1

Qualitative Content Analysis

Jenna Condie University of Salford

Flickr: Community Photography 'now & then'

#MediaPsych 2012/2013

2

Session Overview

• Myth bust the quant-qual divide• Understand importance of epistemology and

ontology• Move from dichotomies to continuums. • Explore the constructive nature of language• Find your interpretative, subjective lens• Interpret media content with two different

methodologies. • Expand notion of what can be data. • Examine evaluative criteria for qualitative research.

3

Commonly held assumption…

Quantitative and Qualitative methods are distinct from one another

Quantitative Qualitative

• the collection and analysis of data in numeric form

(Hughes, 2006)

• collecting and analysing information in as many forms, chiefly non-numeric, as possible

(Hughes, 2006)

4For more on the quantitative-qualitative debate see Hammersley (1992); Newman & Benz, (1998); Wood & Welch, (2010); Whaley & Krane, (2011)

• Both aim to understand the world• Both interpret data• Overlap

• “…two opposing camps of researchers” (Onwuegbuzie & Leech, 2005, p. 375)

• “real consequences” for those in the qualitative camp (Abell & Walton, 2010, p. 688)

An oversimplification

Unhelpful

Flickr: marcinlachowicz.com'

5

Method – a word with three meanings (Bernard, 2000)

How can we know

Strategic choices

Techniques

A.K.A Epistemology

A.K.A. Methodology

A.K.A. Method

The question guides the method

The epistemology guides the question

6

Epistemology: How can we know• “Epistemology is inescapable” (Carter & Little,

2007, p. 1319)• A branch of philosophy (Willig, 2001)• A theory of knowledge concerned with

knowing (Sullivan, 2012). • Epistemology guides the research question

(Whaley & Krane, 2011)• What counts as knowledge or ‘truth’?

Flickr: CarbonNYC

7

Ontology: what can we know• Concerned with what is there to know (Willig, 2001)• Concerned with existence, what it means “to be”

(Packer & Goicoechea, 2000)• At the core of this ‘debate’ is how researchers can

theorise about a world in a way which is independent of our representations (i.e. language, perceptions, values, beliefs) of it (Nightingale & Cromby, 2002).

• Realist (there is an external objective world that can be known through research)

• Relativist (an external objective world is inaccessible to us, we can only know the world through our representations of it)

Flickr: SebastianDooris

8

Epistemological continuum

Positivism Interpretivism/Constructionism

Today, very few researchers would align themselves at the extreme ends of the continuum

How far along the continuum are you prepared to travel?

9

Ontological continuum

Realism Relativism

Today, very few researchers would align themselves at the extreme ends of the continuum

How far along the continuum are you prepared to travel?

10

Review literature

Formulate Hypothesis and design study

Collect data

Carry out descriptive statistics

Carry out statistical (inferential) tests

Decide whether result is significant or not

Interpret and write up study

Positivism• Only phenomena that are observable and

agreeable to testing can claim a truth in the world (Ashworth, 2008).

• There is a unitary real world (aka realism).• Events of interest to psychologists (e.g.

memory, identity, cognition, emotion) take place in that ‘real’ world.

• A positivist epistemology pursues objective and unbiased knowledge through ‘reductionist and empirically based, rational enquiry’ (Jones, 2002, p. 247).

• Subsequently, quantitative methodology often most appropriate.

11

Post-positivism• The limitations of positivism in terms of

developing new theory and dealing with complex human issues led to postpositivism.

• In contemporary times, many scientists and social scientists take a postpostivist stance to knowledge and research.

• While positivism asserts that there is a reality out there to be studied and to be captured in research, postpositivists argue that reality can only be approximated (Guba, 1990).

Review literature

Formulate Hypothesis and design study

Collect data

Carry out descriptive statistics

Carry out statistical (inferential) tests

Decide whether result is significant or not

Interpret and write up study

12

SOCIETY

Social Constructionism

13

time

Flickr: lovelornpoets

and placeKnowledge is relative to

14

Social Constructionism• There is no one knowledge, there are knowledges (Burr, 2003)• No two people perceive, experience, and understand their

worlds in the same way. • What we experience or perceive is not a direct reflection of

objective environmental conditions (Willig, 2001). It is constructed in talk and interaction.

• Research carried out from a constructionist standpoint identifies the ways in which people construct their social realities by taking into account the specific linguistic, cultural and historical influences.

• ‘Critical’ approaches• Subsequently, qualitative methodology often most

appropriate.

Flickr: Leonard John Matthews

15

Research as continuum

Positivism Interpretivism/Constructionism

RealismOntology – what can we know?

Relativism

Epistemology – how can we know?

Methodology – how can we find out?Quantitative Qualitative

16

It is the researcher’s responsibility to make clear their epistemological and

ontological positions (Madill et al., 2000)

Ensuring ‘quality’ in qualitative research

This goes for (post)positivists too!

17

The Turn to LanguageLanguage does not simply

describe our world

From out of the heads of people into the dialogues between them

Language is action oriented, used to construct particular

versions of events

Language enables and constrains what can be said, by whom,

where and when (Willig, 2001)

Discursive/narrative

18

Discursive Psychology

• A theoretical approach from social psychology which emphasises how knowledge is created in interactions between people rather than through direct perception of a true reality (SC).

• Discourse analysis is the method most used by social constructionists.

• Preference for naturally occurring text/data. • Usually ontological relativism but also critical

realism.

19

Discursive Psychology: Two Strands or One?

Individual

Foucauldian Discourse Analysis

Structure

Discursive Psychology

Eclectic Discursive Approach (Wetherell, 1998)

20

Analysing Discourse (no rule book, too many varieties!)

Exploring language ‘in action’. Discursive Strategies – E.g. “I’m not racist, but”

Interpretative Repertoires: reoccurring patterns – E.g. “you just get used to it”

Lived Ideologies & Ideological Dilemmas – E.g. London as growing vs deprived

Subject Positions – E.g. “Your country needs you”

Flickr: drbexl

21

Discursive Psychology and Media Texts

What is all this media saying to us?

How do we

interpret it?

How are we being

constructed? How is the

world being constructed?

How does media impact upon our subjectivity/lived experience?

22

Subjectivity

• Problematic for discursive psychology• We are more than discourse (talk) • Ontological relativism = everything is socially

constructed in language, what about embodiment, materiality, power? (Cromby & Nightingale, 2002)

• What can we say about experience when we are reading for ‘suspicion’? (Ricoeur, 1981)

• Suspicion - what is the text/speaker aiming to achieve?

• Reading for ‘trust’…

Flickr: Leonard John Matthews

23

Interpretative PhenomenologicalAnalysis

• An approach which aims to understand how people make sense of their worlds as they are experienced by people.• Sometimes referred to as ‘lived experience’. • Research is dynamic – researcher has an active role.

• Often uses interviews & thematic analysis.• What people say is what they mean - ‘trust’.

Flickr: mohammadali

24

f

f

f d

f

f

How IPA works (for Smith & Osborn 2008)

• Identifying the experiential claims, concerns and understandings of speaker (participant)

• Look for themes in the first case (e.g. interview transcript), then across cases

• Dialogue between researcher and data – what does this mean?

• Connect the themes (clusters)• Organise – final structure of themes• Test for coherence through reflexivity (tbd), discussions

with others, supervision etc• Write up

25

Move from a position of knowing to a position of understanding (Condie & Brown, 2009)

What are the effects of listening to music?

How does music reflect

youth culture?

Why are particular

forms of music

popular?

When Qs are ‘how’ and ‘why’, qual has the advantage (Maginn et al., 2008)

Flickr: Mike White Photo!

26

Interpreting Content

We know the world through our

interpretations (representations).

Attending to our interpretations in a

rigorous way for media psychological

research…

27

Case Study: Plan B “Ill Manors”

• Analyse song lyrics• Read on Trust (IPA)• Read as Suspicion (DP)• Make Interpretations• Which approach seems more appropriate? • Research question?

Oi! I said oi!What you looking at, you little rich boy!We’re poor round here, run home and lock your doorDon’t come round here no more, you could get robbed forReal (yeah) because my manors illMy manors illFor realYeah you know my manors ill, my manors ill!

28

The sound: Another layer of meaning

What does it add beyond the written word?

How does listening impact on your interpretation?

29

The Visual: Another layer of meaning

Link: http://vimeo.com/38223344

What does it add beyond the spoken word?How does seeing impact on your interpretation?

30

The Narrative: Another layer of meaning

The flexibility of qualitative analysis enables us to broaden our notions of

what can be data in media psychological research

31

The relationship between media and the ‘real’ world

Flickr: Community Photography 'now & then '

32

Qualitative Analysis: Understanding the complexities of lived experience

Life is more complex with media

33

The pragmatic researcherDo whatever is best to answer the research question

Bricolage: concept adopted by qualitative researchers to define those who are increasingly using an eclectic range of methodological approaches together (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, McLeod, 2001, Kincheloe, 2001)

Researcher-as-bricoleur (from French word for craftsman)

Blurred boundaries: “We are no longer bound by the rigid scientific rigour and instead we seem to adopt a ‘pick n mix’ approach that is adaptable to the circumstance and needs of the research question” (Watt, 2010, p. 51).

Flickr: gregheo

34

Reflexivity – examining your role in research

“…how does who I am, who I have been, who I think I am, and how I feel affect data collection and analysis”

(Pillow, 2003, p. 176)

• A central methodological tool for qualitative researchers, contributes to ‘quality’

• Finlay (2002) argues reflexive analysis should ideally start from the beginning of the research process.

• Challenged the fundamental and “conventional ideas of science, which favour professional objectivity and distance over engagement and subjectivity” (Finlay & Gough, 2002, p. 1).

35

The trouble with reflexivity

Difficulties psychology students can face when asked to be reflexive:

“For psychology students, the expectation of writing reflexively about the qualitative studies that they have

conducted constitutes a transgression of the scientized code of detached, depersonalized, supposedly objective narrative

style that characterizes the pseudoscientific model of their training. In my experience such expectations usually

generate some incredulity, and occasionally resistance from too well absorbed disciplinary codes; however, they are

usually experienced as relief, and even as emancipatory.” (Burman, 1997, p. 796)

36

Can never fully know how you influence the research…

“Reflexive analysis can only ever be a partial, tentative, provisional account”

(Finlay, 2002, p. 542).

Flickr: astroshots42

But you shouldstill try!

37

‘Quality’ Criteria for Qualitative Research

• Make clear epist. & ontol. positions• Reflexivity – from personal to disciplinary• Transparency - processes• ‘Fruitfulness’ (Wetherell, 1998)• Systematic interpretation• ‘Good’ interpretation takes time and practice.• Qualitative research should not be evaluated by

positivist criteria i.e. reliability, validity, generalisation etc…doesn’t aim to be these things!

38

Next session

• How to be systematic in qualitative research

• Prepare and practice qualitative interviewing

• Further reading – Read Mauthner & Doucet (2003) Reflexive Accounts and

Accounts of Reflexivity in Qualitative Data (bb)– Read one other research paper that interests you.

Identify the epistemological, ontological and methodological positions of the research. Are they identified? Are they assumed?

39

Qualitative Content Analysis

Jenna Condie University of Salford

Flickr: Community Photography 'now & then'

#MediaPsych 2012/2013