Qualitative Debate Argument and Notes

I.                 They must prove that qualitative work is both narcissistic and unprofitable fiction.

a.      In order to argue narcissism, they need to prove intentionality on a large scale, which is near impossible.

b.      In order to argue unprofitable fiction, they must prove that qualitative work is both composed on known falsities and is not useful.

c.      I argue that all research provides temporary truths which are useful as long as they can be sites for further inquiry.

II.               Calling qualitative work fiction assumes that research can create both true and untrue products.

a.      If there are wrong types of knowledge production (qualitative work), then there must be right modes of knowledge production which provide objective truths.

b.      We know that this is not the case. In Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn explains that all scientific truth is temporary; It is incremental. Therefore, all we cannot fully attribute objective truths to any research method.

III.              Modes of knowledge production (manufacturing of facts) are inherently tied to the culture in which they arise; what is and can be true is defined by those who devise the method of knowledge production.

a.      This is an idea that arises out of Shapin and Schaffer’s Leviathan and the Air-Pump which chronicles the social influences on science during the early days of the scientific method.

b.      Robert Boyle’s explanation of empirical research is that it relies on a coalescing of belief. Research that has emerged from empiricism, whether qualitative or otherwise, still relies on this dictum.

c.      Furthermore, the way that we go about doing research predetermines what we are able to see. Following the conventions of experimental work, if multiple people are able to see it, then it becomes fact.

IV.              Facts (and thus truth) are bound entirely to the society or culture in which they are produced. If there is a culture—qualitative studies—that sees its own work as truth, then it is just as valid for that population as experiment results are to scientific communities. Therefore, qualitative work cannot be fiction; if it is observed and felt as true within a community then it is just as true as any other methodology.

Qual needs quant observations to be useful; qual cannot get us to places, make discoveries; qual is better for social justice, shouldn’t be political;

How can conflict lead to good?; how is the work not narcissistic?; studies the plight of others;

We acknowledged narcissism; what truly is the rigor of qualitative work?

Just because we believe something to be true does not make it material; we can miss data and facts because of our own failures;

-      

  What is truly profitable?

-        Rigor exists in the social processes of peer review

-        What is true?

Final Statement on Qualitative Research

Final Statement on Qualitative Methods

               If I have figured anything out this semester, it is that qualitative methods are an iterative process constrained within certain professional expectations. Theoretically, they respond to the problems posed by traditional scientific inquiry, notably through acknowledging the role and position of the researcher. While metric empiricism (and other areas such as critical methods) may attempt to make the researcher invisible, qualitative methods take on the researcher as instrument. This is an important conceptual move, and it is related to where we believe truth or knowledge is located. In order to believe in the absent researcher of metric empiricism, you have to ascribe to the notion that truth is outside of the humans that desire it. It is something that can be reached as long as we find more perfect tools. For the qualitative researcher, the truth resides at the point that the self converges with the subject. It is truth that is contingent on the researcher’s ability to recognize it. Because this process is never simple or straightforward, the researcher must be able to constantly attune their process and methodology.

               It seems that one of the underlying assumptions in qualitative research is that the researcher should be given a degree of trust by those evaluating their work. Because there are not strict guidelines for doing qualitative research—no p-values for interview techniques—the researcher and their results are judged for qualities like coherence and resonance. This is not to say that it is easy to become accepted as a qualitative researcher. Scholars are expected to have certain standards of practice, and they are constrained by expectations placed on them by their academic institutions. This is why it is often difficult to do significant qualitative work early in one’s career: doing a true ethnography takes far too long, and qualitative work is simply not as frequently published as other types of work. This does not mean that it is not worthwhile. Qualitative work can access types of knowledge that cannot begin to be found through metric empiricism, particularly regarding cultural and relational information.

               Judging whether qualitative work is good is always going to be a difficult venture. Because the qualitative researcher is their own tool, it is exceedingly difficult to get outside of oneself to judge the work done. For this reason, having an auditor or colleague to provide feedback can be exceptionally valuable. For myself, I think that the way to define good work is in looking at its ability to help the site or culture that it studies. Attempting to judge whether a work is true is folly; the best you can do is to critique its methods from a third-party point of view. Instead, it may be more useful to define the merit of a work on the basis of what it can do. If the work can provide new understandings of a group or culture, then it is good; if it can help that group or culture become better regarded or gain validity, then it is very good. While I would not argue that all qualitative work needs to be prescriptive, it is hard to imagine a useful study that does not at least implicitly suggest a new course of action. In the realm of qualitative research, truth is always situated within the researcher, and while it will admittedly never produce pure, objective truths, qualitative research can benefit both scholarship and the outside world significantly.

Anderson's Media Research Methods, Ch. 2 - 6

Anderson Ch. 2

In studying the media, various entities can be understood or put into categories based on their properties, processes, consequences, and character. Properties can be studied through basic data collection (surveys, statistics) or immersive engagement (close reading, participant observation). Studying processes requires either sequential measurement methodologies or longer-form interpretive work (protocol analysis, interviews). Consequence is studied in a way that attempts to establish cause and effect, and this can be done through experimentation or participant observation. For character, populations need to be studied, and so surveys, rhetorical criticism, and cultural studies can work to answer questions.

Anderson Ch. 3

Methodology should be public, evidence based, and rule directed, and the studies that result should generate public knowledge. Public knowledge is not necessarily true, but it has passed enough standards not to be deemed false. Methodologies are developed in response to theories; without theory, there is no way to create a systematized method.

It is easier to find problems if you keep current with the discipline’s research. This should be done on a global scale, not limiting it to one’s home country. After doing preliminary research, the problem can be refined to express its domain and components. Methods can come at the problem from deductive (general sample to prove a point/theory) or inductive (single case generalized).

When writing up research, there should be a literature review (shows where in the literature there is material missing) and a problem statement (What is/How does/Why does/What good is?). The literature review should essentially point to the problem statement, showing why it is necessary to answer it.

Anderson Ch. 4

After establishing the problem statement, the researcher must move on to method. Empirical methods use the observation of real practice/culture/material in order to build arguments. It can be categorized as either descriptive, field/life-world, or laboratory.

Metric empiricism is concerned with the measurement and observation of variables. It can be accomplished through observation, survey methods, and experimental methods. In some cases, they can work in tandem with other types of research. Interpretive empiricism is aimed at the study of human action, and it includes reconnaissant observation (short-term), participant observation (long term), critical ethnography, and performance ethnography.

There are certain methods that blur the distinction between metric and interpretive empiricism, including textual analysis, discourse analysis, cultural-critical analysis, and dialogic analysis. These are different from mixed methods, which include multiple methodologies from both metric and interpretive methods.

Anderson Ch. 5

Data must be accompanied with an argument because, otherwise, it is largely useless. Before data can be used, the researcher must implicitly make several assumptions, including what constitutes the media/our text and the nature of the audience/public. We also make assumptions about culture (where and how it is constituted), the way in which individuals relate to society and society to culture, and the role or existence of agency.

Once assumptions are taken into account, a theory must be chosen. The major categories of theory are cognitivism (behavior is dictated from within the individual), social action (behavior is influenced from outside forces), psychoanalytical-semiotic (understanding, meaning, and discursive methods), and critical issue theories (Marxism, feminism, race studies). Each area of theory can be addressed to the psychological, sociological, or cultural level, and furthermore, they can target topics falling into media, content, message, audience, or performance. These theories fall into major epistemic categories as well, including Cartesianism, modernism, and postmodernism.

Depending on whether you are using metric or interpretive methods, the appropriate engagement, evidence, claim, and warrants for trustworthiness are going to differ. In metric work, evidence is characterized by measurable observations of variable manipulation. Trustworthiness is phrased in measurements of reliability, precision, accuracy, and validity.

For interpretive work, evidence is based on the researcher’s coherent and resonant narrative. Their ability to do so will be based on their degree of observation and participation in the studied population. They must be able to link warrants to all of their claims, demonstrating why their evidence is sufficient for the proposition. Trustworthiness for interpretive scholars comes out of coherence, resonance, and vraisemblance (the recognition of the narrative as plausible).

Anderson Ch. 6

Once researchers have research questions, they need to be able to translate their work into hypotheses. For each type of question (What? How? Why? So what?) there are appropriate forms of response. Hypotheses usually appear in metric work, using the theoretical constructs appropriate for the measures and methods of the study. They are not nearly as common in interpretive work.

It is a good idea to create research questions that are anchored both in the real world and the academic, theoretical world. This helps establish warrants for the research. Community-based research is one way to get at both types of problems.

All research work that deals with subjects rather than solely texts should anticipate working with the IRB. The board assesses whether the work is competent scholarship (whether they can really find out what the study sets out to find). They also are concerned with informed consent of participants.

Hammersly & Atkinson's Ethnography, Ch. 1 - 10

Hammersly & Atkinson Ch. 1

Positivism includes the assumptions that research should follow experimental guidelines, it should produce universal or statistical laws, and all knowledge is rooted in observation.

Naturalism refers to the belief that knowledge comes from the study of the social world in its natural state—without researcher interference.

Both positivism and naturalism lack reflexivity; they rely on situated observation but do not acknowledge the role of the researcher. In ethnography, reflexivity is the basis of knowledge.

Hammersly & Atkinson Ch. 2

In ethnography, researchers usually enter with some degree of foreshadowed problems, but they need to be careful not to let their ideas of problems define what they observe in the field. Furthermore, entering the field in hopes of testing a particular theory can be problematic for the same reason. As the researcher spends time in the field, they will most likely change or refine their research questions, being sure to pursue what is already there, not what they are trying to see. Part of this work can be described as either moving from the formal to substantive (theory -> observation) or substantive to formal/generic (observation -> theory/generalization).

The setting of the research also plays a large role in deciding the research question. It is a good idea to check out places being considered for an ethnography before choosing settings. After all, there are usually many settings to choose from to address the kinds of questions that you want to address. Ethnographers do not, technically, study settings—their work is in studying the populations in the settings. It is impossible to account for everything within the setting.

Sampling in ethnography refers to the choice of cases and cases within cases in a study. Sampling should aim to be representative of the culture studied. The act of sampling is the implicit choice of what is and is not relevant to the topic studied. Sampling can be decided on the basis of time (when to sample), people (who to sample), and context (where to sample).

Hammersly & Atkinson Ch. 3

Access is a major issue that ethnographers have to deal with. It can involve having to create or use interpersonal relationships with people of power in order to be able to visit or observe certain sites. Even the act of negotiating access can teach the ethnographer a great deal about the culture. Access also brings up issues of ethics (who can grant access isn’t always who ought to grant access) and behavior (just because you are present does not make you a welcome part of the scene).

The people who have the power to let you into a particular setting or scene are known as gatekeepers. They can have formal (clearance) or informal (integral member of culture) roles that give them this power. Sometimes gatekeepers are not the sole individuals needed to gain access to a site. They can be constrained by other individuals, rules, or laws.

When researchers cannot gain access to a field through gatekeepers, it is sometimes possible to do covert research in which the study is not announced to anyone. This can be a constraint on the research, limiting the kinds of data collection you can do. It is also a significant ethical issue.

Hammersly & Atkinson Ch. 4

For most participants, the ethnographer will initially be treated with suspicion, but this will dissipate as contact increases. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes participants misjudge the intentions of the ethnographer or assume that they are ignorant of the practices of the culture. As a result, the researcher has to engage in impression management by doing things like dressing like the people studied. Expertise and specialist knowledge can be useful in structuring relationships with participants in the field. Researchers must also decide on what level of self-disclosure is appropriate and whether or not they are trading friendship for data.

Researchers should be aware of their unmanageable characteristics (gender, age, ethnicity, etc.) that can have effects on how they relate to people in the field. Women can have trouble gaining access to certain areas (either because of actual rules or just established norms), and men can have trouble gaining access to settings and situations usually reserved for women. By the same token, these characteristics can make it easier to gain access to those areas that privilege such characteristics.

The early stages of research often involve learning the basic competencies for participating in the culture. During this time, the researcher is often granted the same grace as any new member of a culture—“acceptable incompetence.” This leads to one of the problems of studying a culture that you are already a part of—you cannot hold a novice position, and thus you miss all of the knowledge learned about the status of being a novice.

Hammersly & Atkinson Ch. 5

Because the ‘objects’ that ethnographers study are actually ‘subjects,’ collecting accounts becomes a hugely important part of research. Accounts can be both unsolicited and solicited. The former is generally thought to be more natural or more purposeful, which could be considered a naturalist perspective. We cannot be too heavily concerned with the influence of the researcher asking for accounts because there is no way to ever know if the data is compromised, including unsolicited accounts.

The act of choosing who to interview can have several effects on the research. Simply choosing those that are interesting to the researcher can be, in some ways, biased. Using a gatekeeper to select the respondents gives them the power to direct the results. Allowing the participants to self-select guarantees that the only perspectives heard are those that would want to be heard. The interview itself can be seen as a new site of participation—a “resource rather than a problem.”

Interviews are structured both by the ethnographer and the respondent. Using non-directive interviews requires the researcher to be an active listener, following up on important or interesting details to make the interview worthwhile.

Hammersly & Atkinson Ch. 6

It is important to pay attention to documents, physical objects, and various modes of communication. They can provide a source of information that does not come out in interviews or participation about the setting and context of the observation. They can also be a starting point for analytic ideas. Documents can be either solicited or unsolicited. The former can take the form of diaries or written accounts.

Hammersly & Atkinson Ch. 7

Researcher should try to record as much as they can. Memory is faulty, and it should not be the basis for analysis. Recording anything means that the researcher is choosing not to record something at the same time. It is selective, and something will always be left out. This alone is not reason to abandon recording data. This means that there will also always be interpretation, because recording cannot capture every bit of meaning attached to anything. Choosing to record can also have effects on the participants, and we need to account for this in our interpretations.

Ethnographers should use a reflexive eye when considering recorded data. Recorded data can be useful, not just for capturing specific data, but for use in determining what is usual or unusual in the field or for testing out conceptual links. The recordings can also provide information about the researcher and how the participants react to the researcher.

Hammersly & Atkinson Ch. 8

Data analysis occurs at every stage of ethnographic work. However, there are no guaranteed ways of doing data analysis that will make an ethnography successful. Using data to theorize should be an iterative process, emerging as analysis occurs.

Ethnography work can be largely descriptive, using techniques such as making the strange familiar/making the familiar strange. It can also attempt to explain or create theoretical models. In analysis, ethnographers should search for concepts or theories that help make sense of the cases in the data. One way of analyzing unstructured data can be to use theoretical concepts as categories and to begin sorting data into those categories. As this work continues, the researcher can find data that calls for new categories or that strikes interesting comparisons with existing categories. This can also lead to the establishment of relationships between constructs.

Other systems for working with data can be creating conceptual maps, working up grounded theory, and creating typologies. It is important to find concrete indicators within the data that link to the concepts you are using to theorize. The links can take the form of social context, time, or personnel (who does/says what). When finished, the researcher should seek respondent validation. The conclusions should seem correct/intuitive to those within the population studied.

Hammersly & Atkinson Ch. 9

Ethnography is produced through writing, and the production is just as much writing as it is the data collection. Depending on how the ethnography is written up, it will emphasize different facets of the study. The particular theories or concepts used in the ethnography will dictate what should be focused on. The ethnographer generally writes as a storyteller; because experience is data, the experience must somehow be conveyed. The writing will be read by an audience, and so the narrative must be compelling (or at least readable).

Writing up an ethnography can take either thematic or chronological arrangements. The former is useful for explaining constructs that are ordered in term of importance. The researcher should be careful when using metaphor and synecdoche. While they shouldn’t be eliminated, they can be used in ways that mislead or over-simplify. They should also consider the role of narrative, irony, and topos. When appropriate, or when writing for a digital form, the ethnographer can include extra data such as photos or recordings, though doing so may raise certain ethical issues.

Hammersly & Atkinson Ch. 10

There are many issues that ethnographers have to make ethical choices about. These can include informed consent (how/to what degree does the ethnographer attain consent from participants?), privacy (how is privacy guaranteed and where is it expected?), harm (does the ethnographer do any harm either in their participation or publishing of information?), exploitation (to what degree is the ethnographic work exploiting a community, and can the ethnographer do anything to give back?), and consequences for future research (does the ethnographer’s work preclude further studies?).

Class Notes

Qualitative Research

12/3/2013

If a published article does not have an effect on the lives of those you’re studying, it probably isn’t worth doing.

The self is the individual in action; the self became necessary when social science moved away from methodological individualism. What we observe of people is a choice of presentation/performance. We cannot judge or assume that any presentation is the actual self. The cultural encoding of a presentation are largely visible, and it can be manipulated. Postmodernism suggests that the self is always incomplete which leads to desire and resistance. Every expression denies any other expression.

Social theory theorizes relationships, which are a fundamental unit of social life and thus an object of study. Both individuals within a relationship have rights and obligations. Action can be seen as a semiotic system. Performance is within lines of action, and it is characterized by significance, intention of the performer/performance, competence, modality, instrumentality, and effectiveness. We observe performances, and our field notes should begin to translate what the performances are (composed of individual actions).

Relational forms can take several shapes. Intimate relationships are one on one; small numbers of people with other small numbers are cross-membership relationships, and hierarchical relationships refer to the organizational structures that relate single individuals to multiple individuals. Groups include memberships, coalitions, and cliques (the latter two exist within memberships). Within a membership, there will be relational complexity. These are understood at both local and cultural levels.

It is our challenge to figure out the cultural elements in a relationship, identifying them as different from the local elements of the relationship. We need to identify the cultural obligations within relationships, and we can do this by viewing multiple instances of relationships within a culture. Every relationship has subject positions, obligations, and cultural elements.  Action can be semiotic, epistemic, aesthetic (how is it done well?), and social; we should look for the intentionality of the relationship (what do the members of the relationship intend for the relationship to be?). The terms of obligation can be ethical, economic, political, and social. We have to be able to recognize incompetence, and intentionality doesn’t make up for it.

When we analyze at the local level, we can focus on local agents (who have attached others), local practices, and local requirements of status and performance (negotiations). At the local level, we can observe performed relationships, individuals with identity, subjectivity, agency (prevents cultural performance from becoming static, freedom), and agentry (being the agent of/for something larger than yourself, being the cause of a performance or behavior), and acting agents, which are local enactors with relational others. The acting agents performs through implication, complicity (not the same as culpability), invocation, and evocation.

Enactment is the actualized local routines of the relationship. It entails performance, strategies and tactics, competence, modality, instrumentality, and effectiveness. The routine is the sign of what is being done, enactment is the actualized routine, and performance is the attempt to accomplish the routine. Local relationships also have negotiated criteria of the relationship, grace, grants, power and control, expectations, violations and repairs, structurations (the process by which we put into place resources and competencies to make something to happen; we then rehearse and maintain the structure) and sedimentations (repeated structures create sedimentations), shared experiential and communicative history. While we see two people interacting, we interpret subject positions, lines of action, cultural components, and relationships.

When doing ethnography, there are multiple levels of engagement. The lowest of which is the interview. Methodologically, participation and observation are complementary. One cannot do both at the same time. It can range from interview to significant embeddedness. The more familiar something is to you, the harder it is to observe it. Participation must also be consequential for yourself and the group, otherwise it is not significant. Observation moves through three major phrases, starting with perceptual immersion and careful attention, going through interspersing the significance for the members of what was seen/heard, and finally creating the extended record of what happened. We should use member check throughout, not necessarily for agreement, but for getting descriptions from group members.

For actually doing an ethnography, you need to identify the scene and participants. This is followed by evaluation of research potential, hanging around, gaining access, learning the ropes, strategizing participation, and producing observation.  There are significant ethical issues in ethnography. These include claims of translation and representation, constitution and creation, reflexivity and disguised self-interest, the inherent exploitation, issues of informed consent, risk to self, unintended consequences, and real harm.

We must ask ourselves what constitutes good work. How do we know that we have done good work? How is it demonstrated? What disciplines our self-interest? What is the balance between observation and participation as well as ingenuity and systematicity? How do we manage the intentionality of experience, narrative, the critical impulse, and rhetorical force? What is the role of the other? What are the markers of trustworthiness? What is the value of the work?

Class Notes

Qualitative Methods

11.26.2013

We need to get the PowerPoint for the ethnography lecture and be prepared to interrogate during the presentation.

Hammersly and Atkinson Presentation

In discussing ethics, Hammersly and Atkinson note the differences between procedural ethics (IRB) and ethics in practice. They also write about microethics, which are the ethics for everyday choices rather than ethics that address big issues. When we have issues arise, they are referred to as ethically important moments.

One of the ways to deal with certain admissions (child abuse, sexual abuse) is to make a statement of what you heard and what the consequences of that statement are, asking if they really meant to say what they did. Our choices in responding to this are reflective of our paradigms. We have to be reflexive, particularly when reporting our research.

Ethnography

Hammersly and Atkinson use a very positivistic perspective in describing ethnography, asserting that you can make true or veritable statements.

Traditionally, ethnography was the creation of guides to other cultures. This was heavily linked to colonization and the exoticizing of non-Western populations. After WWII, the interpretive turn appears in social science, which starts integrating narrative, phenomenology, existentialism, social construction, and social action theory. This shift suggests a move from us understanding them to us understanding us. We use public texts to make claims that we know about social life. At present, we have participant observation, auto-ethnography, and long-form interviews.

When deciding whether something works as an ethnographic method, we must ask about certain aspects of the work. There must be an explanatory target—there must be enough there to constitute a true ethnography. The method needs to be connected to the target using warrants, rules of evidence, and conventions of practice (calendars, recording, participation, and reflexivity). There must also be certain recognized practices, such as participant observation/member knowledge, removed observation/recordings, protocol analysis (for activities that are not particularly visual), and interviews. Only objectivist measurement and statistics are excluded as an ethnographic practice.

Social theory is what separates ethnography from the other social sciences; it theorizes the self and social relationships. This is different than what we see in psychology, which privileges methodological individualism, finding all answers within the individual. Social theory is interested in the self, which is what is produced as an expression of identity (who we want to be) and subjectivity (who we are forced to be) in performance. The self is also incomplete. Cultural memberships move individuals into congregations, and the ethnographer is interested in finding their set of understandings (local social reality). We have ways of being in the world, and these are naturalized practices beyond our control (micro-expressions). We should also pay attention to durable relationships and memberships. The self is encoded in subjectivity, located in relationships, apparent through performance, and is an acting agent. The agent is always within a domain, situated within implications and understandings, and is in an improvisational performance. These all occur within cultural domains, which include disciplines (systems of practical training), apparatuses (resources and practices of social structurations), economies (systems of valuation appropriate to the subject position and performance), and hegemonies (cultural process of complicity, implication, invocation, and evocation). Invocation involves noting your own position/self, and evocation is the same done by someone else. We can use disciplines, apparatuses, economies, and hegemonies as aspects of culture to investigate in ethnography. The incomplete self desires completion and finds it within the other, creating both desire and resistance. This means that the completion of the self in the other breeds resistance because any completion occludes becoming anything else. We resist the process of becoming.

In social theory, the relationship is the fundamental unit of social life and it is the object of study. Relationships are always between two individuals in subject positions, which are invariable culturally coded components of the self that have rights and obligations of being. We usually will highlight the rights of specific subject positions and ignore the obligations (at least for those subject positions we like or aspire to). The relationship also allows for control.

The way that social theory treats action is through seeing it as a semiotic system of performance, on the same level as language. All actions are culturally encoded, and they include behaviors and acts, which form routines, rules of enactment, and rules of association.

Outside Reading: Leander and McKim's Tracing the Everyday 'Sitings' of Adolescents on the Internet

Kevin Leander and Kelly McKim’s Tracing the Everyday ‘Sitings’ of Adolescents on the Internet: a strategic adaptation of ethnography across online and offline spaces

Leander and McKim’s article is primarily concerned with how to integrate the online realm with traditional participant observation. Their particular population, adolescents, spend time interacting in the physical world as well as the virtual one, and so Leander and McKim are driven to follow their participants.

This article brings up a situation that seems to go unaddressed in many descriptions of internet ethnographies: studying participants both online and off. A great deal of the information on internet ethnography (at least that I’ve found) focuses on internet-only communities, and an important part of that work is in defining what is relevant to participant identities. With an online-only community, participants’ offline identities can be seen as largely irrelevant. In Leander and McKim’s situation, the participants are followed online, which means that it is important to tie both on- and offline identities together, fitting together the online participation with the everyday life, like two puzzle pieces.

The authors problematize a few other factors of online participant observation. They acknowledge the problem posed by ‘lurkers’—the unseen readers of websites who do not post or interact. If an ethnographer needs to be fully aware of their environment, how do they account for those who cannot be seen? Leander and McKim also bring up the issue of the extent to which a researcher can participate in online activities, noting that simply lurking is not fully engaging, but making oneself known as an ethnographer can hinder or otherwise influence the behavior of the participants. It seems that this dynamic would be present anyway, online or offline.

Leander and McKim suggest reconceptualizing the methodology of connective ethnography (connecting the online and offline worlds) through Latour’s idea of flow as presented in Actor Network Theory. Though this suggestion seems intuitively correct (to observe a participant’s behavior flow from activity to activity and the malleability of their identity and cultural practices at each site), it does not seem to add anything that has not been done or understood already by an experienced ethnographer.

The authors conclude the article by listing different things for ethnographers to observe in online behavior. Looking through the list (flow/place-making, paths, metonyms, metaphors, and textual construction of space and self), I remain unconvinced that there is anything particularly unique about doing ethnography online. Leander and McKim make a good argument for why it ought to be done, particularly in conjunction with traditional participant observation, but their recommendations for methodology seem to be nothing new.

Class Notes

Qualitative Methods

11.19.2013

In terms of interviewing and information gathering, there is solicited and unsolicited information. There are questions of validity when you bring in equipment (cameras/recorders). However, this can be seen as a non-issue; the interview constructs a non-normal state anyway, and the camera doesn’t add anything that is necessarily more biased. Jackson uses the term ‘ethnographic sincerity’ to refer to the trust we establish between ethnographer and audience that reality is represented faithfully.

We are required to report to authorities any suggestions of child or elder abuse given by participants. It is also possible that the same is true for self-harm and suicide.

In deciding whether something is an artifact or document, we should look at how it is activated in a social context. We also need to be careful about assuming that any room is single purpose or that its artifacts are necessarily tied to the room. Often things are just around, but not used.

For the last class, we are going to each take a stand on issues about qualitative research. The proposition is that qualitative research is somewhere in between academic narcissism and unprofitable fiction. Our portfolio is due on 12/16.

Hammersly and Atkinson are fairly positivistic. Contemporary ethnography embraces a methodological holism, which is more concerned with processes of social interaction than the many individuals. While methodological individualism allows for static explanations of things like document (their existence is their own validity), methodological holism needs dynamic explanations that explain the document in use, made valid by its place in human interaction.

Our analysis of texts needs to look at facts, language/symbolism, framing, narrative structure/argument form, and discursive performance. Language always appears within framing, and narrative or argument is always some type of discursive performance. Texts are bodies of work, and sources are what we have access to. Sources are representative of the potential text. We should observe form, frame, language, narrative, and discourse when arguing that our source is indicative of the text.

Cases are sources that are evaluated for their qualities as a member of the congregation. This is the first step in coding. Units of analysis are pre-selected conceptual/formal properties of the text to be coded. We should report our units of analysis because it shows that the study is thorough. Codes identify properties, agents, actions, consequences, values, and theoretical propositions. A code is a piece of semiotic material and it establishes the interpretive demand of understanding.

Coding must reflect both breadth and depth. Breadth refers to the coverage of the material and depth refers to the layering of significance. Rhizomatic coding leads to overlapping codes, which is typically represented by the depth of coding. Through coding we can accomplish, describe, confirm, compare and contrast, change, entail, critique, and move an agenda.

Before coding, we need to acknowledge the burden of coding.  We must also understand that there are several types of work associated with different types of text, including things like digitization and work with QDA software. After this, you must assemble the needed resources, including hardware, software, services, and personnel.

When doing coding, we need to read sources several time, look for things like rhetorical force, intertextuality, and interpellation (hailing). Close reading is never the same as coding. There should be a classification of each case, and the unit of analysis needs to be established. We should avoid using a ‘shiny-thing’ approach to choosing units of analysis. Unitizing by paragraph or turn is systematic, but artificial. It is also important to collect statistics on your coding activity like the amount of time spent, the codes per unit, and the density of coding. This lets you estimate how long it will take on future projects.

In the second pass of coding—meta-coding—you codes the codes for things like convergence or divergence. The codes themselves become a text, with presences and absences. It should be emergent and theoretical.

If we are working with a large data-set, we shouldn’t be thinking of it all working toward a single coding exercise. Each level of coding can present one or two publishable papers before the coding is even finished.

If we believe in pure grounded theory, then we should be able to find the theory in the text. Coding is a process of exposing the theory within the artifact. This is different than emergent coding. Axial coding adds theory in the 2^nd level of coding, and interactive coding uses grounded codes in the case and then apply them to existing theory, aiming for a synthesis.  Two-phase coding involves first using emergent coding and then following it with theoretical coding. This is the kind most likely to get published.

When trying to get published, you need to be thorough in your analysis of your procedures and the statistics associated with your coding. The argument starts with the importance of the text, follows through with theory and literature, and uses multiple case warrants and should account for disconfirmations. We need to be careful when invoking the audience or author [of the artifact], and our conclusions need to be anchored within the text.

"I Quit!" Review Redux

To begin with, there is a typo in the abstract. It is missing an 'of' in the first sentence.

I don't see a thesis statement on the first or second page. I'm under the impression that it is far better to have a thesis early in the paper, even if it is only previewed and is given nuance later. I realized that the only reason I know what the paper is arguing is because I read the abstract first.

By page 10, I have noticed several typos (~5).

As I wrote last time, I feel like the participant pool is not diverse enough to merit the construct-building this paper attempts. They could really benefit from adding participants from multiple levels/socioeconomic statuses-- after all, employment (and quitting) can mean different things to different people, and this would influence the way that one chooses to quit.

The author is not very clear about what they mean when they say that they "employed two forms of verification, member-checking and thick, rich description." While I agree with the former, I'm confused by the latter. Do they mean that they wrote thick description about the interviews in order to clarify their thoughts or do they consider the information sourced from participants to be such thick description that it is a form of verification?

The three stages that the author suggests are certainly intuitive, but it seems to only conceptualize one kind of quitting: a generally amicable, planned action. They write about instances of individuals who do not exactly follow the three stages, but the information goes nowhere and is not incorporated into the model in any way. I suppose this provides falsifiability?

As I wrote last time, there seems to be quite a few questions that are in the interview guide, but not addressed in the paper. It makes me think that they might have been looking for something else, or at least something more concrete, and then tried to shoehorn disparate results into the paper.

Outside Reading: Karla Scott's "Communication Strategies Across Cultural Borders"

Karla Scott's Communication Strategies Across Cultural Borders: Dispelling Stereotypes, Performing Competence, and Redefining Black Womanhood

When trying to decide on an article for this week, I thought back to my Master's program at Saint Louis University and remembered that one of my prior professors, Karla Scott, did qualitative work, specifically with topics on gender, race, and discourse. I pulled up one of her articles, a piece that I had read through previously, and paid more attention to method.

Overall, I think the piece is very well-done. Scott uses a focus-group method in order to solicit thoughts and narratives from Black women who regularly boundary-cross into predominately white spaces. She uses convenience sampling, and this results in a participant population that is largely sourced from the university. Ideally, the participant pool would have had more people from outside the university, provided the goal is generalizability. However, Scott takes a phenomenological perspective on the research, which suggests that this may not have been the goal after all.

The method used for this research followed the three-step phenomenological process by first gathering lived experiences, reviewing them to gather themes, and finally interpreting and analyzing the themes. Gathering the experiences took the form of focus groups, though Scott also included the written responses of 3 participants who could not be present at any of the focus groups. In the article, the second and third step are clearly visible-- she states the themes and then provides unaltered text from the accounts of the participants. This does the work of showing that the recurrent themes exist, but also voicing them through the phenomenological accounts of lived experience. It is clear to the reader that the themes are apparent in these accounts, suggesting that the theme represents a commonly experienced phenomenon for the Black women participants.

The importance of this article resides in its ability to describe the why and how of certain behaviors. As Scott notes, the acts of code switching or border-crossing are well-established, but little research has been done into exactly why and how those behaviors are enacted. As a piece of research building on Communication, Scott focuses on communicative strategies, particularly ways that Black women mitigate the stereotypes they face when in predominately White environments. Scott also notes that her work is written to challenge essentialist notions of Black womanhood, because, after all, it is not meant to be generalized to represent the communicative strategies of all Black women. Although a metric perspective would tend to shun this inability to generalize and predict, Scott makes a good argument at the end of her article-- if Black womanhood is not a monolith, then it should be studied in a way that represents its heterogeneity and complexity.

NVivo Experimentation

Since the last NVivo update, I believe I've gotten video coding figured out. I finished coding the OUYA promotional video that I was working on, and I've started working on a few unboxing videos. What I'm finding interesting is that when working with both texts that come from an official source and texts that come from an audience, there are certain phrases that belong exclusively to each domain. Only the audience is concerned with pirates; only the officials at OUYA are concerned with fundraising. I'm also observing instances where phrases are used in the official OUYA texts and are later replicated by the audience.

Seeing the movement of language from one population to another makes me think that a useful feature for NVivo to implement would be a visual timeline. This way, you could see how certain coded features get picked up and rise or drop in popularity of usage. In a previous project, I'd worked with internet memes which get picked up and combined with other memes as they gain popularity. I would have loved some way to visualize the different types of memes and their frequency of usage over time. It would really help in longitudinal rhetorical projects.

I also have to admit that I'd pulled up NVivo earlier in the week just to have fun-- a friend of mine was talking about the backlash against Sony that happened after they revealed that they were not implementing some of the media features on the PS4 that users had become accustomed to on the PS3. I captured the comments on the press release and ran them through NVivo, having it display the most frequently used words. Just by itself, the analysis was interesting because you could spot the most controversial features easily and the anger of the fans was easily spotted as well.

This project, too, led me to a problem-- the comments I captured were on a press release, and every time I switched to a new page of comments, the press release remained at the top of the page. This means that, even though I captured 12 pages of comments, I also captured the text of the press release 12 times. Short of manually editing that text out, I don't know how I could selectively capture only some text on a website OR delete that text within NVivo. This meant that any kind of automatic analysis would count the wording in the press release twice as opposed to each individual comment once. I'm still not entirely sure what to do with this.

Class Notes

Presentation on Hammersly & Atkinson

Terms:
Naturalism - the study of what has not been influenced or manipulated; what exists in nature; can be qualitative or positivistic
Ethnography - an approach that comes from a naturalistic perspective; a practice for observation
Positivism - perspective the relies on the theory and data being independent; the material world is separate and independent

Is naturalism theory-driven? Probably not, but theory can emerge from it. Ethnographers should shy away from making things too simplistic.

For ethnography, the researcher enters with certain ideas of problems, but they don't formally shape research questions until toward the end of the process.

While the complexity of quantitative methods occurs in the experimental design, while the complexity with qualitative methods comes in the interpretation of the data.

Research questions tend to either be topical or generic. Topical questions are specific to populations or situations. Generic questions look at a specific situation in order to address a larger population.

______

In material realism, the explanation resides in the materiality of things. Reality is trustworthy, and language represents reality in a trustworthy way. This is why participant observation works. Material realism exhibits methodological individualism, determinism, and atomism. A material realist believes that explanations of behavior reside within the individual. Individuals are secure and coherent, meaning that one's identity does not shift or change. Most research is guided by cognitivism, and researchers believe that behavior can be measured and described, and it can be used to understand causes, quantities, and rates. The final product is APA writing.

Ideational empiricism contrasts with material realism in positing that explanations reside in the ideas of things. Reality is a process of continual becoming, and the idea of being in the world is a socially constructed experience. Explanations of behavior are assessed holistically, and the individual has agency. The whole of society/populations/communities are more important than the singular individuals; the individual identity is just a personal expression. Research is done on the basis of Social Action theory, which is based on the idea that action is the sign of what is being done rather than behavior (the how rather than why). Questions are addressed by studying discourses, action lines, and narratives. The final product is narrative writing.

Without a theoretical position, ethnography is not secure. It can slip into simple fictional writing.

_____

Ethnography creates multiple levels of texts, starting with site notes and progressing through field notes and narratives. Texts can be reproduced-- we can reenact behaviors and recreate situations. Action is formal, meaning that it has a form. Any kind of formal action has acceptable and unacceptable ways to perform it. Discourse is extended symbol use with real-life consequences. It encodes power relationships within a society. Action also embeds these power relationships. We must look at any situation and ask what are the rights and obligations? Where are there opportunities and expectations?

Texts must be enacted-- one cannot simply access pre-made ethnographic texts. They are observed in process by an actor/author. We must observe how the behavior coheres into a text. Text is then activated locally and culturally in interpretation; coding is one such interpretation.

Texts are constituted of facts, language/symbolic material in use, framing, narrative structure/argument form, and discursive performances. We begin with the facts of the case, looking for the central premise that makes the disparate facts cohere or justifies all other parts of the text. We have to figure out which elements in our text are rhetorical, using textual warrants. Framing establishes the cultural location of the text. Narrative structures introduces concepts into actions (actions are given meanings). They always have an ethical component.

Once you recognize that you are in a ideological situation, it allows you to assume reflexivity. It allows you to re-enter the research.

We should read more fiction.

We should also go back to our reviews of the I Quit! article and figure out why it was  rejected.

On the homepage of our websites or through an email, we should let Jim know what we've done each week.

Class Notes

Qualitative Methods 10.29.2013

We need to craft our websites into single documents with navigation and such. It should demonstrate expertise. We should decide what the objective of the portfolio is, and that should guide our work in making the portfolio. It can include our statements on our understanding and problems with the materials of the class. We should include our analyses of articles and notes from texts.

For the upcoming weeks, we should look at 14 and 15 in the Anderson text. They are about ethnography and writing.

What are the outcomes of qualitative research? Our goal is to reveal, construct, and correct. It is entirely possible to go through the steps and never come up with an argument or claim. Sometimes the data never coheres. The argument is the lowest level outcome. Coding reveals practices and patterns. It can reveal the things that are not durable (like looking at the 1943 Guidelines to Hiring Women). We can construct things, such as counter-narratives. We can also correct destructive ideas and narratives or expand and advance positive ones. The arguments central to Communication need to be re-enacted and refurbished.

When we are coding, we need to keep in mind intentionality, competence, modality, instrumentality, and effectiveness. The intentionality should be assessed on multiple levels—what parts are intentional and what are not. There is also always a level of competency. Texts do work, and that kind of work can be described as instrumentality. Finally, every text is effective to a certain level. 

Outside Reading: Park and Choi's The Internet as a Political Campaign Medium

Park, H. S., & Choi, S. M. (2002). Focus Group Interviews: The Internet as a Political Campaign Medium. Public Relations Quarterly, 47(4), 36–44.

In this article, Park and Choi conducted focus groups in order to understand the effect that websites have on perceptions of political candidates. In particular, they were interested in whether interactivity on the website translated into a feeling of having interacted with the candidate.

The study was conducted in 2000 during the Bush/Gore election. The participants for the focus group were undergraduates who were in advertising classes, all age 21 or older. For the study design, they asked participants to look at the websites of Bush and Gore for half an hour in a computer lab before convening the focus group. Once there, participants were asked questions about their experiences with the websites. The questions were formulated with the intent of using Media Richness Theory in the study.

From a methodological point of view, one of the problems in this study is that the researchers specifically chose to have participants look at the websites for a certain amount of time. While this can be appropriate if you are looking for the baseline effectiveness of some kind of campaign material, it does not seem entirely useful for the purpose of their research. When trying to make generalizable claims about how the voting public is affected by candidate websites, you have to take into account that many are not affected at all, and even further, that those who are affected by the websites sometimes spread that information to others. It is possible to have secondhand knowledge of a website. By priming their participants, Park and Choi lost all possible data about whether their participants had seen or heard about the websites at all. It seems like it may have been useful to first distribute a survey or to have participants look at the websites partway through the focus group.

All of this is not to say that Park and Choi’s study does not have merit. Having been done in 2000, the study fell at a particularly valuable juncture when the web components of political campaigns were first being explored. Park and Choi describe the responses of participants to both Bush and Gore’s websites; those who liked Bush’s website appreciated its simplicity and those who liked Gore’s website appreciated how well it covers all relevant issues. At this point in digital media development, we know that both approaches are extremely valuable. Though they eventually conclude that interactive features on websites are not perceived as the same as interacting with the candidates, they do identify early efforts at personalization as being useful (which were later used to great effect by the Obama campaign).

Saldana Ch. 5 and 6

Saldana's The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers

Ch. 5: Second Cycle Coding Methods

The Goals of Second Cycle Methods
The second cycle of coding is the point at which the myriad codes created in the first cycle get refined into larger codes or categorical labels. The idea is to begin finding trends or themes within the data which can eventually be assembled into a theory or model. We have to be careful that our categories are not too disparate; if they are, we are probably misrepresenting some things because data will not tend to hold such variety without overlap.

Second Cycle Coding Methods
Pattern coding: a meta-code that pulls the existing codes into a smaller number of codes or categories
Focused coding: looks for frequent or high intensity codes to identify salient features of the text
Axial coding: reassembles split data; looks for dominant and subordinate codes to create a categorical system that specifies the properties and dimensions of categories
Theoretical coding: Identifies a core category and formulates codes that relate the data to that category; can be theory-driven or emergent
Elaborative coding: Uses categories/themes from a previous study to interpret the data; strengthens the theory by seeing how well the prior coding set explains the new data
Longitudinal coding: Used for life-long studies; notes increase/decrease in study variables, accumulations, epiphanies, idiosyncracies, constancy, and missing data

Ch. 6: After Second Cycle Coding
It can be difficult to transition from fully-coded data to making theoretical claims. There are many different formats that research can take, so Saldana focuses on solidifying ideas.

Focusing Strategies
The "top 10" list: Use the 10 most interesting or varied pieces of data to illustrate the salience or breadth of your research
The study's "trinity": Identify the three most important concepts in your research and figure out the relationship between the three
Codeweaving: Using the major codes in your research, tell a story that structures the relationships between the codes
The "touch test": Look at your codes and find those that are things-- what can be touched? These codes need to be abstracted a level (mother to motherhood)

From Coding to Theorizing
Elements of a theory: Identify the if/then components or relationships within your coding
Categories of categories: Place your existing categories into larger categories

Formatting Matters
Rich text emphasis: Bold major concepts and italicize important assertions
Headings and subheadings: Use headings and subheadings to structure an argument

Writing About Coding
It is helpful to include as much information about the methods you used as possible. This includes everything from the data acquisition and sampling to the computer programs you used to code and manage the data. Make sure to emphasize major outcomes of the analysis.

Ordering and Reordering
Analytic storytelling: Tell the story of your analysis in a chronological way
One thing at a time: Write about concepts or categories one at a time, keeping them separate initially
Begin with the conclusion: If having trouble writing, begin with the conclusion

Assistance from Others
Peer and online support: Have peers (in person or online) look at your work and provide suggestions
Searching for "buried treasure": Have readers of your work look for important ideas or assertions that are not explained

Final Statement on Seniors and Technology

It seems that what needs to be done is to take somewhat of a marketing approach to this project. In particular, I think it might be useful to implement segmentation when looking at the possible audience of any technology help/resource center. 

From my experiences, there seem to be at least three major profiles that need to be addressed: the DIY user, the respectfully curious, and the non-user.

The DIY user is the type that I met most often at the senior center. They use technology to their own satisfaction. When they need to learn something, they learn it on their own through experimentation or targeted help-seeking (i.e., search Google for solutions rather than ask around or call tech support). To best support these users, centers should have technology available as well as product guides/manuals. I suspect that a DIY user would refer to a product manual if it is available in the same room as the technology, but they might not go asking for it at a centralized desk. This way, they can learn on their own either through experimentation or grabbing a manual and walking through the steps for using a particular piece of software. The most common complaint that I heard from these users was that the technology available at the senior centers is a bit outdated and slow.

The respectfully curious are the users that realize the potential available with digital technologies, but they are wary of experimentation. They have learned certain skills (such as checking email or buying things online), but they are hesitant to try new things out of the fear that they could somehow break something or make a mistake. It seems that this type of user would most benefit from classes or guided lessons. That being said, I've heard that technology classes at the senior centers are not well-attended, so there may be other ways to facilitate learning with these users.

Finally, the non-users are a diverse group. In STS, the non-user category is one that has been studied significantly, and most scholars advocate for further segmentation of this group. Often, this segmentation notes non-users that cannot access a technology, cannot afford a technology, have no use for a technology, or who willfully abstain from a technology. Though it seems that seniors who are non-users are often characterized as the last category-- willfully abstaining from a technology-- I suspect that they would consider themselves as non-users who have no use for the technology. One thing that is clear about new media/digital technology is that every function it offers was previously accomplished by other means, and nearly all of those other means are still available today. 

Though we know that certain things are moving toward the digital-only realm (an important one being medical records), we should be cautious about trying to orient a program entirely toward those who don't think they need it. It is important to anticipate a time when such a program will need to accommodate these non-users, but even then, the accommodation should be very targeted. For example, if non-users start running into the problem that their medical records are only accessible online, the program will need to provide help for that specific issue. It would be very discouraging to ask, "How can I find my medical records online?" and receive the answer, "Well, first, you need to take this basic computing class." Instead, if they are shown how to retrieve that information, it is much more likely that they might begin to see uses for the technology and move into the respectfully curious category.

Anderson, Ch. 1

Anderson Notes, Media Research Methods, Ch. 1

Communication domains include mass communication (study of messages sent to mass audiences through media technologies), media studies (media literacy), and mediated communication (all forms of communication that use some kind of mediation; anything but face-to-face).

Methodologies are standardized ways of producing knowledge. Empirical methods are concerned with experience and materiality, though not necessarily quantitative knowledge. Metric studies are quantitative, applying a logical framework to studied variables. Hermeneutics forms an alternative to metric study, systematizing interpretation for qualitative inquiry. Critical methods are used for revealing frameworks and systems of power and control. These areas of scholarship overlap in certain places, creating epistemologies. Metric empiricism describes material reality through measurement, with the assumption that reality is stable and objective. Interpretive empiricism is also concerned with material reality, but it is accessed through lenses of interpretation that reject objective reality. Critical-empirical scholars are interested in applying critical/cultural insight, but reject the singular truths or narrative put forth by earlier critical scholars, instead choosing to employ grounded theory with a critical agenda. 

Class Notes

Qualitative Methods

Analytic Review of articles

We need to ask questions such as:

• Is the problem clearly stated? 
• Is the approach appropriate to the problem? 
• Is the method adequately described so that the quality of the work can be assessed? 
• Does the analysis account for the data set (does it poach or cherrypick)? 
• Are the claims made supported by the evidence (are they self-fulfilling or contrary)? 
• Do the conclusions cohere with evidence and with the problem?

With methodology, there needs to be express systematicity; simple textual analysis is not enough. We need information on units of analysis-- how many and
what percentage?  The level of coding should be specified as well.

We should be suspicious about any instances without contrary cases. We can also assume that the author is lying-- we have to be skeptical as long as the author cannot maintain their case.

Implicative Review of articles

We need to ask questions such as:

• What value is the study for you?
• Have you learned something about the problem or the approach? The methodology?
• Has it taught you about practical processes you can emulate?
• What was the argument structure or writing style?
• Do we find value in the evidence or the way the evidence is handled?
• Does it contribute to the discipline?
• Is it innovative methodologically?
• Does it make a contribution to theory?

The half-life of communication research is about 5-years. After that, the citations rapidly drop off.

Saldana's Ch. 3 and 4

Chapter 3 of Saldana covers quite a lot of specific coding methods. Chapter 4 then concerns itself with transition between the first and second cycle of coding. 

We need to think about our ontology going into a project. It may be possible to try on other ontologies, deciding what fits best for you and your project. The theories you use are also impacted by ontology.

While we can use multiple coding schemes, we ought to decide on them before starting the work. We need  to be very certain of the theories we use.

When looking at interviews, we might want to code the questions as well-- they can expose agendas or ideas that are inserted by the interviewer.

Data does not force us to write in a particular way; science is a rhetorical exercise. In this way, we cannot really be insincere. We need to persuade a known audience, and if the audience wants numbers, we should provide numbers. It is simply an act of persuasion through the available means. There is no real difference between codes and numbers. The major difference is that most metrics measures use a priori coding, whereas qualitative work tends toward emergent coding.  Coding is a whole-body exercise; you can get tired and have definition drift.We cannot presume that our respondents are naive or unaware of our agenda.

When coding absences, we look for moments of transition. If there is a line of thought that suddenly changes to another topic, we know that there is an absence. Every single thing that is said prevents other things from being said; every presence is an absence.

Senior Center Project
We will eventually put together a statement of what we've learned from our interviews. These will be collected and given to the AARP. The project uses the EDDIE model: engage, discuss, decide, implement, and evaluate.