification on sampling, Potter also includes as a category no information on evidence selection. By providing categories for the first and for the second the author legitimizes what for me is unethical (in the first case) and poor work (in the second).
Semiotic analysis is going beyond the study of textual signs. For example, there are studies that focus on the signifying behavior of “outsiders” (e.g., drug users and criminals). Can behaviors and people’s characteristics also be considered signs? I would like to know more about this semiotic analysis and where it is going.
I was pleased to read Flick's observations that requiring theory development to
qualitative research is sometimes an excessive burden. When I read most journal
submission guidelines in communication, theory construction is always regarded as
paramount. Yet, there are other, equally important goals for research, such as
application or replication. Of course, for the theory-oriented researchers, it is
sometimes a burden to think about the practical or policy implications of their theories. But if we are to become a field of relevance in the social sciences (esp. if we want to receive more funding and grants!) then we should spend as much effort on theory development as in application of our research.
Flick discusses different research designs, among them case studies. As any other aspect of a research project, the choice of what case to study should follow a consideration of the research question. But I still wonder if the choice of case studies should focus on "exceptional" or "unexceptional" cases. On the one hand, "unexceptional" cases seem to me a good choice if one is trying to analyze in depth a unit that is representative of a larger population or trend. For instance, studying how a local community newspaper is tackling the challenges posed by the new media environment. On the other hand,"exceptional" cases could be a good choice if one is trying to study the effects of a particular characteristic and draw conclusions about this aspect. I?m thinking on Everbach's study of the all-female led Sarasota newspaper. My question, then, is what criteria should researchers follow when identifying a case that would be significant for the research design?
From the readings, I concluded that discourse analysis is the same as framing. The only thing is that while framing is considered as theoretical approach, discourse analysis is considered a method. What do you think about this?
This week
Van Dijk’s article asserts that news is perhaps the most frequently engaged discourse practice by the people. Would this be outdated with the advent of the blogosphere and social media. Because the discourses in, for example, SNS are socially and collecticely constructed, it is harder to link them to the producer and its cultural, economic, and political context. How ca we do a discourse analysis in these new spheres?
van Dijk notes that most discourse analysis in media research has been conducted in the UK and Australia (and I'd add Latin America), not in the US. Why? What are the historical causes that explain this phenomenon? Is it because the political culture in the US is less inclined to admit ideological cleavages, as opposed to Europe and Latin America where left and right have always been part of the mainstream?
van Dijk defines the news schema as the classic inverted pyramid, AP style. But this way of narrating news events has changed considerably with the online format. Hyperlinks, for example, now allow users to construct their own story when reading an article online. What is the news schema in online journalism?
van Dijk discusses the ideological nature of the Mail by describing its coverage of the deportation of an immigrant. I was wondering if this implies that texts can be
ideologically "neutral." Is there such a thing? If everything is ideological, then what is the utility of using ideology as a characteristic of a text?
In the conclusion of her essay, Fursich states that we shouldn?t let methodological
concerns overshadow original research questions. But I was wondering if meaning analysis is possible without considering methodology simultaneously. We say that research questions go first and methods second, but it?s a fact that good research questions are those that are doable (given time and resource constraints). So, perhaps, a more realistic approach is to think about research questions and ways of answering these questions at the same time, not one after the other.
Sebastian's questions (both weeks)
POTTER 1: When using numerical evidence, qualitative researchers often use numerical properties. For example, they cite Gallup surveys or Nielsen ratings as secondary sources to make a point. If we follow the argument that translating concepts or attitudes into numbers decontextualizes meaning, using numerical properties is paradoxical. Why do purely qualitative researchers would trust using Gallup, Census or NES data more than their own data collection? Also, some researchers avoid using numbers completely. For example, some say that using test scores to evaluate complex cognitive tasks is useless. I understand the point, but then how can we evaluate large policies? What do they suggest?
POTTER 2: Potter describes unknown collaboration as when authors share credit but they do not specify who did what (the division of labor). Should we state who did what in our collaborative research? What’s the proper way to do it?
POTTER 3: In inductive research, Anderson (cited in Potter) asserts that qualitative researchers do not begin with a theory or hypotheses; instead they begin with a natural curiosity to learn more about who, what, and when of something. Is there such a novel, naïve curiosity? Something must have led the researcher to explore certain phenomenon. He or she probably has some expectations. Feminist studies, for example, always begin with the expectation of unequal and gendered relations of power.
FLICK 1: Flick discusses comparative studies, but I think that the author missed an important tenet of comparative research designs: the difference between most similar and most different systems designs. Most similar systems design refers to the choice of cases that are more or less the same in every other aspect except the one of interest for the researcher. For example, studying the influence of East Coast and West Coast mentality on news coverage of women by comparing the New York Times vs. the Los Angeles Times (both are newspapers of record, influential, operate in big cities, and so forth, but are located in different geographical regions) Most different systems designs, in contrast, refer to the study of cases that differ in most aspects but have one or two commonalities that explain a similar outcome process. For instance, studying how pervasive is racial stereotyping in the coverage of crime stories by analyzing a big national newspaper, a local TV station and a citizen journalism outlet (all three reach different markets, have different formats, resources, and so on, but share similar news values and, thus, cover crime in a racialized way).
FLICK 2: Fick explains biographical research as a retrospective research design in which past events are analyzed in respect to their meaning for individuals. But how do we apply this design in a communication environment? I’m particularly curious because people’s memory is so fickle in regard to media experience and communication patterns (perhaps because we are constantly communicating and media are so pervasive that remembering a particular episode is hard). In other words, what is it about biographical research that could help us learn something unique in communication research?
FLICK 3: In the section of generalization goals and representational goals of qualitative research, Flick mentions that presentation goals should be considered when conducting qualitative research (e.g., will you write an essay based in your results? Or will you write a narrative account of your findings?). But I was wondering how the consideration of the final product affects the data collection stage. Because I’d suppose that if I’m planning to write a book or conduct a dissertation I’m going to collect data differently that if I’m just planning to write an article for a conference and/or journal. At least, the breadth of the data collection is going to be different. Or not?
MANNING & CULLUM SWAN 1: Manning and Cullum-Swan’s (p. 252) definition of sign as “something that represents or stands for something else in the mind of someone” reminded of the concept of schema and network models of memory activation (one idea connected to another through networks of related concepts). It always surprises me when I find that different literatures refer to the same phenomena, define it in similar terms, and yet neglect to acknowledge each other or see the connection between them. It’s the same with discourse analysis: I couldn’t help but think all the time about framing analysis. Yet, only once or twice this connection was explicitly made.
VAN DIJK 1: van Dijk argues that the discourse approach in media research pays special attention to ideological and political dimensions of media messages. Why is this? Is it because it has been related to these approaches in the past? Because it should adopt a critical or political-economical stance? What about using discourse analysis for other purposes not related to ideology or politics?
VAN DIJK 2: van Dijk says that most of our social and political knowledge and beliefs about the world derives from news reports. What about other sources, particularly other people? Why not adopt discourse analysis to study people’s communicatory behaviors? Ever since the 1950s we know that interpersonal communication is more influential and persuasive than media messages. Why is it that discourse analysis has not been employed as frequently to study people’s everyday talk? To what degree this is due to the ease of access to transcribed news reports (e.g., Lexis Nexis)?
VAN DIJK 3: “The analysis of the ‘unsaid’ is sometimes more revealing than the study of what is actually expressed in the text” (van Dijk, p. 11). True, and that’s the main shortcoming of quantitative content analyses. But how can two researchers agree on what is unsaid? The world of the unsaid is vast and open, as opposed to the world of the said. The said is verifiable. The unsaid is not. Is more an act of faith to state what is the unsaid part of the text? Try this simple exercise of reading the following sentence: “Obama is the _____ president said Bill O’Reilly”. How many of you think that the missing word is negative (e.g., “worst”)? And what if the missing word was just “United States”? In any case, I’m not saying that manifest content is or should be the only aspect of a text worth analyzing. But I’d be very careful when defining discourse analysis as a research tool for the analysis of the unsaid content.
GROSSBERG 1: In the interview of Stuart Hall, he mentions that there is a difference between asserting that with postmodernism meaning does not exist and agreeing that postmodernism brings multiple meanings, or an “endlessly sliding chain of significance.” What are the implications of this controversy on the way we approach the study of meaning? Do we accept that ours is one way of “reading” a text, one of many others, or should we strive for a “consensus,” that is, meaning is whatever a sizeable group of researchers or accumulated evidence yield?
POTTER 2: Potter describes unknown collaboration as when authors share credit but they do not specify who did what (the division of labor). Should we state who did what in our collaborative research? What’s the proper way to do it?
POTTER 3: In inductive research, Anderson (cited in Potter) asserts that qualitative researchers do not begin with a theory or hypotheses; instead they begin with a natural curiosity to learn more about who, what, and when of something. Is there such a novel, naïve curiosity? Something must have led the researcher to explore certain phenomenon. He or she probably has some expectations. Feminist studies, for example, always begin with the expectation of unequal and gendered relations of power.
FLICK 1: Flick discusses comparative studies, but I think that the author missed an important tenet of comparative research designs: the difference between most similar and most different systems designs. Most similar systems design refers to the choice of cases that are more or less the same in every other aspect except the one of interest for the researcher. For example, studying the influence of East Coast and West Coast mentality on news coverage of women by comparing the New York Times vs. the Los Angeles Times (both are newspapers of record, influential, operate in big cities, and so forth, but are located in different geographical regions) Most different systems designs, in contrast, refer to the study of cases that differ in most aspects but have one or two commonalities that explain a similar outcome process. For instance, studying how pervasive is racial stereotyping in the coverage of crime stories by analyzing a big national newspaper, a local TV station and a citizen journalism outlet (all three reach different markets, have different formats, resources, and so on, but share similar news values and, thus, cover crime in a racialized way).
FLICK 2: Fick explains biographical research as a retrospective research design in which past events are analyzed in respect to their meaning for individuals. But how do we apply this design in a communication environment? I’m particularly curious because people’s memory is so fickle in regard to media experience and communication patterns (perhaps because we are constantly communicating and media are so pervasive that remembering a particular episode is hard). In other words, what is it about biographical research that could help us learn something unique in communication research?
FLICK 3: In the section of generalization goals and representational goals of qualitative research, Flick mentions that presentation goals should be considered when conducting qualitative research (e.g., will you write an essay based in your results? Or will you write a narrative account of your findings?). But I was wondering how the consideration of the final product affects the data collection stage. Because I’d suppose that if I’m planning to write a book or conduct a dissertation I’m going to collect data differently that if I’m just planning to write an article for a conference and/or journal. At least, the breadth of the data collection is going to be different. Or not?
MANNING & CULLUM SWAN 1: Manning and Cullum-Swan’s (p. 252) definition of sign as “something that represents or stands for something else in the mind of someone” reminded of the concept of schema and network models of memory activation (one idea connected to another through networks of related concepts). It always surprises me when I find that different literatures refer to the same phenomena, define it in similar terms, and yet neglect to acknowledge each other or see the connection between them. It’s the same with discourse analysis: I couldn’t help but think all the time about framing analysis. Yet, only once or twice this connection was explicitly made.
VAN DIJK 1: van Dijk argues that the discourse approach in media research pays special attention to ideological and political dimensions of media messages. Why is this? Is it because it has been related to these approaches in the past? Because it should adopt a critical or political-economical stance? What about using discourse analysis for other purposes not related to ideology or politics?
VAN DIJK 2: van Dijk says that most of our social and political knowledge and beliefs about the world derives from news reports. What about other sources, particularly other people? Why not adopt discourse analysis to study people’s communicatory behaviors? Ever since the 1950s we know that interpersonal communication is more influential and persuasive than media messages. Why is it that discourse analysis has not been employed as frequently to study people’s everyday talk? To what degree this is due to the ease of access to transcribed news reports (e.g., Lexis Nexis)?
VAN DIJK 3: “The analysis of the ‘unsaid’ is sometimes more revealing than the study of what is actually expressed in the text” (van Dijk, p. 11). True, and that’s the main shortcoming of quantitative content analyses. But how can two researchers agree on what is unsaid? The world of the unsaid is vast and open, as opposed to the world of the said. The said is verifiable. The unsaid is not. Is more an act of faith to state what is the unsaid part of the text? Try this simple exercise of reading the following sentence: “Obama is the _____ president said Bill O’Reilly”. How many of you think that the missing word is negative (e.g., “worst”)? And what if the missing word was just “United States”? In any case, I’m not saying that manifest content is or should be the only aspect of a text worth analyzing. But I’d be very careful when defining discourse analysis as a research tool for the analysis of the unsaid content.
GROSSBERG 1: In the interview of Stuart Hall, he mentions that there is a difference between asserting that with postmodernism meaning does not exist and agreeing that postmodernism brings multiple meanings, or an “endlessly sliding chain of significance.” What are the implications of this controversy on the way we approach the study of meaning? Do we accept that ours is one way of “reading” a text, one of many others, or should we strive for a “consensus,” that is, meaning is whatever a sizeable group of researchers or accumulated evidence yield?
Marcus' Questions
Week 7:
Q1) I think Potter’s discussion of “translating” data really speaks to the heart of the quantitative-qualitative debate. His argument is that translating numbers to present meaning, in effect, adds needless circuitry; but I would argue that he’s missing the point of quantitative research. Qualitative methods are all about meaning, certainly, and it’s difficult to construct “meaning” with a multiple-choice question. Meaning is a subjective concept, and it’s hard to objectively establish subjective concepts. But I don’t think the goal of numerical research is “meaning” – I think it’s context, and there’s a huge difference. We can talk all day about the meaning of teenage pregnancy, or the meanings behind new media usage in isolated schools, or the feelings associated with neo-conservative or neo-liberal ideologies – but without statistics on the number of teenage pregnancies every year, or the total usage of new media tools in classrooms, or the voting trends associated with neo-con or neo-lib politicians, then “meaning” becomes intangible.
Yes, you have to translate numbers – “Variable 12” is completely unhelpful in and of itself, you have to break it down. But that numerical research provides benchmarks and context for cultural study that otherwise would have no frame of reference – no agreement on what is, or what isn’t, to even begin establishing “meaning.” I’m not saying that “meaning” is unimportant, I’m just saying that it needs context. And I don’t think Potter gets that.
Q2) I’m inclined to agree, though, that the goal of the traditional interview is to get a verbal response. I think that’s because, in traditional print media especially, it’s generally frowned upon to discuss non-verbal communication – either the mayor commented or she didn’t, but debated whether she frowned or not opens up a whole new can of worms. Even in television, where the image is right there, I can see scenarios where debates pop up about what is or is not a frown. That being said, that rule doesn’t necessarily need to be standard fare for academic research, since the rules are different; I think it adds some flexibility that would’ve been useful back in my small newspaper days.
Q3) I like that Flick establishes criteria for long-term qualitative study, since I think trend research is traditionally reserved for quantitative research. What I think he could have explained a bit more, though, is how controls are established for the passing of time. Do you almost have to pick as tame a time frame as possible, just to reduce the likelihood of outside variables from influencing your interviews? Or did I misunderstand his argument?
Q4) I think the discussion of convenience vs. relevance when selecting focus groups is a pertinent one, and it reminded me of a conversation I had with my adviser back at Trinity last week. We were talking about the tendency of conservative ideologues to type cast academics and university research as liberal and out-of-touch ( there was a catalyst involving a hyper-conservative newspaper ad that I won’t get into, we ran it at the Trinitonian a few years ago but a school in Wisconsin just made headlines for rejecting it, so that’s how it came up). But the connection here is that if focus groups are allowed to use university students too much, doesn’t that reinforce the cultural gap between the academics and the public – or, put more crudely, the well educated and the less educated? It bugs the hell out of me when anti-educational initiatives, like the tirades my old adviser was discussing, get so much traction because the debate spirals very much into a “leave them kids alone” direction, which doesn’t work as well on the college level as Pink Floyd would have us believe – especially if they just stay home from college, which happens a lot. But I do wonder if there’s been any study on the cultural effects of research like this – do university lifestyles tend to really be that insular, and is ol’ Rushbo right about a self-perpetuating liberal ideology? Or has it been established that it’s just a matter of convenience?
Q5) And actually, along the same lines, although I know it’s a bit of a tangent – we’ve discussed that quantitative research in journalism study tends to be the norm, but it just occurred to me that the bulk of the conversation, and many of the authors, are from well-established and often large universities. That makes sense, since they’d likely have the most to offer; that’s why those authors are employed there in the first place. But as far as research norms go, do the same routines apply in some of the smaller satellite schools out there? Do research practices at UT-Tyler, for example, tend to follow the same patterns as UT-Austin?
Week 8:
Q1) I liked Manning and Cullum-Swan’s description of semiotics in these readings. Much easier to follow than some of the other explanations I’ve seen in the past. It was actually something that kept popping into my mind yesterday – I was watching college football, and it occurred to me that the “Hook ‘Em” is a perfect example. To anyone tied to the Horns or college football, that’s a symbol for UT, but there’s nothing about the pointer and pinky fingers that is fundamentally tied to any one university. Then a commercial for one of those rock band video games came on, and there was an animated musician throwing the same symbol to a crowd; to them, it meant something completely different.
Q2) Which, now that I think about it more, really speaks to the idea of a “mass audience.” It’s hard to get more massive than 100,000 + fans watching the same 22 men on a field. But I’m not sure that’s a “dehumanizing” practice; it’s about conformity, sure, but you can be part of a group without turning life into one of Erich Fromm’s nightmares. And I don’t think it negates evolution at all, since over time – going back to the hook ‘em example – UT’s identity has changed, from an out-of-the-way Texas school to an urban, liberal institution with a very different cultural identity than A&M or Tech. You could make similar arguments about OU and OSU, and certainly about Ole Miss and Mississippi State, although I’m not sure how many of them have established hand gestures. So as long as those symbols are semiotically tied to ideas, and those ideas aren’t completely stagnant, then how can it be dehumanizing or negate evolution?
Q3) This may be a no-brainer, but how can you code for implications that are not present? I understand that what’s not said can be just as important as what is said, that makes perfect sense. I’m just not sure how you would justify a study of what’s not said, for our uses, since potentially any number of things could be left unsaid? Does that make sense?
Q4) I think Makus has a point about dominant societies stigmatizing those outside its own cultural identity. But I think recessive societies do it just as much – there can’t be a gothic sub-culture in a high school, for example, without the cheerleaders and the football team establishing their norms. But I think it’s more than that – I think many sub-groups wouldn’t be around without their opposition to the dominant culture, so in those cases, I think it’s hard to argue that the dominant groups are “stigmatizing” outside sub- and counter-cultures; it’s a symbiotic relationship at that point, not a power struggle. Certainly that’s not always the case, particularly when violence is concerned, but am I the only one thinking that the power structure model doesn’t always apply?
Q5) Makus’ discussion of dominant societies actually made me think about my own education. I graduated from middle school in a western compound in the Middle East – oil brat – and in the middle of nowhere, there’s no football. No sports of any kind, really, since we were the only school for miles and there was no real competition. So the traditional jock/cheerleader society that tends to dominate in the States didn’t apply out there; that left the skater-punks, who here would be considered a stigmatized counter-culture, feeling like they were at the top of the social order. On the one hand, it’s an interesting vindication of Makus’ commentary, since a traditionally recessive society behaved just as the dominant ones do when given the opportunity; but, it’s also a rebuke of that model, since outside groups gladly defined themselves in opposition to those skater punks. The local Boy Scout troop was huge – again, middle of nowhere, plenty of desert to wander off into, at least back in the 90’s before it got too dangerous – and we were enthusiastic about not being the skater punks and, you know, not wearing our pants around our knees. So it wasn’t really a power structure at all, it was a symbiotic relationship that developed in about as close to a vacuum as you can find when discussing American kids. So why the insistence on power structures, then?
Q1) I think Potter’s discussion of “translating” data really speaks to the heart of the quantitative-qualitative debate. His argument is that translating numbers to present meaning, in effect, adds needless circuitry; but I would argue that he’s missing the point of quantitative research. Qualitative methods are all about meaning, certainly, and it’s difficult to construct “meaning” with a multiple-choice question. Meaning is a subjective concept, and it’s hard to objectively establish subjective concepts. But I don’t think the goal of numerical research is “meaning” – I think it’s context, and there’s a huge difference. We can talk all day about the meaning of teenage pregnancy, or the meanings behind new media usage in isolated schools, or the feelings associated with neo-conservative or neo-liberal ideologies – but without statistics on the number of teenage pregnancies every year, or the total usage of new media tools in classrooms, or the voting trends associated with neo-con or neo-lib politicians, then “meaning” becomes intangible.
Yes, you have to translate numbers – “Variable 12” is completely unhelpful in and of itself, you have to break it down. But that numerical research provides benchmarks and context for cultural study that otherwise would have no frame of reference – no agreement on what is, or what isn’t, to even begin establishing “meaning.” I’m not saying that “meaning” is unimportant, I’m just saying that it needs context. And I don’t think Potter gets that.
Q2) I’m inclined to agree, though, that the goal of the traditional interview is to get a verbal response. I think that’s because, in traditional print media especially, it’s generally frowned upon to discuss non-verbal communication – either the mayor commented or she didn’t, but debated whether she frowned or not opens up a whole new can of worms. Even in television, where the image is right there, I can see scenarios where debates pop up about what is or is not a frown. That being said, that rule doesn’t necessarily need to be standard fare for academic research, since the rules are different; I think it adds some flexibility that would’ve been useful back in my small newspaper days.
Q3) I like that Flick establishes criteria for long-term qualitative study, since I think trend research is traditionally reserved for quantitative research. What I think he could have explained a bit more, though, is how controls are established for the passing of time. Do you almost have to pick as tame a time frame as possible, just to reduce the likelihood of outside variables from influencing your interviews? Or did I misunderstand his argument?
Q4) I think the discussion of convenience vs. relevance when selecting focus groups is a pertinent one, and it reminded me of a conversation I had with my adviser back at Trinity last week. We were talking about the tendency of conservative ideologues to type cast academics and university research as liberal and out-of-touch ( there was a catalyst involving a hyper-conservative newspaper ad that I won’t get into, we ran it at the Trinitonian a few years ago but a school in Wisconsin just made headlines for rejecting it, so that’s how it came up). But the connection here is that if focus groups are allowed to use university students too much, doesn’t that reinforce the cultural gap between the academics and the public – or, put more crudely, the well educated and the less educated? It bugs the hell out of me when anti-educational initiatives, like the tirades my old adviser was discussing, get so much traction because the debate spirals very much into a “leave them kids alone” direction, which doesn’t work as well on the college level as Pink Floyd would have us believe – especially if they just stay home from college, which happens a lot. But I do wonder if there’s been any study on the cultural effects of research like this – do university lifestyles tend to really be that insular, and is ol’ Rushbo right about a self-perpetuating liberal ideology? Or has it been established that it’s just a matter of convenience?
Q5) And actually, along the same lines, although I know it’s a bit of a tangent – we’ve discussed that quantitative research in journalism study tends to be the norm, but it just occurred to me that the bulk of the conversation, and many of the authors, are from well-established and often large universities. That makes sense, since they’d likely have the most to offer; that’s why those authors are employed there in the first place. But as far as research norms go, do the same routines apply in some of the smaller satellite schools out there? Do research practices at UT-Tyler, for example, tend to follow the same patterns as UT-Austin?
Week 8:
Q1) I liked Manning and Cullum-Swan’s description of semiotics in these readings. Much easier to follow than some of the other explanations I’ve seen in the past. It was actually something that kept popping into my mind yesterday – I was watching college football, and it occurred to me that the “Hook ‘Em” is a perfect example. To anyone tied to the Horns or college football, that’s a symbol for UT, but there’s nothing about the pointer and pinky fingers that is fundamentally tied to any one university. Then a commercial for one of those rock band video games came on, and there was an animated musician throwing the same symbol to a crowd; to them, it meant something completely different.
Q2) Which, now that I think about it more, really speaks to the idea of a “mass audience.” It’s hard to get more massive than 100,000 + fans watching the same 22 men on a field. But I’m not sure that’s a “dehumanizing” practice; it’s about conformity, sure, but you can be part of a group without turning life into one of Erich Fromm’s nightmares. And I don’t think it negates evolution at all, since over time – going back to the hook ‘em example – UT’s identity has changed, from an out-of-the-way Texas school to an urban, liberal institution with a very different cultural identity than A&M or Tech. You could make similar arguments about OU and OSU, and certainly about Ole Miss and Mississippi State, although I’m not sure how many of them have established hand gestures. So as long as those symbols are semiotically tied to ideas, and those ideas aren’t completely stagnant, then how can it be dehumanizing or negate evolution?
Q3) This may be a no-brainer, but how can you code for implications that are not present? I understand that what’s not said can be just as important as what is said, that makes perfect sense. I’m just not sure how you would justify a study of what’s not said, for our uses, since potentially any number of things could be left unsaid? Does that make sense?
Q4) I think Makus has a point about dominant societies stigmatizing those outside its own cultural identity. But I think recessive societies do it just as much – there can’t be a gothic sub-culture in a high school, for example, without the cheerleaders and the football team establishing their norms. But I think it’s more than that – I think many sub-groups wouldn’t be around without their opposition to the dominant culture, so in those cases, I think it’s hard to argue that the dominant groups are “stigmatizing” outside sub- and counter-cultures; it’s a symbiotic relationship at that point, not a power struggle. Certainly that’s not always the case, particularly when violence is concerned, but am I the only one thinking that the power structure model doesn’t always apply?
Q5) Makus’ discussion of dominant societies actually made me think about my own education. I graduated from middle school in a western compound in the Middle East – oil brat – and in the middle of nowhere, there’s no football. No sports of any kind, really, since we were the only school for miles and there was no real competition. So the traditional jock/cheerleader society that tends to dominate in the States didn’t apply out there; that left the skater-punks, who here would be considered a stigmatized counter-culture, feeling like they were at the top of the social order. On the one hand, it’s an interesting vindication of Makus’ commentary, since a traditionally recessive society behaved just as the dominant ones do when given the opportunity; but, it’s also a rebuke of that model, since outside groups gladly defined themselves in opposition to those skater punks. The local Boy Scout troop was huge – again, middle of nowhere, plenty of desert to wander off into, at least back in the 90’s before it got too dangerous – and we were enthusiastic about not being the skater punks and, you know, not wearing our pants around our knees. So it wasn’t really a power structure at all, it was a symbiotic relationship that developed in about as close to a vacuum as you can find when discussing American kids. So why the insistence on power structures, then?
Alex Question
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OCT. 19
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Manning & Cullum-Swam write in their section on content and narrative analysis that the “microinteractional aspect of content analysis has never been fully solved (p. 248)” and that this remains an “open or moot” point. But if I understand correctly what they mean, they are discussing what and how people believe things, or more basically how they apply meaning to words, texts and symbols. Is this what they are talking about? And if so, doesn’t that go to the heart of communications and semiotics? (Why would it be so easily dismissed?)
Doesn’t the McDonald’s example in Manning & Cullum-Swam actually provide evidence in favor of semiotics? I remember traveling with my wife once and she wanted to go to a McDonald’s that was nearby our hotel. I complained that I don’t like McDonald’s at home, why would I like it here? She explained that she was hungry and was not familiar with the town, the local food, and was filled with uncertainty. McDonald’s, for her, represented assurance. Sure, I did not like the food at McDonald’s. But at least she knew what she was getting and her uncertainty was diminished as a result. (So we ate there.) The meaning that is given seems to cross many cultural and regional barriers.
I agree with Stuart Hall (Grossberg interview) that modernism and post-modernism are essentially western constructs. I have always had problems with those definitions. I guess in my mind, post-modernism has always been associated with media being aware of itself – like when a TV character suddenly breaks the rules and addresses the camera directly, in effect addressing the audience directly. But the emergence of schools of thought such as post-post modernism, I believe, exemplifies the unsustainability of the notions of modernism and post-modernism. At the heart, I think, is the notion of abstraction. But you can’t blame me for confusion on these concepts. I understand that Hall was coming from a 1980s perspective when this interview took place. But where is the academic world today on the whole modernism, postmodernism, post-postmodernism question?
Makus describes Hall’s theoretically framework in terms of pluralism and conformity v. disenfranchisement and stigmatism, and how these are social constructs. But it seems that while elements of that seem true today, there is a general tolerance for deviants in society, particularly online. In fact, as Makus tries to prove with her look at hackers, a deviant can even have positive societal impact. Not that I’m especially familiar with Stuart Hall’s theory of ideology, but doesn’t Makus’ premise – “Hall's theory of ideology problematizes democratic pluralism (p. 497)” – seem even more true today, 19 years after her article was published?
I think the entire Makus article smacks of the entire “Big Brother” cold war thought and this dichotomy between democracy and Marxism. With the decline of worldwide Marxism, the growth of what Habermas would call the sub-altern has greatly emerged as a result of the digital age. So imperialist type of thinking, creation of meaning, centrist thought, etc, from an ideological or cultural elite seems to reek of pre-21st century thought. So, are we in a post-post-postmodern age?
---------------
OCT. 12
---------------
I am not at all familiar with “retrospective studies” as a research design and Flick only devotes a paragraph to its description. Is this particular to “biographical research” or are past studies actually re-examined in this approach using more modern or updated tools, information or points of view? I think the latter would be an interesting exercise as particular “truths” or points of view change over time, which could lead to different conclusions of historical studies if they were re-examined in this way.
Some academics simply love to use models as a quick and easy way to describe processes or give big picture summaries. But I have found that the depiction of models almost always requires an accompanying explanation of how the model is supposed to work. I say this because after describing several basic research designs, Flick offers a nice looking model diagram (fig. 4.1.1 page 149). It looks great. But can you explain the relationships that the model is supposed to be making for us?
I understand Potter’s declaration that there are no absolute truths, only interpretations of the truth, and how the debate surrounding those interpretations can change. But the truth is (ha, ha) some people’s versions of truth take on wider acceptance. A good example is the recent Columbus Day holiday. It used to be that Columbus was hailed as a great explorer who discovered a new world and aided in bringing Christianity to millions of people and opening up new trade routes. Modern interpretations now paint the man as a tainted character who stumbled onto a land already populated by millions and he brought slavery, disease and death to native populations. Now, neither of those versions are the “truth” per se, although some elements of truth can be found in both. So, hundreds of years after his so-called “discovery” of millions of people unknown to the European and Asian worlds, we are still debating the truth about Columbus. In this example, the truth debate is in flux depending on point of view. Can we see other examples of truth “imposed” on people, like the long-held belief prior to Columbus that the world was flat?
I was very pleased to read the section in Potter on expectations and to see a debate on this issue in writing. To me it seems that the entire expectations issue is similar to that of objectivity. Just as you can’t really be totally objective because of the baggage of a personal history and a point of view, you can’t NOT have some expectations as you begin your research. I seriously doubt that researchers begin some kind of fishing expeditions out of the blue just to see if they might find something. Even fishermen try to focus where to fish based on knowledge of waters, time of day, weather conditions, feeding habits, etc. Then they pick where to fish in the expectation that their strategies have put them in a place where they will actually find something. We all know that quantitative researchers work from either research questions or seek to test hypotheses. So how do most qualitative researchers handle the expectations issue?
Honestly, I found the whole etic-emic and subjective-objective discussion difficult to wrap my head around. And here’s why. As I read, I generally can follow the line of argument Potter outlines. And all that is fine. But if I put the book down for 30 minutes and then ask myself, “Okay, which one is ‘etic’ and which one is ‘emic’?” I can’t distinguish. “Well, one is more subjective, written from the ‘me’ point of view,” is my response. But which one? If I ever had such a question on an essay exam, I couldn’t really say with confidence. So, my question, really, is: What is the most important thing we need to remember from the whole etic-emic and subjective-objective discussion?
Alex Question
---------------
OCT. 19
---------------
Manning & Cullum-Swam write in their section on content and narrative analysis that the “microinteractional aspect of content analysis has never been fully solved (p. 248)” and that this remains an “open or moot” point. But if I understand correctly what they mean, they are discussing what and how people believe things, or more basically how they apply meaning to words, texts and symbols. Is this what they are talking about? And if so, doesn’t that go to the heart of communications and semiotics? (Why would it be so easily dismissed?)
Doesn’t the McDonald’s example in Manning & Cullum-Swam actually provide evidence in favor of semiotics? I remember traveling with my wife once and she wanted to go to a McDonald’s that was nearby our hotel. I complained that I don’t like McDonald’s at home, why would I like it here? She explained that she was hungry and was not familiar with the town, the local food, and was filled with uncertainty. McDonald’s, for her, represented assurance. Sure, I did not like the food at McDonald’s. But at least she knew what she was getting and her uncertainty was diminished as a result. (So we ate there.) The meaning that is given seems to cross many cultural and regional barriers.
I agree with Stuart Hall (Grossberg interview) that modernism and post-modernism are essentially western constructs. I have always had problems with those definitions. I guess in my mind, post-modernism has always been associated with media being aware of itself – like when a TV character suddenly breaks the rules and addresses the camera directly, in effect addressing the audience directly. But the emergence of schools of thought such as post-post modernism, I believe, exemplifies the unsustainability of the notions of modernism and post-modernism. At the heart, I think, is the notion of abstraction. But you can’t blame me for confusion on these concepts. I understand that Hall was coming from a 1980s perspective when this interview took place. But where is the academic world today on the whole modernism, postmodernism, post-postmodernism question?
Makus describes Hall’s theoretically framework in terms of pluralism and conformity v. disenfranchisement and stigmatism, and how these are social constructs. But it seems that while elements of that seem true today, there is a general tolerance for deviants in society, particularly online. In fact, as Makus tries to prove with her look at hackers, a deviant can even have positive societal impact. Not that I’m especially familiar with Stuart Hall’s theory of ideology, but doesn’t Makus’ premise – “Hall's theory of ideology problematizes democratic pluralism (p. 497)” – seem even more true today, 19 years after her article was published?
I think the entire Makus article smacks of the entire “Big Brother” cold war thought and this dichotomy between democracy and Marxism. With the decline of worldwide Marxism, the growth of what Habermas would call the sub-altern has greatly emerged as a result of the digital age. So imperialist type of thinking, creation of meaning, centrist thought, etc, from an ideological or cultural elite seems to reek of pre-21st century thought. So, are we in a post-post-postmodern age?
---------------
OCT. 12
---------------
I am not at all familiar with “retrospective studies” as a research design and Flick only devotes a paragraph to its description. Is this particular to “biographical research” or are past studies actually re-examined in this approach using more modern or updated tools, information or points of view? I think the latter would be an interesting exercise as particular “truths” or points of view change over time, which could lead to different conclusions of historical studies if they were re-examined in this way.
Some academics simply love to use models as a quick and easy way to describe processes or give big picture summaries. But I have found that the depiction of models almost always requires an accompanying explanation of how the model is supposed to work. I say this because after describing several basic research designs, Flick offers a nice looking model diagram (fig. 4.1.1 page 149). It looks great. But can you explain the relationships that the model is supposed to be making for us?
I understand Potter’s declaration that there are no absolute truths, only interpretations of the truth, and how the debate surrounding those interpretations can change. But the truth is (ha, ha) some people’s versions of truth take on wider acceptance. A good example is the recent Columbus Day holiday. It used to be that Columbus was hailed as a great explorer who discovered a new world and aided in bringing Christianity to millions of people and opening up new trade routes. Modern interpretations now paint the man as a tainted character who stumbled onto a land already populated by millions and he brought slavery, disease and death to native populations. Now, neither of those versions are the “truth” per se, although some elements of truth can be found in both. So, hundreds of years after his so-called “discovery” of millions of people unknown to the European and Asian worlds, we are still debating the truth about Columbus. In this example, the truth debate is in flux depending on point of view. Can we see other examples of truth “imposed” on people, like the long-held belief prior to Columbus that the world was flat?
I was very pleased to read the section in Potter on expectations and to see a debate on this issue in writing. To me it seems that the entire expectations issue is similar to that of objectivity. Just as you can’t really be totally objective because of the baggage of a personal history and a point of view, you can’t NOT have some expectations as you begin your research. I seriously doubt that researchers begin some kind of fishing expeditions out of the blue just to see if they might find something. Even fishermen try to focus where to fish based on knowledge of waters, time of day, weather conditions, feeding habits, etc. Then they pick where to fish in the expectation that their strategies have put them in a place where they will actually find something. We all know that quantitative researchers work from either research questions or seek to test hypotheses. So how do most qualitative researchers handle the expectations issue?
Honestly, I found the whole etic-emic and subjective-objective discussion difficult to wrap my head around. And here’s why. As I read, I generally can follow the line of argument Potter outlines. And all that is fine. But if I put the book down for 30 minutes and then ask myself, “Okay, which one is ‘etic’ and which one is ‘emic’?” I can’t distinguish. “Well, one is more subjective, written from the ‘me’ point of view,” is my response. But which one? If I ever had such a question on an essay exam, I couldn’t really say with confidence. So, my question, really, is: What is the most important thing we need to remember from the whole etic-emic and subjective-objective discussion?
Sun Ho's Questions - 10/12 and 10/19
Week 7: October 12 – Design, Process, Evidence & Analysis
1. Chapter 6. Nature of Qualitative Evidence: Before he gets into details in this chapter, Potters says that the use of their chosen techniques guides the nature of their evidence (p. 83). Then he adds that type of evidence, level of evidence, and the use of numerical evidence must be considered in qualitative research. I wonder how these two elements of a research, chosen methods and types of evidence, are generally used in our field. For example, if we were to do a textual analysis of newspaper articles, what types/levels/numerical evidences do we generally use? I understand that it all depends on the nature of the research, but I'd love to get a general idea about it just to gain some more understanding about the above statement!
2. Chapter 7. Issues of Evidence Gathering: It was interesting to see how this chapter goes back and describes different methods first and then expands the topic into researcher identification, researcher activity, and so on. I was particularly interested in the section where he explained about three different levels of researcher activities: passive observer, active observer, active participant. This was something I thought about during my first and second assignments. During my participant observation, I was able to add some "participant" aspects to the analysis but there were more "observation" due to the nature of the topic. But how free can a researcher be from including his/her own feelings if one has some experience about the research topic? For example, if I were to do another participant observation about how Asian female students consume online news, I would be much more knowledgeable about the topic. Other than trying to remain objective, what can be done during the process of designing the research in order to take advantage of that knowledge?
4. Chapter 8. Issues of Data Analysis: When Potter talks about generalization (pp. 130-133), he mentions about sampling issues/scientific perspective and how it needs to be seen differently in qualitative studies. Although he introduces specific examples of research with and without generalization in the text, I go back to this question: Is generalization that important when we talk about qualitative approach since the nature of the method is so different? Putting things into the context and looking at things with microscopes, rather than generalization, isn't that the beauty of qualitative research?
5. Chapter 9. Methods of Analysis: The author says that many of these methods of analysis are used in combinations so that the weaknesses of one can be balanced by the strengths of another. What are some of the examples of those combinations mostly used in our field?
Week 8: October 19 – Qualitative Content Analysis – Discourse & Ideological
1. Manning & Cullum-Swan (1998) article made me think about an article I read last semester. The article did a textual analysis of internal memos exchanged between the owner of a newspaper company and editors in the newsroom to study ownership control. I wonder what the results could have been like if one could draw indepth interviews just like authors did for the McDonald's experience. Just a thought...
2. Fursich (2008) concludes the article with something I always had in mind but couldn't really do: "It should not be a methodology de jour that drives research topics but original questions of the relationship between media and ideology in society in large." I agree. However, I find myself debating about his statements about repositioning textual analysis as text-only analysis. It's not that I am not strongly against it, but I don't find myself agreeing to his idea either. I am looking forward to hearing how others thought about this article.
3. van Dijk (1991) mentions that most of the integration of linguistic, semiotic, and discourse-analytical approaches has been taken in the UK but little in US. What could be the reason for that?
4. The example provided in the van Dijk article analyzed the textual structures. If the author wanted to add other elements mentioned in the article - i.e. relations between structures of text and talk, and of their cognitive social, cultural, or historical contexts - which one could have been most relevant for the analysis considering the news item?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
YUKUN's Questions
Question about objectives of qualitative studies and quantitative studies
In Flick’s “Design & Process in Qualitative Research,” p 149. There are three objectives for qualitative studies: description, testing of hypotheses, theory development. Could those objectives be quantitative studies? I believe testing of hypotheses and theory development could be quantitative studies’ objectives. But I don’t know if description could be quantitative studies’ objectives.
Question about revising research questions
In Flick’s article, from p 149 to 150, there are some discussions about the formation of research questions. I am wondering if we can revise our research questions in quantitative studies. Scholars in quantitative studies seem disagree with this notion. But, in my personal opinion, no matter in qualitative studies or quantitative studies, research questions all could be revised. I don’t know if it is corrective.
Question about levels of evidence
From page 88 to 90, Potter described three levels of evidence: Microlevel, Midlevel, Macrolevel. He listed many researches in each level. It seems that each level is distinctive. Is it possible to combine three different levels of evidence to answer a research question?
Question about active participant
In page 103, Potter discussed active participant. However, I think this activity is dangerous and hurt the objectivity. Though objectivity is not the most important feature of qualitative methods, I still believe researchers should keep a suitable distance from their research target. I believe that there is not problem for a experienced researcher, but a younger research may be misguided in this situation. Maybe we need some guidelines to conduct this activity.
Question about the combination of different methods
In Chapter 9, Potter listed various qualitative methods. At the end of this chapter, he wrote that “Typically the methods are used in combinations so that the weaknesses of one can be balanced by the strengths of other”. In my memory, I seldom found quantitative studies used different methods to answer research questions. Does it mean one qualitative method is not so inclusive that we need combine different ones? Or is there another answer?
Question about Manning & Cullum-Swan, “Narrative, Content, and Semiotic Analysis,”
Their discussions about American fast food===McDonald’s are very interested. It reminded me the Chick-fil-A. Because its owner is a Christian, its religious belief is reflected in this restaurant and company culture. At first, every restaurant of Chick-fil-A is closed on Sunday. Second, in order to stress family value, atmosphere in their restaurants is very friendly to children. Instead of giving children toys, their attachments of kid’s meals are books. In my opinion, this company represents one specific class or religious group.
Questions about Makus’ “Stuart Hall’s theory of Ideology…”
1 In page 497, “ By thus stigmatizing those outside its consensus, dominant society encourages conformity to its norms and produces and reproduces consciousness”. I think it is a one-way thinking. It stressed that the upper class force the lower class to obey the dominant rule, consensus or ideology. Maybe the conformation is a procedure of negotiation or interaction between upper and lower classes.
2 “ Political, economic, technological, social, and ideological factors are interrelated in a complex conjuncture of unity”. It reminded me the discussion about globalization. The dominate created a system such as international laws or regimes to ask other actors to obey, and the winner’s interests are protected by this system. Material powers create ideologies, and ideologies protect material interests.
Question about “In Defense of Textual Analysis”
Fursich criticized Philo’s argument in page 249 “ He seems to privilege journalists’ estimates or selective audience interpretations over the textual media content”. In my opinion, it is the shortcoming for very qualitative method. Even if researches focusing the text, there will be such a failure.
In Flick’s “Design & Process in Qualitative Research,” p 149. There are three objectives for qualitative studies: description, testing of hypotheses, theory development. Could those objectives be quantitative studies? I believe testing of hypotheses and theory development could be quantitative studies’ objectives. But I don’t know if description could be quantitative studies’ objectives.
Question about revising research questions
In Flick’s article, from p 149 to 150, there are some discussions about the formation of research questions. I am wondering if we can revise our research questions in quantitative studies. Scholars in quantitative studies seem disagree with this notion. But, in my personal opinion, no matter in qualitative studies or quantitative studies, research questions all could be revised. I don’t know if it is corrective.
Question about levels of evidence
From page 88 to 90, Potter described three levels of evidence: Microlevel, Midlevel, Macrolevel. He listed many researches in each level. It seems that each level is distinctive. Is it possible to combine three different levels of evidence to answer a research question?
Question about active participant
In page 103, Potter discussed active participant. However, I think this activity is dangerous and hurt the objectivity. Though objectivity is not the most important feature of qualitative methods, I still believe researchers should keep a suitable distance from their research target. I believe that there is not problem for a experienced researcher, but a younger research may be misguided in this situation. Maybe we need some guidelines to conduct this activity.
Question about the combination of different methods
In Chapter 9, Potter listed various qualitative methods. At the end of this chapter, he wrote that “Typically the methods are used in combinations so that the weaknesses of one can be balanced by the strengths of other”. In my memory, I seldom found quantitative studies used different methods to answer research questions. Does it mean one qualitative method is not so inclusive that we need combine different ones? Or is there another answer?
Question about Manning & Cullum-Swan, “Narrative, Content, and Semiotic Analysis,”
Their discussions about American fast food===McDonald’s are very interested. It reminded me the Chick-fil-A. Because its owner is a Christian, its religious belief is reflected in this restaurant and company culture. At first, every restaurant of Chick-fil-A is closed on Sunday. Second, in order to stress family value, atmosphere in their restaurants is very friendly to children. Instead of giving children toys, their attachments of kid’s meals are books. In my opinion, this company represents one specific class or religious group.
Questions about Makus’ “Stuart Hall’s theory of Ideology…”
1 In page 497, “ By thus stigmatizing those outside its consensus, dominant society encourages conformity to its norms and produces and reproduces consciousness”. I think it is a one-way thinking. It stressed that the upper class force the lower class to obey the dominant rule, consensus or ideology. Maybe the conformation is a procedure of negotiation or interaction between upper and lower classes.
2 “ Political, economic, technological, social, and ideological factors are interrelated in a complex conjuncture of unity”. It reminded me the discussion about globalization. The dominate created a system such as international laws or regimes to ask other actors to obey, and the winner’s interests are protected by this system. Material powers create ideologies, and ideologies protect material interests.
Question about “In Defense of Textual Analysis”
Fursich criticized Philo’s argument in page 249 “ He seems to privilege journalists’ estimates or selective audience interpretations over the textual media content”. In my opinion, it is the shortcoming for very qualitative method. Even if researches focusing the text, there will be such a failure.
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