Methodology– book summary
Chapter 1: Possibilities and Decisions
Basic assumptions in research
All researchers bring assumptions to their research:
1. What the researcher has chosen to look, tells something about an underlying reality we
cannot see but assume to exist
you don’t see power of an attitude: you see someone behave in a certain way
2. Theories about human behaviour can be generalized
researchers assume that the results of their research will apply to people who are
similar to the study participants.
3. The way the researcher engages with their research participants.
the more distance, the more neutral the researcher can be in reporting. Moving closer,
gives more insight
4. The purpose of the study.
Is it for own curiosity or for example because the researcher was funded by a
corporation?
5. Some aspects of a question are more important to look at. Looking at the following
components of the communication process: researchers will typically find one of them
more interesting than others and will give that one priority to their investigations.
Research possibilities: what can we do with an ad?
Public service Advertisements: targeted communications designed specifically to promote
positive attitudes and behaviours: health, education, safety, the environment and other
social topics.
Eg of a PSA: “Every 51 minutes, someone is killed in an alcohol related car accident”
The following sections introduce several approaches to researching advertising using those
PSA’s as examples:
1. Does the add work?
Focusses on receiver: did they do or feel anything after exposure to the message?
Scientific approach: either observation or rule out alternative explanations.
2. What can readers and viewers tell us?
Also focusses on the receivers of the message, but with a shift in emphasis toward
understanding the “whys” of human behaviour.
Why did the advertisement influence the behaviour?
Survey for quantitative results, focus groups for qualitative results.
3. What can the content tell us?
This question focusses on the message. There are a few angels:
Rhetoric Interested in appeals or persuasive tactics. Searching for appeals in
logic (logos), character (ethos) and emotion (pathos).
Content Analysis comparing the advertising’s world with what we know of the
real world: quantitative. Looking for what is explicit and observable.
Critical Analysis Assumption that communication maintains and promotes power
structure in society. Focus on more than one component of
communication. Implicit and unsaid
, 4. What can the creators of the ad tell us?
Focus on the source of the message: how and why were certain decisions made.
Interviewing all the people who were involved in making the ad
A series of unavoidable decisions:
1. The field of study: wide or narrow
Research the available and the achievable.
2. The researcher: passionate or involved
a. Scientific research: objectivity and dispassionate observation: remain detached
b. Action research: closely involved: making people’s lives better.
3. The approach: objective or subjective
a. Social scientists: There is one world that applies to everyone
b. Phenomenologists/ethnographers: Understand subjective world
4. Priority: your questions or their answers
If you just ask what you want to know, you might forget other people’s view on it.
5. The sample: large or small
In the USA: 1.200 randomly selected people (+/- 3% error). But this just gives you knowledge,
not understanding: therefor you might need to interview people.
6. The data: quantitative or qualitative
a. Triangulation: use multiple methods providing multiple perspectives.
b. Q-methodology is that the subjective view of a respondent should be combined with a
quantitative approach to assess these views.
7. The report: subjective or objective
a. Scientific (dispassionate) researchers use statistics to report and interpret collected data
b. Action (involved) researchers will most likely report what their informants told them in
them own words and would say ‘I lived with..’.
Problem posing, problem solving, peer persuasion
Problem posing
Defining the question can be the hardest part of the research process. Once you have clearly
defined the question, the rest of your research often seems to fall into place.
Problem solving
How to best answer a posed question. More than just selecting and using a research
method: amending your methods as they prove to be inappropriate, discovering other
questions that must be answered before your ‘real’ question, or changing your whole study
when a new published breakthrough study gives you new ideas.
Peer persuasion
Peer review: your work is assessed and given feedback on. Publication of your research is a
process of persuasion and argumentation.
,Chapter 2: First decisions
Starting with basic beliefs and perspectives
Worldviews
A major conceptual framework for understanding the world. People have different takes on
what the purpose of research should be, which shapes their approaches. Being aware of
your own worldview allows you to refine your research questions.
2 worldviews with different approaches:
1. Nomothetic
Emphasis on measurement with a view to making generalizations about human behaviour.
- Human behaviour is generalizable, predictable, and motivated by events, personality,
and other people
- Understanding behaviour is best done by isolating factors
- Privileges the researcher’s perspectives
- Most common in advertising and audience researchers
2. Idiographic
Emphasis on understanding the subjectivity and individuality of human communication,
rather than universal laws of human behaviour.
- Each person is unique, unpredictable, and self-motivated
- Understanding behaviour: best done from participant’s perspective and considering
the whole situation
- Privileges participants’ perspectives
- Goal: understanding rather than generalization or prediction.
How do consumers respond subjectively to media content (listen to individuals)?
What in between the worldviews?
More nuanced views of human communication and how to research it:
1. Postpositive: challenges the notion of absolute truth but emphasizes cause and effect
and the idea that world is governed by laws or theories that can be tested or verified.
2. Constructivist: individuals seek understanding of the world in which they live and
construct their own views of it.
3. Transformative: change oriented, argues for mixing research with politics to confront
social oppression and change lives for the better.
4. Pragmatism: focus on solutions to problems—what works—and using all possible
approaches to understand these problems.
Communication metatheory (Craig, 1999): a family of concepts embracing several different
traditions of communication research.
1. Rhetorical: Considers the practical art of discourse, debate, or discussion
It emphasizes the use and power of words.
2. Semiotic: focuses on the use and interpretations of signs and symbols
Emphasizes the study to how meanings are constructed and the relationships
between words and symbols—and thought.
3. Phenomenological: considers the experience of others
Emphasizes the study of objects and events as they are perceived
, 4. Cybernetic: focuses on the flow of information
Emphasizes communication as a system of information processing and feedback.
The source-message-channel-receiver model (ch. 1) is in this category
5. Sociopsychological: focuses on the interaction of individual
Emphasizes attitudes and predictions and individuals influencing each other or
working toward collective outcomes.
6. Sociocultural: Considers the production and reproduction of social order
Emphasizes the ways in which shared meanings and social structures are
produced and reproduced through communication
Craig: other perspectives might be considered, as communication from feminist, aesthetic,
economic, or spiritual perspectives.
As a follow up to this, the first question of research is not quantitative vs. qualitative, but:
“What are my basic assumptions about hum communication?”
Ontology: addresses the nature of what we study. Ontological questions deal with the
nature of existence and what language actually refers to it.
Also the questions “To what extent do we make real choices?”
Eg: Attitude is not something you can ‘see’. You only see behaviour in a particular way.
Smart starting points for research
- Look at real examples of the communicative setting / product etc. that you are
interested in
- Consider your own (personal) experiences with and assumptions and preconceptions
about the topic
- Map the different stakeholders and relevant factors that you can think of
- Read existing research literature
- Define your research purpose (exploration, description, prediction, control,
interpretation, criticism)
- Formulate your research question
Relationship theory and observations
3 processes that link observations with theory:
1. Induction
- Reasoning from observations to a theory that might explain your observations.
- Moves from specific to the general
- Induction requires the confident that you have enough observations to support your
conclusions and that you can rule out all the other conclusions that might also be derived
from your observations.
- You observe something (eg: gender clustering: males are more likely to sit with males).
- What theories might explain these observations? (students have a greater comfort
level with same-sex conversations)
- After this you could design a study that would help you decide which theory offers the
best explanation of the phenomenon.
