Sept 12, 2024

CS235: Communication Research Methods

- Kahoot Questions
- Why does the author say that we do research all the time?
- Because we constantly gather information about the things around us
- Whats the difference between scholarly and everyday research?
- Scholarly research is more systematic and more objective
- What did Nietzsche say about the role of interpretations?
- He suggested that we cannot know facts, only perspectives
- Diachronic research focuses on change over time and synchronic research
focuses on change over distance
- True
- Qualitative research covers numbers, magnitude and measurement while
quantitative covers…
- False
- Why know about research
- Understand the limitations of everyday, commonsense ways of knowing
- Become aware of the limitations of mass media information
- Recognize the importance of logic and evidence as key elements of scientific
thought
- Become critical consumers of information
- Become capable of engaging in scientific inquiry
- Everyday ways of knowing
- Tradition and Authority
- Experts
- Faith and folkways
- Media myths
- Common sense
- Casual and probabilistic
- Looking at things where theres always a present occurrence
- Causal way of thinking
- Subject to biases and errors in reason
- Reasoning
- Personal experience
- Just cause one experiences doesnt mean its true
- Everyday vs. Scholarly research
 -
- Common errors in everyday research
- Inaccurate observation
- gender + racial discrimination
- Overgeneralization
- Selective observation
- Made-up information
- When things don't fit into pattern we make do with what we know
- Halo effect
- Positively pre-judging on the basis of which is perceived
- Mystification
- Don't know how to explain something one turns to nonexistent facts
- Opinions and feelings
- Confirmatory bias
- Prejudices and biases
- Systems of Knowledge
- Ontology: refers to any philosophy or system of thought about what can be said
to exist
- Epistemology: refers to the philosophical theory of knowledge, consisting of
attempts to answer questions about how we can know what we known, and
whether this knowledge is reliable or not
- Methodology: is focused on the specific ways – the methods – that we can use
to try to understand our world better
- The Scholarly Research Process

-
- Scientific method
- (observation - questions - hypothesis - experiment - conclusions - result)
 - Logically reasoned research that follows explicit procedures and is open to
inspection. There must be a loose consensus of the assumptions and procedures
used.
- Poppers Hypothetico-Deductive Scheme
- Scientific theory
- Deductive: the researcher presumes a relationship between particular variables
ahead of time, then deduces a testable hypothesis
- Theory - hypothesis - observation - confirmation
- Inductive: the researcher selects a particular phenomenon and observing every
identifiable variable that might be related to it, then sorting through data, identifies
patterns that may allow for a generalization
- Observation - pattern - tentative hypothesis - theory
- Empirical: evidence observed through the 5 senses
- Empiricism: the view that knowledge is derived from sensory experience, for
example visual observation.
- Norms of the Scientific/Research Community
- Universalism: research is to be judged on merit alone
- Organized Skepticism: challenge and question
- Disinterestedness: impartial and open to new ideas
- Communalism: shared information
- Cumulative: knowledge builds on previous research
- Honesty: violation is a major taboo
- Types of research
- Who conducts research
- Primary research
- Secondary research
- Types of data collected
- Qualitative research
- Quantitative research
- Social theory
- A system of ideas that condense and organize thoughts about the social world.
Ideas are broken down into concepts and variables, then organized in relation to
each other.
- Diachronic and Synchronic Research
- In diachronic or historical studies, we focus on change over time, and in
synchronic or comparative studies, we study change over distance, to put things
in rather simplistic terms

-
- Qualitative vs. Quantitative research methods
 -
- Social Science research
- Qualitative: small samples, focus on depth of understanding, rich in detail
- Quantitative: large samples, focus on variables, condense data, test for
statistical significance, ability to generalize to larger population
- Both types of research are essential to a full understanding of societies.
Many argue that the best research combines elements of both.
- Historical/archival research and content analysis involve both quantitative
and qualitative research
- Understanding data
- Data: the empirical evidence one collects
- Quantitative data: data expressed as numbers
- Qualitative data: data expressed as words, pictures, objects
- Social science in Canada
- Disciplines
- Anthropology
- Economics
- History
- Political science
- Psychology
- Sociology
- Communication studies

- The communication research Triangle

-
- Primary and Secondary Research
- Primary research involves firsthand observation and study by a researcher. For
example, you survey a group of people on some topic and then see what the
data reveal
- Secondary research uses research performed by others to come to some
conclusion about a topic or make some kind of argument
- Purpose of the literature review
 - Learn from others (argument, theory, method, evidence, etc.) & avoid repetition
- Participate in a conversation/building of knowledge
- Provide valuable background/context
- Strengthen arguments, add evidence
- Identify holes/gaps
- Identify agenda for future research
- Search strategies
- What topic should we research
- Pick a topic that interests you
- There are 2 general search strategies
- Specific to general
- General to specific

- What do you want to know

- The general area that you want to research
- What you know about it already
- Who did or said what, when and how
- What differences and similarities there ate between these
- Some hunches about why
- What you do not know and want to know - and why this is important or interesting
- AI and Citations
- Reading research reports

-
- Guiding questions for analyzing research
- What topic was investigated?
- What are the research question(s) or hypothesis(es)?
- What methods were used?
- Identify the independent and dependent variables.
- What are the important theories and concepts?
- Did they used data? Which data? How collected?
- Consider the sample size: n = ?
- Evaluate the sampling method that was used. Was it representative and
generalizable?
- Who was sampled and who wasn’t?
- How was the method was conducted? Are there flaws with reliability, validity,
etc.?
- What were the conclusions, findings and key results?
- What problems (if any) did you find with the methods used?
- How valid are the findings, and how useful is the research?
- What are the sources used?
Communication Research Methods
Sept 19, 2024

- So what do we do with all this

- consider these approaches as ways that can help us to interpret and analyze the
world
- how do we encounter images, texts, etc and what do we do with them?
- how do we understand the background or context in which word, image and text
occur?

- Semiotics
- The basic unit of semiotics is the spoken or written word, a drawn figure, or a
material object unified in the mind with a particular cultural concept
- Semiotics / Discourse Analysis
- Sign = something that stands for something else
- Signifier= the thing that points to an underlying meaning
- Signified= the meaning to which the signifier points
- Denotative meaning= manifest or more obvious meaning of a signifier and as
such indicates its function
- Connotative meaning = meaning associated with a certain social context that can
arise in addition to it denotative meaning
- Polysemy = the quality of a sign
- Every sign is composed of
- a 'signifier' - the form the sign takes which points to an underlying meaning
- and
- the 'signified' - the Concept/ meaning it represents.
- De Saussure
- Signs is that they are made up of sounds and images, what he called signifiers,
and the concepts these sounds and images bring to mind, what eh called
signified
- Charles Peirce
- He believed there were three kinds of signs : icons indexes and symbols. Icons
signify resemblance indexes signify by cause and effect and symbol signify on
the basis of convention
- “What semiotic theory tells us, by implication, is that we are social animals and that the
way we make sense of the world is connected to the social milieu in which we are
brought up.” (pg 75)
- Meanings are a social product, embedded within cultural contexts.
- In semiotic thought, we use codes to refer to structured behavior and argue that much
human behavior can be seen as coded, as having secret or covert structures not easily
understood or recognized.
- Culture can be seen as collections of codes. To understand culture, you have to
“decode” the behavior of people in the culture or subculture. Semiotics helps us interpret
 the meaning of forms and kinds of communication whose meaning, or in some cases
whose most significant meaning, is not evident.” (Pg 79)
- Language is a key element of this.
- Saussure's distinction between language and speaking
- Language (langue): Social institutions where there are rules and conventions
- Speaking (parole): Individual use of riles and how they choose to use them
- From a single uttering of speech to a systematic ordering of language
- How discourses inscribe specific ways of speaking and understanding
- A discourse is
- An interrelated set of text (including their production, dissemination and
reception) that brings an object into being
- A group of statements which provide a language for talking about - i.e.
representing a particular kind of knowledge about a topic
- Examining a discourse
- Qualitative
- Textual
- Language is the main object of inquiry
- Originated in linguistics and social psychology
- Used in sociology, communication & cultural studies, legal studies,
education, management, history, political science...
- How meaning, social categories, knowledges and relations are shaped by
discourse
- Language does not simply reflect reality in a transparent way, but is
important to constructing and organizing the way in which we understand
that reality.
- Allied concepts
- Denotation - the literal meaning of a term or object. It is basically descriptive
- Connotation - deals with the cultural meanings that become attached to a term
- Denotation & Connotation
- Denotative level : a photo of the movie star
- Connotative level : associations with glamor, sexuality, beauty or depression or
drug taking and ultimately death
- Roland Barthes (1977, 1986)
- Denotation: male, rather than female, black nit white, young not old; uniform,
saluting, french
- Connotation: Colonialism, patriotism, nationalism
- Allied concepts
-
concept Ex

Metaphor refers to communicating by “My love is a red rose.”

analogy.
 Simile is a weaker subcategory of “My love is like a red rose”
metaphor, which uses like or as. For
example

Metonymy deals with communicating Some expensive brands can be

by association. associated with wealth

Synecdoche is a subcategory of Referring to the White House to stand

metonymy in which a part is used to for the American presidency and the
stand for the whole or vice versa Pentagon to stand for the American
military.

Intertextuality deals with the relation All texts are influenced by texts that
between texts and is used to show preceded them
how texts borrow from one another,
consciously and sometimes
unconsciously.

Codes refer to ways of interpreting We have codes of how to cook steak-

messages that are written/expressed we don’t boil steak, but we grill it.
in ways that are not easily
understood.
- Codes used to refer to structured behavior and all human behavior is coded and hard to
“crack”
- Semiotics used to help interpret these meanings and decode the behavior of people
- In other words, how can we understand the nuances and complexities of the ways that
people act within particular contexts?

- Rhetorical analysis
- Aristotle divided rhetoric into two general areas—public speaking and logical
discussion—and explained that although every field of thought has its own
means of persuasion, rhetoric is the term for means of persuasion useful in all
fields. He suggests three modes of persuasion in rhetoric, what he called ethos,
pathos, and logos
- Rhetoric and the mass media
- Medhurst and Benson list a number of understanding of the term rhetoric
as it applies to media
1. Intentional persuasion
2. Social values and effects of symbolic forms found in texts (whether intentionally
placed or not)
3. Techniques by which the arts communicate to audiences
4. Persuasion techniques used by characters in dramatic or narrative works
5. Study of genres or types of texts
 6. Implicit theories about human symbolic interaction implied by authors of symbolic
works
7. An ideal for the conduct of communication among humans
8. Study of what makes form in texts effective (known as pragmatics)
- Theorists

-
- Framework for a general reading of theory and research materials
- Who is the writer? Where are they coming from? What are the implications of
their position? Is there a specific connection to systems of power and authority
here?
- What are they saying? What is the basis of their argument, in a direct sense, but
is there another implicit or less direct message, ideology, or agenda here?
- To who? Who is the intended audience? Are they writing for a specific group? Is
there some assumed knowledge or context here? That may need to be filled in
for those who are not familiar?
- In which channel? Where is the material being presented? Is it an academic
peer-reviewed journal? A blog? An industry newsletter? How does this affect the
way it is written and what is assumed?
- What is the impact or the effect? What is the piece intending to do? Is there a
desire for critique? A specific policy prescription? Are they weighing into a larger
debate that we could situate the work within?
- Each of these pieces form part of the context in which something is written/created
- so this is a further place to develop our analysis and our researching skills
- how do we look at not just materials in the world - signs, texts, images, etc.
- but also how we look at pieces of research as well
- how can we develop skills to ‘decode’, as it were, what it being said and WHY it
is being said
- in other worlds:
- how can we identify the subjective nature of the things that we encounter
in the world
- this forms a set of critical tools that can aid us in seeing through the mist
of purported objectivity, and actually understand the very real, and
material ways that ideas and perspectives are situated in our world
- Towards subjectivity and positionality
- so we can consider the specific context - of culture, politics, ideology, philosophy
etc. that an author or a work in placed within
- how does this affect the way that they do their work, the assumptions that they
have about the world, the conclusions that they draw?
 - For yourself:
- what are the key factors/experiences that influence the way that you see
the world?
- how might this differ from someone else?
- how does this connect to a given topic?
- how might it change your approach, the things that you notice, or the
conclusions that you draw?

- “Positionality is the notion that personal values, views, and location in time and space
influence how one understands the world. In this context, gender, race, class, and other
aspects of identities are indicators of social and spatial positions and are not fixed, given
qualities.” Luis Sánchez, Encyclopedia of Geography, SAGE
Knowledge

- “ ‘There’s no enunciation without positionality. You have to position yourself somewhere

in order to say anything at all’ (Hall, 1990, p. 18). Positionality represents a space in
which objectivism and subjectivism meet.”

- “ ‘Positionality is thus determined by where one stands in relation to ‘the other’ (Merriam,
Johnson-Bailey, Lee, Lee, Ntseane, & Muhamad, 2001, p. 411). Who am I in the context
of researching issues of difference? Reflecting upon my experiences, I am reminded that
the old adage that ‘when you assume, you make an ass of ‘u’ and ‘me’ rings true.” Brian
Bourke, “Positionality: Reflecting on the Research Process,” 2014 (p. 3 & 5)

From
- [Link]
acism-elearning-modules/module-1-positionality-power-equality-and-equity

- Positionality suggests ways that we can bring ourselves and orient ourselves, to the
world
- Or in this case, how we orient ourselves to the practice of research
- With a negative connotation or level of dismissal that often comes with objectivity
or subjectivity
- But with a keen awareness of the contexts that are continually informing howwe
engage with materials and ideas

- Applied rhetorical analysis

- Rhetoricians traditionally were interested in one element of the communication
process, the matter of persuasion
- Common Rhetorical devices
- Allegory
- Allegories are narratives in which abstract ethical and philosophical
beliefs are represented by characters and events—that is, made concrete
- Alliteration
 - Generally, using a number of words in a passage that start within the
same letter or that repeat some vowel
- Allusions
- Allusions are indirect references to people, places, ideas, and events of
social political, historical or cultural significance
- Ambiguity
- This refers to statements whose meaning can be several different things.
It can be intended or inadvertent, but in both cases it can lead to
misunderstanding
- Definition
- There are dictionary definitions, which refer to the way words are
conventionally used. Stipulative definitions refer to a definition given for
the purpose of argument. Operational definitions, offer a list of operations
to perform that will lead to an understanding of what is being defined.
- Euphemism
- Here we use language to avoid terms that may seem offensive, harsh, or
inappropriate
- Paradox
- The term paradox comes from the Greek word “paradoxon” and means
contrary to expectations, beliefs , or opinions. Paradoxes seem to be
self-contradictory
- Understatement
- This involves suggesting something is less important than it really is
- Bringing in a subjective understanding
- these kind of approaches show the necessity of de-coding meanings and
intentions
- these are not given, but are up for a certain level of debate or interpretation
based on our own perspectives
- within Comm Studies part of our work is to move beyond what might be taken for
granted, what is the most obvious, and seek out greater or deeper forms of
understanding
- we can move towards an analysis of power and ideology
Communication Research Methods
Sept 26, 2024

Ideological Criticism and Discourse Analysis

- What is ideology
- Ideologies can be defined as systematic beliefs about politics held by members
of some groups or members of political parties. If we look carefully we can find
ideologies in cultural texts that express values, biases, and belief systems
- Ideologies seem to be natural and te result of common sense. I people think
something is natural, they believe it cannot be changes; it is only when they see
political arrangements as social and cultural that they recognize that they can
change things
- Conservatism
- Liberalism
- Fundamentalism
- Communitarianism
- anarchism
- Ideologies are not only expressed in and reproduced by language use, but also by other
social practices
- Those of discrimination and exclusion
- Critical discourse analysis
- Social linguist focus on style, structural patterns found in genres such as news
stories or editorials
- Critical discourse analysis includes these concerns but also considers how
stories are framed, how readers are positioned relative to the texts they
consume, and how the use of language/image leads readers to make certain
interpretations and shape their ideologies
- Conversation analysis
- Originated in ethnomethodology
- Study of take-for-granted rules that structure social interaction
- Discourse analysis
- More than the study of talk and language (also image)
- Concerned with the ways language constitutes social reality and its effects
- Critical discourse analysis
- interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form
of social practice
- focuses on the ways social and political domination are reproduced by text and
talk
- assumption is that language and power are linked
- Studying language, social interaction
- Language and social interaction (LSI): Studies of speech, language, and gesture
in human communication including studies of discourse processes, face-to-face
interaction, cognitive processing, conversation analysis, ethnographic, micro
 ethnographic, ethnomethodological, and sociolinguistic work (LeBaron,
Mandelbaum, & Glenn, 2003, p. 2)
- Conversation analysis: Aims to describe and explain how people accomplish
social actions and events by collaboratively organizing sequences of the give and
take between individuals who listen and speak with one another.
- Understanding discourse
- From a single uttering of speech to a systematic ordering of language
- How discourses inscribe specific ways of speaking and understanding
- A discourse is:
- a) an interrelated set of text (including their production, dissemination &
reception) that brings an object into being
- b) a group of statements which provide a language for talking about – i.e.
representing- a particular kind of knowledge about a topicDiscourses of:
Race & Colonialism, Nationality, Gender, Science, etc...
- Discourse analysis
-
- Doing CDA with social media
- Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) focuses on the role of language in society and
in political processes, traditionally targeting texts produced by elites and powerful
institutions, such as news and political speeches. The aim is to reveal discourses
buried in language used to maintain power and sustain existing social relations

Research ethics
- Producing ethical research
- Voluntary
- Informed consent
- Don't want to show them your hand, but they have to show theirs
- Risk of harm
- Confidentiality
- Anonymity
- Privacy
- What might be the ethical challenges of research in a digital age
- The principle of voluntary participation requires that people not be coerced into
participating in research
- Informed consent means that prospective research participants must fully be informed
about the procedures and risks involved in research and must hive their consent to
participate
- Ethical standards also require the researchers not put participants in a situation where
they might be at risk of harm as a result of their participation. Harm can be defined as
both physical and psychological
- Almost all research guarantees the participants confidentiality -- they are assured that
identifying information will not be made available to anyone who is not directly involved
in the study. The stricter standard is the principle of anonymity which essentially means
 that the participant will remain anonymous throughout the study -- even to the
researchers themselves.
- Privacy is respected if an individual has an opportunity to exercise control over personal
information by consenting to, or withholding consent for, the collection, use and/or
disclosure of information
- Privacy
- Privacy risks in research relate to the identifiability of participants, and the
potential harms they, or groups to which they belong, may experience from the
collection, use and disclosure of personal information.
- Privacy risks arise at all stages of the research life cycle, including initial
collection of information, use and analysis to address research questions,
dissemination of findings, storage and retention of information, and disposal of
records or devices on which information is stored
- Vulnerable groups
- Those who are at particular risk in society and from the research process
- Covert research
- From misrepresenting the research to the respondents bugging or taping
conversations, covert image collection, covert participant observation
- Pushing the ethical l imits
- Concerned with studying the psychological effects of prison life the researchers
wanted to see what the psychological effects were of becoming a prisoner or
prison guard
- To do this they decided to set up a simulated a prison and then carefully noted
the effects of this institution on the behavior of all those within its walls
- The milgram experiment
- The aftermath of the Holocaust and the events leading up to World War II, the
world was stunned with the happenings in Nazi Germany.
- Could it be that Eichmann, and his million accomplices in the Holocaust
were just following orders?
- Stanley Milgram answered the call to this problem by performing a series of
studies on the Obedience to authority
- To consider:
- What can we learn from the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram
Experiment about research ethics?
- Who benefits from these studies and who is harmed?
- Are the trade offs for knowledge worth the harm and deception?
- Are there other ways to study the same phenomena that don’t inflict harm ?
- Knowledge at what cost
g
- Ethics and research institutions
- Institutional Review Board (IRB): panel of persons who reviews research
proposals with respect to ethical implications and decides whether additional
actions need to be taken to assure the safety and rights of participants.
 - By reviewing proposals for research, IRBs also help to protect both the
organizations and the researcher against potential legal implications of
neglecting to address important ethical issues of participants
- Laurier research ethics board
- The University Research Ethics Board (REB) reviews and approves research
projects of faculty members, graduate students and staff, while the departmental
ethics review committees, for the most part, review and approve projects of
undergraduate students.
- However, if the undergraduates’ projects are part of the faculty member own
research program or if the participants are at greater than ‘minimal risk’ by
participating the University REB needs to review and approve the project.
Oct 3, 2024
CS235 Lec 4
- Interviews
- Interviews enable researchers to obtain information they cannot gain by
observation alone. The simplest way to describe an interview is as a
conversation between a researcher (someone who wishes to gain information
about a subject) and an informant (someone who presumably has information of
interest on the subject).
- Interviews are usually carried out with small samples, mostly open‐ended
questions, and prioritize depth over breadth
- Types of qualitative interviews
- Structured interviews
- Semi-structured interviews
- Unstructured interviews
- Types of interviews
- Structured interviews
- The researcher uses an interview schedule – a specific set of instructions
that guide those who ask respondents questions
- Ex. the instructions might tell what follow-up questions to ask if a
question is answered in a certain way
- Structured interview questions
- Do you think employers should provide free gym
memberships?
- Did any of your previous employers provide free
membership
- Does your current employer provide a membership
- How often do you go to the gym
- 1 time; 2 times; 3 times; 4+ times
- Do you enjoy going to the gym
- Advantages
- Reduced bias
- Increased credibility, reliability and validity
- Simple, cost effective and efficient
- Disadvantages
- Formal in nature
- Limited flexibility
- Limited scope
- Response bias
- Social desirability bias
- Semi-Structured interviews
- Interviewer has a written list of questions to ask the informant but aims to
maintain the casual quality found in unstructured interviews
- Advantages
- Best of both worlds: reliability and validity
 - No distractions
- Detail and richness
- DIsadvantages
- Lower validity
- Highrisk of research bias
- Leading questions
- Social desirability bias
- Hawthorne effect
- Difficult to develop good semi-structured interview questions
- Semi-structured interviews can be difficult to conduct correctly
- Unstructured interview
- In these interviews, the researcher is focused and is trying to gain
information, but he or she exercises relatively little control over the
responses of the informant
- Advantages
- Flexibility
- Validity
- Less bias
- More detail and nuance
- Driven by participants
- Disadvantages
- Low generalization
- Low reliability
- Leading questions
- Time consuming
- Research bias
- Sampling bias
- Selection bias
- Social desirability
- Hawthorne effect
- Informal interviews
- There are few controls in these interviews; they just take place, are not
organized or focused, and are generally used to introduce researchers to
their informants

-
- Interview tips
1. Listen more , talk less
2. Follow up on participants responses
 3. Ask questions of clarifications
4. Ask to hear more about a subject (concrete details)
5. Avoid leading questions
6. Ask open-ended questions
7. Avoid yes or no questions
8. Avoid jargon and technical language
9. Do not interrupt
10. Keep participants focused
11. Tolerate silence
- Guidance and tips for qualitative interviews
- The interview process
- Introduction
- short information about self and frame of reference of the interview.
- Start with broad, open-ended question
- The role of the interviewer
- Active listening
- Empathic understanding

- Flexible, responsive
- Recording & note-taking
- Steps in interview process
- Issues in qualitative interviewing
- Building rapport
- Recruitment
- Intercultural communication
- Racism, inequality
- Gender
- Importance of language
- Power / control
- Subjectivity, reflexivity
- Bias
- Challenges in online interviews
- The Focus groups
- Small groups (no more than 7 participants) strive to learn through discussions of
conscious, semi-conscious and unconscious psychological and socio-cultural
characteristics and processes among groups either guided or unguided
discussions addressing a certain topic of interest or relevance to the group and
researcher
- Characteristics of focus groups
- Moderator
- interview facilitator draws out information from participants regarding
topics environment encourages free and open discussion great for
collecting info about young teens & elderly adults good for collecting
qualitative data when a one-shot collection in necessary
 - Dynamic
- interactions, voice, reactions “synergistic groups effect”= brainstorm
- Advantages of focus groups
- Substantive content & depth (like interviews) means for assessing intentionally
created conversations about research topics/problems (non-reactive) - gain
access to biographies, life structure, just like letters or diaries flexible high face
validity speedy results low in cost
- Disadvantages of focus groups
- Not in natural settings (simulated conversations possibly insufficient).
- Behavior mostly limited to verbal somewhat limited to psychological, cognitive,
attitudinal focus less control than interviews data difficult to analyze moderators
require special skills difference between groups problematic (reliability &
generalization) environment restricting.
- Historical/ Policy /Case Study Analysis
- Historical research:
- Understands how specific individuals, social groups or entire societies behaved
in the past; documenting how some realities or practices came to be
- Policy and case analysis: understands specific individuals, social
- groups or processes in the present day
- Descriptive and interpretive claims
- Explanatory claims
- Evaluative and reformist claims

- Descriptive: Canada has the CRTC and Communications Act which regulates
Canadian content.
- Explanatory: Canada's regulations on Radio and Telecommunications are key to
fostering and preserving Canadian identity in the face of extensive American
dominated media.
- Evaluative and reformist: Evaluating the media environment to identify
weaknesses and gaps in the regulatory framework of the CRTC/ Can Con (e.g.
there is not enough First nations content or enough resources to support it at the
same level) and to recommend changes (e.g. create a proactive budget or other
measures to change the current situation)
- Historical analysis
- Understanding a topic by constructing a chronology of events or description of
the topic in context
- Policy analysis
- Assessment of the performance of a policy (past, current, or proposed for the
future)
- Case study analysis
 - Investigation of a phenomenon in real-life context that is either typical, unique or
comparative
- Strategies for analysis
- Questioning sources : assessing the extent to which the data they provide can be
trusted to be accurate
1. Authors
2. Motives
3. Intended audience
- Resistant reading : be aware of authors perspective, and consider the facts
presented from an alternative perspective
- Read documents within parameters of a theoretical model or framework
- Approacher of historical analysis
- Chronologically : arrange data in the order of events the describe (from earliest to
latest)
- timeline
- Narrative
- Thematically:
- Review the literature
- Adopt a theatrical framework
- One may emerge when reviewing your own research
- Considerations for historical, policy and case analysis
- Referencing
- Give credit to og authors for work
- Establish source for data
- Allows readers to assess quality of source - peer-reviewed sources
- Sampling
- Feasibility
- Representativeness
- Generalizability
- Sampling
- A sample is a subset of the population
- A generalizable study is one that allows you to sample a small subpopulation and
make accurate claims about a larger populations
- A representative sample is one that reflects the population accurately so that it is
a microcosm of the population
- Representativeness: the degree to which a sample reflects the characteristics of
the population
- Who do you want to generalize to? —----------------The theoretical population
- What population can you get access to?-------------the study population
- How can you get access to them?---------------------the sampling frame
- Who is in your study? —----------------------------------the sample
Oct 10, 2024
Ethnography and Ethnomethodology
- Ethnography
- Is a research method in which a researcher is immersed in a group for an
extended period of time
- Involves observing behaviour, listening to what is said in conversations, and
asking questions/interviews
- sometimes refers to a specific focus on the culture of a group
- an understanding of people’s behaviour within the context of that culture
- Ethnography is a form of research focusing on meaning & thick description
- Involves the use of multiple techniques, primarily close field observation of
socio-cultural phenomena
- Highly reflexive
- The ethnographer focuses on a community
- Key Informants are asked to identify other informants representative of the
community
- Members
- Members living inside the culture of their group treat it as simply how the world is
and do not reflect on the presuppositions on which it is based or the knowledge
which it entails.
- Strangers
- The stranger entering a group does not have the insider's sense of the world and
instead finds it strange, incoherent, problematic and questionable.
- The stranger can become a member of the group through participation,
becoming transformed into an insider, inhabiting it in the same
taken-for-granted way as existing members.
- Approaches to Ethnography
- Macro-ethnography is the study of broadly-defined cultural groupings, such as
"the English" or "New Yorkers."
- Micro-ethnography is the study of narrowly-defined cultural groupings, such as
"local government GIS specialists" or "members of Congress."
- Symbols & Artefacts
- Symbols: are any material artefact of a culture, such as art, clothing, or even
technology. The ethnographer strives to understand the cultural connotations
associated with symbols. Technology, for instance, may be interpreted in terms of
how it relates to an implied plan to bring about a different desired state for the
culture.
- Cultural patterning: the observation of cultural patterns forming relationships
involving two or more symbols. Ethnographic research is holistic, believing that
symbols cannot be understood in isola:on but instead are elements of a whole.
- What makes it Ethnography ?
- Uses an interpretive approach:
- Meaning emerges through interac:on
- Meaning can be understood in context
 - How do people understand their experiences?
- How do people create and share meanings?
- How to employ the ethnographic method:
- selection of a culture or group
- Sampling
- review of the literature
- identification of variables of interest
- gaining access (gatekeepers?)
- cultural immersion
- gaining informants
- gathering of data in the form of observa:onal transcripts (fieldnotes), interview
recordings, photographs, video
- data analysis and theory development
-
- Gaining Access & Building Rapport
- Open/Public and closed/private settings
- Sponsorship
- Gatekeepers
- Key Informants: The Positives and Negatives
- Open settings/groups
- Communities
- Drug Users
- Public Spaces
- Closed settings/groups
- Gangs
- Firms
- Schools
- Cults
- Social Movements
- Example
- "We go out and we rifle through their closets," explains Todd Cunningham, senior
vice president of strategy and planning for MTV. "We go through their music
collec:ons. We go to nightclubs with them. We shut the door in their bedrooms
and talk to them about issues that they feel are really important to them."
- At the end of these "ethnography study" visits--for which MTV brings a check for
the teen and their video camera--Cunningham and his team translate the visit
into a video clip to show to MTV's executives.
- The merchants of cool: [Link]
(Min:20:45-28:36 )
- Classification of Participant Observer Roles
 -
- The Hawthorne effect: Reactivity and Influence
- Issues in conducting relations in the field
- Gaining trust and managing initial responses
- Impression management
- Awareness of the consequences of non-negotiable characteristics
- Dealing with marginality
- Deciding when to leave
- Ethics, Reactivity & Bias
- Covert or overt role of the observer
- Advantages & Disadvantages
- Trade offs - validity
- Reactivity
- Positionality
- Privacy, harm, power
- Leaving the field
- Impacts on researcher
- Digital Ethnography
- 1. Multiplicity
- 2. Non-digital-centric-ness
- 3. Openness
- 4. Reflexivity
- 5. Unorthodox
- The live interview method
- Live streamed interviews have been used in video game research on Twitch, but
live streaming interviews through Instagram Live is novel.
- First, to build a relationship with a research participant, the researcher conducts
an interview privately, over zoom or in person. The research questions are
developed around themes, and the conversation can flow in directions the
participant dictates.
- In Instagram Live Interviewing, involves streaming a second round of participant
interviews on Instagram Live through the participants’ Instagram pages.
- Benefits and Risks of live interviews
- Benefits
- It puts the researcher into a state of flux\
- Interview is recorded on multiple devices with good quality audio/image
- Allows the researcher to study body language and physical reactions
- Risks
 - The participant are in control of the interactions and, in turn, can guide the
conversation and redirect the research goals.
- While on live, users can distract the interviewee with harassing comments
- “isms” to avoid
- Androcentrism: ideas or methods of research which prioritize men's views of the
world, excluding the experience of women
- Sexism
- Ethnocentrism: refers to the practice of judging a different society by the
standards and values of one's own. This is seen, par:cularly by ethnographers,
as inhibi:ng understanding of other ways of life.
- Racism
- Observing the ‘Other’
- Difference, and Cross- Cultural Research: Furthering Colonialism and
Imperialism?
- Anthropology in the 50s: Counting Primitive People in Papua New Guinea
- Do you need to “be one to know one?”
- What is ethnomethodology
- What ethnomethodology provides us, is a way of studying the codes and
unconscious belief systems that lie behind our utterances and everyday actions.
- We can adapt ethnomethodological approaches to the media by analyzing
dialogue in films and television shows, images and narration on reels or TikToks.
- Ethnomethodology can study intercultural communication and looks for national
codes used by members of each culture to determine why there may be
problems when people from different cultures and countries try to communicate.
- Ethnomethodology is less interested in how people see things and more
interested in how they do things, particularly in their use of language.
3 words
- KEY Informants
-
Oct 30, 2024
Week 9
Content analysis
- What is content analysis
- “Content analysis is a careful, detailed, systematic examination and interpretation
of particular body of material in an effort to identify patterns, themes, biases, and
meanings
- Typically, content analysis is performed on various forms of human
communication; this may include various permutations of written documents,
photographs, motion pictures or videotape, and audiotapes.”

- Content analysis: Qualitative or Quantitative

- “One of the leading debates among users of content analysis is whether analysis
should be quantitative or qualitative.”
- Textual qualitative analysis of meaning vs. quantification and statistical analysis
of patterns of documentary content
- Approaches to qualitative content analysis: e.g. grounded theory
- Techniques of qualitative content analysis: e.g. coding, memo writing

- Content analysis
- Content analysis may be applied to virtually any form of communication – books,
newspaper articles, songs, speeches, poems, diaries, letters, official documents.
- Quantitative Content Analysis is: "An approach to the analysis of
documents and texts that seeks to quantify content in terms of
predetermined categories and in a systematic and replicable manner

- Claims
1. Descriptive claims: description of message characteristics, issues, contexts
2. Explanatory claims: understand meaning of messages, and/or how they affect
receivers
3. Productive claims: how future behavior may be influenced by messages

- Finding meaning
- What is the meaning and significance of the documents and their content
- Literal understanding
- Interpretive understanding - the hermeneutic process of textual analysis
- Problems with validating readings of texts

- Audiences - active or passive

- Are audiences/readers active interpreter of the documents they perceive? Or do
they passively derive meanings infused into texts by their authors?
- Importance of audiences creation of alternative meanings
- Implications for social research in terms of the conceptualisation of
objectivity and bias
- What are documents
- Writing
- Inscription on material medium
- Documents as “physically embodied texts where the containment of the text is
the primary purpose of the physical medium” (Scott 1990;12f
- Definition with a ‘hazy borderline’

- The use of documents in communication research

- Use as reference for specific pieces of information (or as a sampling frame)
- Use as resources for substantive information (object of analysis)
- Use as topics: explaining the construction of the documents themselves

- Traditional sources
- Repositories
- Libraries
- Archives
- Special collections
- Private collections
- galleries/museums

- Non-traditional data sources:

- Personal documents subject to closed access
- Letters, Diaries, Address books, emails etc.
- Documents of public origin
- Graffiti, Signs, billboards, etc.
- State documents subject to closed access
- Correspondence, Ministerial direction, policy, data
- Published documents of private origin
- Mass media products (e.g. newspapers, magazines), Timetables,
directories, and reports of commercial and professional organizations etc.

- Criteria for classifying documents

- Content: a problematic category due to great variety of types of content and
multiple types of content in one document
- Authorship: Personal versus Official/State
- Access: Degree of availability of documents to people other than their authors
- Ethics = privacy, private or intellectual property, public vs. private, use of
research & impacts of findings

- Access to information and privacy in Canada

- The Access to Information Act gives Canadian citizens, individuals and
corporations present in Canada the right to request access to any record under
the control of a federal government institution.
 - The Privacy Act provides citizens with the right to access personal information
held by the government and protection of that information against unauthorized
use and disclosure. Currently, over 250 government institutions such as,
departments and agencies, Crown corporations and wholly-owned subsidiaries
are subject to the Acts

- Four criteria for assessing documents in social research

- Authenticity
- Genuineness: is the document what it purports to be
- Authentication of authorship
- Use of internal and external evidence
- Credibility
- How distorted are the documents contents likely to be
- Selective accentuation in the description
- Sincerity
- Bias
- Accuracy
- Bias and underlying political interests
- Meaning
- What is the meaning and significance of the documents and their
content?
- Literal understanding
- Interpretive understanding – The hermeneutic process of textual analysis
- Problems with validating readings of texts
- Representativeness (exam)
- Are the consulted documents representative of the totality of relevant
documents?
- How can sampling be used here?
- Random and non-random sampling
- You can sample messages, moments in time, sections of
communication (e.g. minutes/commercials, etc.)
- Message population: well defined set of messages related
to a specific research question
- Time frame of study
- Medium
- Survival of relevant documents (historical)
- Availability and access

- Sampling considerations
- Impossible to observe all relevant events
- Time
- Cost
- Error
- Sampling bias
 - sampling/random error
- A sample is the segment of the population selected for investigation a subset of
the population
- Sampling is not exclusive to quantitative research but is also relevant to
qualitative research

- Content analysis
- Key steps
1. Start w research question
2. Decide on your sample
3. Define the recording unit
4. Devise and pretest the coding scheme to assess reliability and validity
5. Apple coding scheme to content

- Reliability & Validity

- Reliability is the extent to which a study, test, or any measuring procedure yields
the same result on repeated trials.
- Validity refers to the degree to which a study accurately reflects or assesses the
specific concept(s) that the researcher is attempting to measure.

- Concepts and Indicators

- Concepts are the building blocks of theory and represent the point around which
social research is conducted.
- Examples: social class, religious orientation, literacy, racism, nationalism,
etc.
- Concepts are labels for significant elements of the social world that seem to have
common features.
- Concepts need to be measured in order to be employed in quantitative research
to form dependent or independent variables in the process of analysis.
- Measurement as source of precise distinctions between characteristics of people
or other units of analysis
- Measurement as a consistent device for establishing differences between units of
analysis
- Measurement as source of precise estimates of the degree of empirical
relationships between concepts (example: correlation between ‘literacy’ and
‘gross domestic product’
- In order to provide a measure of a concept (often referred to as an operational definition
[...]), it is necessary to have an indicator or indicators that will stand for the concept.”
(Bryman 2004: 66)

- What is to be counted in content analysis?

- Need for clear research questions to define units of analysis
- Potentially important units of analysis:
- Significant actors
 - Words (word frequencies)
- Subjects and themes
- Dispositions

- Devise the coding scheme

1. Coding can be both deductive and inductive
2. May code for both manifest and latent content
- Manifest content is the visibly present - surface level content
- Latent content is the underlying meaning. This is a matter of inference or
interpretation by the researcher
- Pre testing the coding scheme helps to assess reliability and validity

- Reliability and Validity

- Internal validity
- Content validity
- Accuracy in operationalization/categorization
- Inter-coder reliability: % of agreed upon coding decisions (70% desirable)
- Training
- Consistency and clarity in operationalization
- Physical or syntactical unitization
- Pre-testing
- Triangulation

- Content analysis - sample coding sheet

- Advantages of content analysis

1. Time and money
- ‘Probably the greatest advantage of content analysis is its economy in terms of
both time and money. A single college student could undertake a content
analysis, whereas undertaking a survey, for example, might not be feasible.
There is no requirement for a large research staff; no special equipment is
required. As long as you have access to the material to be coded you can
undertake content analysis.’
2. Allows for error and adaptation
3. It is unobtrusive: non-reactive & ethics
4. The data are permanent and can be subjected to validity and reliability checks,
and study replication.
5. Enables longitudinal analysis: the study of processes over time

- Disadvantages of content analysis

1. Documents may be limited and partial in their content and availability
2. Difficult to assess causal relationships
3. Potential difficulties in finding the exact indicators for the variables/concepts
Examples of content analysis research
- Blah blah blah

- Global media monitoring project

- Who makes the news?
- The Global Media Monitoring Project is the largest and longest
longitudinal study on the representation of women in the world’s media.
- It is the largest advocacy initiative in the world on changing the
representation of women in the media.
- It is unique in involving participants ranging from grassroots community
organizations to university students and researchers to media
practitioners, all of whom participate on a voluntary basis.

- GMMP - Methodology
- The methodology has been updated and improved with each successive GMMP.
Refinements have been informed by approaches arising from the experiences of
media and gender justice advocates around the world and has benefitted from
the contribution of trained professional researchers. The methodology and
research instruments are made freely available in three languages.
- Quantitative Content Analysis
- Qualitative Content Analysis
- It is an adaptable methodology and research instrument that has subsequently
been used for other purposes by other organizations both at the local and
international levels.

- GMMP Reports
- This year over 120 countries are involved in the project!
- As the only international longitudinal media monitoring project in the world this
project provides vitally important reports that measure gender (in)equalities
perpetuated in and through news media globally and tracks changes over each
subsequent five-year period. These reports are used by researchers, academics
and activists to create awareness and effect change.

KEY CONCEPTS
- Content Analysis
- Representativeness
- Claims
Nov 7, 2024

Surveys
- Surveys vs interviews
- Survey
- Large sample, mostly close-ended questions, breadth over depth

- Types of survey studies

- Cross-sectional
- Snap shot of one point in time
- Longitudinal
- Pattern over time
- Trend study
- Track changes in the same population
- Panel study
- Track changes with the same individuals

- Surveys
- The systematic collection of selected information from all or part of a
population
- Surveys are used to describe the population (age, gender,
attitudes, etc.)
- They are used for examining the relationships between two
variables or more and to deductively test social theories /
quantitative

- Considerations for surveys and interviews

- Response rates
- % of sample who agree to participate (or % who provide usable
data)
- Interviewer effects
- Respondent error/ bias

- Error in surveys
- Sampling
- Interviewer effects
- Response bias
- Questionnaire / instrumentation problems : response sets, clarity, etc.

- Survey method
- Strengths
- Large populations
- Large number of issues
- Consistent
 - Operational definitions
- Fast / current information
- Inexpensive
- Quantitative data
- Common, therefore dont have to reinvent the wheel
- High reliability
- Weaknesses
- Miss the issues
- Truth? Especially in personal matters?
- Artificial / unnatural
- Close-ended questions
- Limit expression
- Not flexible / interactive
- Forced / coerced
- Representativeness often difficult to achieve
- Rates or refusal to participate
- Small % answer / return
- Writing good questions is difficult

- Computer assisted and telephone surveys can be digitized at the point of data
collection
- Random digit dialing (RDD)
- Online surveys
- Quantitative survey data can be analyzed presented using computer
software such as SPSS, SAS, EXCEL, SYSTAT

- Types of questionnaire administration

- Self administered
- Individual or group
- Mail survey
- Email
- online
- Researcher administered
- Face to face
- Individual or group
- Telephone
- Online

- Questionnaire construction
- Questionnaire format
- Dichotomous questions
- Contingency questions
- Matrix questions
- Likert scales
 - Questions order
- Avoiding response sets (vary question format, wording, randomize
response options)
- Avoiding non-response, fatigue, bias

- Types of questions
- Open ended
- Closed ended
- Contingency questions
- Matrix
- Usually all combined

- Closed format / ended questions

- Advantages
- Quicker and easier to complete
- Better response rate and less missing data
- Easy to process data, often pre-coded
- Easy to compare answers
- Intercoder reliability
- Disadvantages
- Forced / coerced responses
- Errors in design (mutually exclusive (age) / exhaustive)
- Trapped / lack of flexibility
- Lack of depth / challenges to validity

- Rules of thumb for survey questions

1. Avoid long questions, be short and sweet!
2. Create balance between positive and negative fixed responses (avoid
leading questions) e.g. Please select all the reasons you hate Trump?
3. Don’t ask two questions in one (Double-Barreled), assumptive or vague
questions: “Which political party did you vote for at the last election and
why?”
4. Ensure that respondents have the requisite knowledge (capacity). Are the
questions meaningful/relevant?
5. Use simple language Avoid technical terms, jargon and acronyms
6. Ensure mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories
7. Avoid very general questions. Be specific! Provide a frame of reference.

- Thinking ahead
- Questionnaire construction, including type of questions, operationalization
and coding schemes will have consequences for analysis
- Understanding variables
- Understanding levels of measurement
- Variables
- From concepts to operationalization: When researchers identify empirical
indicators and create research instruments to measure concepts.

- What is a variable
- Variables: qualities on which units of analysis vary.
- Specifically, variables represent persons or objects that can be
manipulated, controlled, or merely measured for the sake of
research.
- Variation: How much a variable varies. Those with little variation
are called constants.
- Independent Variables
- These variables are ones that are more or less controlled and
manipulated
- The variation is relatively known or taken into account
- Often there are many in a given study
- Often seen as the ‘cause’ factors

- Dependent variables
- Dependent variables are not controlled or manipulated in any way, but
instead are simply measured or registered
- These vary in relation to the independent variables
- There can be any number of dependent variables, but usually there is one
- Usually the DV is the substantive concept or phenomenon you are
interested in - often the “effect or outcome”

- Correlation, Causation & spuriousness

- Correlation
- When variables vary in relation to another
- Causation
- When a variable causes the variation in the other
- Spurious relationship
- When the relationship between 2 variables is in fact caused by
some other factor

- Levels of measurement and variable operationalization

- Categorical - nominal and ordinal scales
- Dicotomous = 0/1, Y/N
- Continuous - ratio and interval

- Levels of measurement have consequences for analysis

- The higher the level, the more advance the statistics
- Ratio
- Absolute zero
 - Interval
- Distance is meaningful
- Ordinal
- Attributes can be ordered
- Nominal
- Attributes are only named; weakest

- Example of variables
- TV Show Preference
- Newspaper Readership
- Media Coverage
- Sensational Image
- Type of Film
- Racialization
- Region
- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Education
Nov 14, 2024
Surveys II - Review and levels of measurement
- Types of survey questions
- Open ended
- Closed ended
- Dichotomous
- Contingency
- Matrix
- Likert scale
- Mutually exclusive
- Mutually exhaustive
- Operationalization
- From concepts to measurement
- When researchers identify empirical indicators and create research
instruments to measure concepts
- What is a variable
- Simply, something that varies
- Specifically, variables represent persons or objects that can be manipulated,
controlled, or merely measured for the sake of research
- Variation: How much a variable varies
- Those with little variation are called constants
- Independent variables
- These variables are ones that are more of less controlled and manipulated
- The variation is relatively known or taken into account
- Often there are many in a given study
- Often seen as the “cause” factors
- Dependent variables
- Dependent variables are not controlled or manipulated in any way, but instead
are simply measured or registered
- These vary in relation to the independent variables
- There can be any number of dependent variables, but usually there is one
- Usually the DV is the substantive concept or phenomenon you are interested in -
often the “effect” or outcome
- Correlation, causation, and spuriousness
- Correlation
- When variables vary in relation to another
- Causations
- When a variable causes the variation in the other
- Spurious relationship
- When the relationship between 2 variables is in fact caused by some
other factor
- Nominal variables
- Nominal variables
 - Also known as categorical variables, are comprised of categories that
java no relationship to one another except to say that they are different
- Ex religion
- 0= None
- 1= Muslim
- 2= Christian
- 3= Buddhist
- 4= Jewish
- 5= Other
- Ordinal variables
- Categories that can be ranked, but the distances between the categories are not
equal or known across the range
- Interval/Ratio variables
- Units exist and thus the distances between the categories can be made identical
across the range of categories
- Ex. age
- Four levels of measurement

-
Descriptive Statistics
- Descriptive Statistics
- This term statistics refers, very generally, to the collection description, and
analysis of numerical information
- Descriptive statistics are used to describe the basic features of the data in a
study
- Descriptive statistics are typically distinguished from inferential statistics
- With descriptive statistics you are simply describing what is or what the
data shows
- With inferential statistics, you are trying to reach conclusions that extends
beyond the immediate data alone
- Univariate analysis
- Refers to the examination of one variable at a time
- Distribution
- Measures of central tendency
- Measures of dispersion
- Frequency distributions
 - Frequency tables provide the number of people and the percentage belonging to
each of the categories of the variable in question
- Can be created for all three variable types
- Measures of Central Tendency
- The central tendency of a distribution is an estimate of the "center" of a
distribution of values. There are three major types of estimates of central
tendency:
- Mean: average as understood as everyday use – that is, the sum of all values in
a distribution divided by the number of values
- Mode: the value that occurs more frequently in a distribution
- Median: the mid-point in a distribution of values, derived by arraying all the
values in a distribution from the smallest to the largest and then finding the
middle point
- Ex. 93, 83, 80, 77, 75, 71, 69, 68, 68, 64, 55
- Median = 71
- Mode = 68
- Mean =73
- Arithmetical mean (average)
- The arithmetical average of all the results is called the mean.
- We calculate this by adding up all the values in the
- Range and dividing by the number of separate observed values which make up
the distribution.
- Diagrams
- Sometimes used to display quantitative data
- With nominal or ordinal variables, the bar chart and the pie chart are two of the
easiest
- To display an interval/ratio variable, a histogram is likely to used
- The histogram
- Bar chart
- Measures of dispersion
- Dispersion: a single number describing the variation of scores around a measure
of central tendency.
- Most obvious way is by the range: the difference between the maximum and the
minimum value in a distribution of values associated with an interval/ratio variable
can be applied to an ordinal variable
- Another measure is the variance or standard deviation: measure of the “typical”
difference between an observation in a population and the population mean
interval/ratio variables
- Range
- The high and low values in the distribution are 55 and 93. These two figures give
us the range of the distribution (i.e., the upper and lower limits of the results).
- The range is simply the highest value minus the lowest value. In our example
distribution, the high value is 93 and the low is 55, so the range is 93 - 55 = 38.
- Variation
 - Measures how closely the values in a distribution are to the mean ( the
arithmetical average)
- The Variation is calculated as follows:
- 1. Calculate the mean (as before, adding them up and dividing by the
number of separate entries).
- 2. subtract the mean from each of the scores in turn. This will give us a
separate result for each of the figures in the distribution, each result
indicating how far that particular value is from the mean of the distribution.
And some of the results will be negative numbers, since some of the
observed results will be less than the mean for all the results.
- 3. square each value calculated in the previous step (i.e., multiply it by
itself) (and remember that squaring a negative number always produces a
positive number)
- 4. add up these figures and divide by the number of entries in the range of
values. This average we obtain is called the Variation or Variance.
- Measuring Dispersion: Standard Deviation
- is a measure of the extent to which a distribution is grouped around the average
(the mean) or spread out away from the mean.
- The smaller the standard deviation in a distribution, the more all the values will
tend to cluster around the mean; the larger the standard deviation the more the
values will be distributed away from the mean.

-
- Bivariate Analysis
- Examines two variable simultaneously looks for a relationship between them
- Aim is to search for evidence that variation in one variable coincides with
variation in the other
- In a bivariate analysis, you compare two variables even if we aren’t making an
explicit causal argument, we tend to think of one variable as the outcome and the
other as the explanatory variable
- Because two variables complicate the story, we tend to collapse and simplify
information more in a bivariate analysis than in a univariate analysis.
- Options in a Bivariate Analysis
- You might use a comparison across lots of categories (like a chi-square analysis)
to find category matches that are unexpectedly frequent or infrequent.
 - You might collapse the outcome variable into two categories to make
comparisons across categories of the explanatory variable.
- You might report the outcome variable as a measure of central tendency and
compare categories of the explanatory variable.
- You might use a summary measure (like a correlation or regression coefficient) to
describe the full distribution of both variables
- Bivariate Analysis
- Contingency table: a table of numbers in which the relationship between two
variables is shown.
- Contingency tables can usefully be broken down into rows and columns.
- Percentages placed in the cells of the table, giving the proportion which
each cell contributes to the sum of particular rows or columns, are often
helpful in detecting the strength and direction of relationships.
- Most flexible of all methods of analyzing relationships in that they can be
employed in relation to any pair of variables, from nominal to interval
- Softwares: SPSS / R & Data Analysis
- For large data sets
- Quantitative data from any method
Nov 21, 2024
Sampling
- Samples and sampling
- A sample is a segment of the population selected for investigation
- Sampling is when you include a subset of the population in your study
- Sampling is not exclusive to quantitative research; it is also relevant to
qualitative research
- Why sampling
- Its impossible to observe all relevant events
- Time
- Cost
- Error
- Bias
- Important concepts
- A representative sample is one that reflects the population accurately, so that it is
a microcosm of the population. Representativeness is when the study reflects the
population characteristics accurately, so that it is a microcosm of the population
- A generalizable study is one that allows you to sample a small subpopulation and
make accurate claims about a larger population. A study is generalizable when it
allows you to make accurate claims about a larger population beyond your study
- Sampling terminology
- Population
- The universe of units from which the sample is to be selected
- Sample
- The segment of population that is selected for investigation
- Sampling frame
- List of all units from which you can draw a sample
- Representative sample
- A sample that reflects the population accurately
- Sample bias
- Distortion in the representativeness of the sample
- Sampling Bias
- The notion that those selected are not “typical” or “representative” of the larger
populations that have been chosen from
- Three sources can be identified
1. If sampling is not random or chosen by chance
2. If the sampling frame or list of potential subjects is inadequate
3. If some sample members refuse to participate or cannot be contacted
- Examples of sampling frames
- Covering the general population
- Register of electors; telephone directory; birth certificates; death
certificates; postcode address file
- Covering institutions
 - Directory of university, school or college; health services directory;
directory of penal institutions
- Covering professional groups
- Medical directory; registers of psychologists; nurses; osteopaths; register
of chartered surveyors; charities register
- Some other groups
- A university departments list of students attending a course; hospital
admission daily log book; a school register of pupils or students; an
employers record of employees; a solicitors record of clients
- Sampling frames
- Sampling frames can either be existing or compiled - either way, you must be
aware of their limitations
- Official / full population list
- Census divisions
- Corporate/ sponsored lists
- Sampling error
- The difference between a sample and the population from which it is selected,
even though a probability sample has been selected
- It is important to note that probability sampling can eliminate sampling
error
- Avoiding bias
- A biased sample does not represent the population since some other groups are
over represented; others and under–represented
- Sources of this bias might be
- Non-probability sampling
- An inadequate sample frame
- Non-response
- Probability sampling reduces sampling error and allows for inferential
statistics
- Probability samples
- Simple random sample
- Most basic for of probability sample
- Each unit of the population has an equal probability of inclusion in the
sample
- Systematic sample
- A variation of the simple random sample
- In this type of probability sample, one uses an interval to select the
desired sample size so that you can get adequate representation of the
entirety of the sampling frame
- Why use a systematic random sample
- Ease
- precision
- Representative across the sampling frame
- Basic terms
 - N= the number of cases in the sampling frame
- n= the number of cases in the sample
- f= n/N = the sampling fraction
- k=N/n= the interval size
- Stratified random sampling
- Stratifying the population by a criterion and selecting either a simple
random sample or a systematic sample from each of the resulting strata
- Why use a systematic random sample
- Increases representativeness to you overall population - and to
subgroups
- Multi-stage cluster sampling
- A multi-stage approach involving clusters first and then something else –
either further cluster or population units (usually geographical) The
primary sampling unit (the first stage of the sampling procedure) is not the
individuals or unit of the population to be interviewed, but an aggregate of
them, known as clusters
- The qualities of a probability sample
- Many researchers prefer probability samples because they can generalize their
findings from a sample to the population & therefore can generate statistics.
- No definitive answer as to sample size
- It is the absolute size of a sample that is important, not its relative size.
Sample size is influenced
- How big should my sample be
- When a population is heterogeneous, like a whole country or city, the sample
drawn are likely to be highly varied
- A homogenous population, such as members of an occupation are likely to have
less variation
- The greater the heterogeneity of a population, the larger a sample should be =
maximizes the chance that all groups are represented
- Sample size
- Increasing the size of a sample increases the precision of a sample
- A large sample, however, does not guarantee precision
- As sample size increases, sampling error decreases
- Problem of non-response must be considered
- Response rate = % of sample who agree to participate ( or % who provide usable
data)
- Responders and non-responders may differ on a crucial variable
- Sample surveys make censuses like Booth’s unnecessary
- As sample size increases, the margin of error in generalising to the population
decreases.
- A confidence interval: gives an estimated range of values which is likely to
include an unknown population parameter, the estimated range being
calculated from a given set of sample data
 - Statistical inference: The process of reaching conclusions concerning a
population upon the basis of random samplings
- Error and sample size
- How much error can you take
- Margin of error is based on a difference between thetrue value of a characteristic
of the population and the value estimated from a random sample
- Types of non-probability sampling
- Convenience sampling
- Purposive sampling
- Snowball sampling
- Quota sampling
- Maximum variation
- Non probability = non random
- Convenience sampling
- A sample that is available to the researcher by virtue of its accessibility
- Chances are the researcher will receive all or almost all od the questionnaires
back, for a good response rate
- Purposive sampling
- Subjects are selected because of some particular characteristic (on purpose)
- Criteria
- Theory
- unique /typica case
- Etc…
- Snowball Sampling
- Form of non-probability sampling
- Typically used in qualitative research
- A researcher makes initial contact with a small group of people who are
relevant to the research topic and then uses them to establish contact
with others
- A strength of the approach is that it can assist in locating hard to reach
populations, or those with particular characteristics (purposive)
- A problem with snowball sampling is that it is very unlikely to be representative of
the population
- Quota Sampling
- Aims to produce a sample that reflects a population in terms of relative
proportions of people in different categories: gender, ethnicity, age groups, etc.,
and often in combination with one another
- Unlike a stratified sample, the sampling of individuals is not carried out randomly,
since the final selection of people is left up the interviewer
- Maximum Variation
- Purposefully picking a wide range of variation on dimensions of interest…
documents unique or diverse variations that have emerged in adapting to
different conditions. Identifies important common patterns that cut across
variations
 - To obtain information about the significance of various circumstances for
processes and outcome (eg. three to four cases that are very different on ond
dimension: eg largest, median, and smallest size; government aided,
not-for-profit and commercial funding patters; city, town and rural area
- With maximum variation sampling you try to include all the extremes in the
population
- SUmmary of Sampling types
- Virtual sampling issues
- Many people have more than one e-mail address and use more than one Internet
service.
- A household may have one computer but several users.
- Internet users are a biased sample of the population in that that tend to be better
educated, wealthier, younger, and not representative in ethnic terms.
- Few sampling frames exist of the general online population
Experiments
- Experiments
- An experiment aims to:
1. Demonstrates whether something is true,
2. Examines the validity of an hypothesis or theory, or
3. Attempts to discover new information.
- The structure of an experiment
1. Experiment will involve two groups of people: the experimental group (also
known as the treatment group, intervention group, or stimulus group) and the
control group. Something will be done to the experimental group, but it will not be
done to the control group.
2. Persons must be randomly assigned to either the experimental group or the
control group.
3. A pretest is done. There are two kinds of variables—independent and dependent.
You measure the groups in terms of a dependent variable
4. You perform the experiment and introduce one independent variable to the
experimental group. Nothing is done with the control group.
5. You conduct a posttest to see if there’s a significant difference between the
experimental group and the control group relative to the variable introduced.
- Example from the book
- The two groups are treated the same until step 4, when the independent variable
(in this case exposure to a certain amount of MTV) is examined to see whether it
had an effect on the experimental group.
- Important!
- This offers us a sense of the logic of experiments. We must be careful to
introduce only one independent variable; if we introduce two or more variables,
we cannot know which, if any, of the variables affected the experimental group.
- Advantages of experiments
1. Experiments, if carried out carefully and correctly, provide very strong evidence
that a given independent variable actually has the effect discovered.
 2. Also, experiments give strong evidence that the discovered effect was not the
result of some unrecognized phenomenon.
- Disadvantages of experiments
1. Probably the biggest problem with experiments is that they are artificial,
conducted—generally speaking—in laboratories or in “non-natural” situations.
2. When people know that they are involved in an experiment, this information often affects
their behavior.

FINAL EXAM
20mc - 20 tf
Short answer and
Short answer
WILL BE ON THE EXAM
- Generalization
- Know the different types of sampling
- Know Different Types of surveys
- Different types of survey questions
- Gate keepers
- Ethnography
- Reflexivity
- Moderator
- Types of interviews
- Informed consent
- Short answer
- Generalizability
- Short answer
- Ethics
- Confidentiality
- Anonymity
- Voluntary informed consent
- Qualitative vs quantitative
- Epistemology

Short answer 5 marks - chose 4 out of 6

- Definition (2)
- Explanation (2)
- How it relates to course/ research world
- Example (1)
Nov 28, 2024
Research reports
- Why is writing a research report important
- Writing is important to research for many reasons
- It is a way to inform others about your findings
- It is a way to organize, communicate and build knowledge
- It is a demonstration of your research abilities and transferable skills
- Reflexivity (in writing)
- Reflexive writing is one way of dealing with worries about authenticity is to reflect
on them and then voice your concerns so that others can read about them and
also reflect on them.
- Commonly, within the social sciences it is used to explore the biases you bring to
your research, such as relevant professional and personal experiences,
preferences and knowledge.
- Convincing the readers
- Researchers use writing conventions – structures and rhetorical devices that are
associated with research authority and trustworthiness – to convince readers
about the factual correctness or facticity of their written argument.
- Forms of writing may make research more or less accessible.
- Choosing which style to adopt
- The dictates and fashions of your discipline, your audience and its requirements
may mean you have to use a different style from the one you might prefer.
- TIP: Establish the relevant requirements before you begin writing.
- Writing style in an op-ed, blog, academic article, essay or research report varies
(a lot!)
- Getting the writing down
- If you like structure or your report needs to be structured in a very specific way,
write down broad headings before you do anything else. Then begin to write!
- If you get writer’s block, depending on how you prefer to work, either write
headline sentences and key thoughts or arguments, and then try to fill them out
or jot down anything until you get into writing mode, and the real work can begin.
- If you find yourself stuck after the first draft, brainstorm different ways of saying
the same thing or use a thesaurus; this may stimulate your creative processes. If
your problem is one of time, rather than word flow, commit yourself to spending a
half hour on writing every day
- It is often said that the opening sentence of a book is the most important. The
same cannot be claimed for research reports, where the introduction is often not
the most important part to be read.
- The first sentences of each section assume most importance, then the
first sentences of each paragraph within the section. They should
introduce a main point which the remainder of the section or paragraph
then substantiates
- Sections of a research report
- Abstract
- should briefly summarise your report, with the emphasis on key findings
and conclusions.
- Executive summary
- It should only include key points (bulleted or numbered brief paragraphs).
Max two pages long.
- Introduction
- Explain the rationale for and choice of research problem, research
question and approach. Why should we care?
- Background /Literature Review
- Structured to form a logical argument, building on previous scholarly
research and evidence and theory.
- Methods
- Methods sections explain how the research was done and generally
differentiate method (what you did) from methodology (the theory and
analysis of your method). Here you also talk about Research Ethics.
- Results
- If complex, provide an overview. Select the most relevant results. Restrict
extracts to a few lines and use them to illustrate what you say, not as the
dominant text.
- Analysis/Drawing on theory and interpretation
- Research writing is, generally speaking, strengthened when it appeals to
particular theories. Don’t squeeze your data to fit a theory!
- Discussion and conclusion
- Explain what you have done. Provide a summary statement of your
findings, followed by your interpretation, including consideration of
whether your original hypothesis/theories are supported or not. Explain
limitations and provide recommendations.
- Acknowledgements
- Should be used to show recognition for people who have made valuable
contributions to your research or report.
- Appendices
- Appendices are for information that is helpful
- Reference list/bibliography
- Used throughout the report to show how your work builds on scholarship,
using style required for venue (e.g. APA, MLA). Only reference that which
you use in the report. No padding!
- The final draft
- When you think you have a final draft, read it from the perspective of your
audience. WIll they understand it? Does anything rise questions that are not
answered? Leave your draft - ideally for a couple of days/weeks - and read it
again!
EXAM REVIEW
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