Media Research Methodology

1
Media Research Methodology

• Communication and Environment
• 2003

2
Theoretical Frameworks

• Consider how you can use each of the following to
  interpret your media sample
• Instrumentalist
• Dominant ideology
• Disciplinary Practices
• Power as strategy
• Structuralist
• Strategy constrained by structure

3
Instrumentalist
hide/ misrepresent facts
LEVEL ONE
4
Disciplinary Practices
LEVEL TWO
5
Structuralist
Media profit
6
Sampling or Corpus Construction

• Justifying your sample or corpus
• Selection criteria
• Time period
• Issue attention cycle (see Mercer p92)
• Publications
• Which newspapers?
• Scope of decision
• feasibility
• Size of sample
• All articles on topic
• For quantitative
• At least count numbersfor and against, orpro
  growth vs anti growth, etc
• For qualitative
• Saturationmake sure you analyse examples from
  the different perspectives on the issue
• See M Bauer B Aarts Corpus construction a
  principle for qualitative data collection in M.
  Bauer G. Gaskell (eds) Qualitative Researching
  with Text, Image and Sound, Sage, London, 2000
• Random sample can be difficult
• On reserve in the Library at USQ

7
Quantitative Analysis

• Categorise your articles
• Relative to theoretical framework
• Instrumentalist
• Biased vs. unbiased
• Disciplinary Practices
• Affect of News values on unbiased articles
• Structuralist
• Competing interests
• For vs. Against decision
• Statistical analysis of categories
• in each category
• Compare within category across publications
• For examples see
• Doyle Kellow p168 169
• Burgess Harrison p 204 209

8
Qualitative Analysis

• Look for the following
• Relative to theoretical framework
• Instrumentalist
• Evidence of managerial editorial control
• Inside information from newsroom
• Disciplinary Practices
• Reporting ontology contrasted with environmental
  ontology
• Textual analysis
• Structuralist
• Evidence of convergence of economic interests
  with explicitly biased presentation
• Textual evidence in relation to economic analysis

9
Text Analysis

• Lexicon
• Referential adequacy
• Semantic vagueness
• Unclear reference
• Semantic underdifferentiation
• Too inclusive
• Misleading encoding
• Metaphor hiding/highlighting
• Representativeness of source image
• Nominalisation
• Transformation of process into object
• metaphor as integration of contexts
• factsgt morals
• meaning
• definitions vs. family resemblance
• Contextual dependence
• See Harre et al

10
Example of Disciplinary Practices Analysis

• Categorisation of articles
• Selection Criteria
• free from explicit bias
• follows journalistic standards of good writing
• selected from student newsfile, July - November,
  1997
• all environment articles from one local, state,
  national paper/week
• Categorisation
• pro environment
• report negative consequences of human activities
• neutral
• ignore or marginalise environmental consequences

11
News Analysis
12
Recycling faces scrapping over prices tumble
The Chronicle 17/8/97

• See figure 2.4 Study Book p2A.10

• Environmental cost of using and transporting
  timber for new paper does not enter market,
  leading to market distortions.
• market collapse oversupply report as fact
  a lack of demand for recycled paper without
  reporting the impact of externalities on market
  prices and hence on demand.
• Reporting facts without providing a contextual
  analysis of interdependent structural dynamics
  creates a misleading frameword for interpreting
  events.

• The proposed levy is reported without explaining
  it is intended as a correction to such market
  distortions

13
Creek-side business staff lead way with
clean-up The Chronicle 25/8/97

• See figure 2.5 Study Book p2A.12

Feel-good storyenvironmental issues trivialised

• Removing rubbish is equated with cleaning up the
  creek.
• Because this is an action that produces change
  it is newsworthy.
• No mention is made of the role of abattoir
  effluent in creek degradation.
• Effluent is an ongoing process that involves no
  change so is not news worthy.
• Burning scrub (an action) is reported as a way of
  cleaning out vermin.
• No mention is made of the impact regular burning
  will have on creek wildlife and habitat (requires
  ecosystem analysis).
• The desirability of a bush regeneration program
  to increase wildlife habitat is not mentioned
  (requires ecosystem analysis).