Qualitative Media Analysis captures how the media has changed and the parameter for qualitative research have broadened considerably. Altheide and Schneider have included numerous examples, clarified concepts and perspectives, and offer new various ways to study social media. Notwithstanding the occasional holdout that insists on quantitative methods for content analysis, a maturing academic universe is far more receptive to qualitative approaches with a focus on meanings, perspectives, and thematic emphases. New technological and theoretical developments, along with numerous queries forms students and professionals, warranted a fresh look at documents and the mass media. Major shifts in research and theorizing in qualitative methods and media/communication studies have contributed to the intellectual foundation of document analysis. The authors identify part of the research quest is to actually ‘discover’ new documents that may be treated as auxiliary or supplemental to one’s main focus. The social and cultural environments in which one operates as an investigator contribute to how one views research problems, data sources, and methodological approaches. With the integration of information technology throughout popular culture, document analysis now covers a wider range of topics than previously. The materials in this book are oriented to the analysis of multiple documents rather than one in detail. Altheide and Schneider believe that it is best to approach a study with awareness of relevant information or experience. Context and process are also important for the meaning and message of a document. They placed a large consideration on informing an approach to documents. They stated, “Documents, then, enable us to (a) place symbolic meaning in context; (b) track the process of its creation and influence on social definitions; (c) let our understanding emerge through detailed investigation; and (d) if we desire, use our understanding from the study of documents to change some social activities, including the production of certain documents.” (Altheide, Schneider ) They also addressed how an ethnographic approach to document analysis is based on principles of qualitative data collection and analysis. The most important part of conducting an ethnographic study if to be immersed in the contexts, environment, situations, and lifeworld’s of the subjects. However, originating in positivistic assumptions about objectivity, quantitative content analysis provided a way of obtaining data to measure the frequency and extent, if not the meaning of messages. Ethnographic content analysis is also oriented to documenting and understanding the communication of meaning, as well as verifying theoretical relationships. Ethnographic content analysis follows a circular movement between concept development—sampling—data collection—data coding—data analysis—interpretation. A few brief examples illustrate what was
Obtained from viewing news content reflexively rather than statically. Also, a qualitative document analysis seeks to illustrate relevant categories. Analysis of news reports and advertisements suggested that popular-culture and mass media depictions of fear, patriotism, consumption, and victimization contributed to the emergence of a ‘national identity’ and collective action that was fostered by elite decision makers’ propaganda and the military-media complex. However, an important reason for ethnographic approach, if one uses only structure protocols in content analysis research, critical questions, issues, and shortcomings that may become apparent at a later time may have to be forsaken due to lack of data. The research problem helps inform the appropriate unit of analysis, or which portion or segment or relevant documents will actually be investigated. Altheide and Schneider argue the familiarity with TV news production indicating that TV operates with time, meaning that it allocates portions of its newscast to certain topics and that the ones that receive the most air time are usually those regarded as the most important. Altheide’s rationale for studying individual news reports about fear led to a focus on news reports about fear as the basic unit of analysis. In proceeding to data analysis, the goal of qualitative research is to understand the process and character of social life and to arrive at meaning and process; we seek to understand types, characteristics, and organizational aspects of the documents as social products in their own right, as well as what they claim to represent.
The major news media are central aspects of popular culture, which has pervaded every major social institution. Reading studies of the news process and particularly the role of news sources, news frames, and news formats in packaging reports. First, there must be developing a general approach to relevant information as documents and, second, placing these documents in a context of meaning to interpret them. However, visuals contribute to the meaning and ‘look’ of information and content, it is important to have a strategy for analyzing photos and other visuals qualitatively. Even with these technological advancements, the key difference from other media from other ages remains—the power of the visual and the capacity to interact with it and even change the experience one is watching by treating it as a game. Computer files have an advantage, however, because they can be used to assist in the emerging process of research focus, protocol construction, and, ultimately, data collection and coding. The idea, then, is to ‘surround’ the news report but to do it from ‘within’ the report by examining the constituent parts. Altheide and Schneider also address how to organize and deal with materials gathered form social media. Sampling social media and social networking sites can consist of a wide variety of data materials, including text messages, Internet links to news stories, personal and commercial websites, weblogs, Wiki articles, audio and video materials, and just about anything imaginable that is relevant to the topic of investigation. The first step in sampling is to have a good set of relevant data materials. Once a sampling of postings has been ‘opened’ for viewing, the researcher has one of two options: (1) the data can be reviewed as a live website or (2) these data can be saved and stored for future analysis. If possible, theoretical sampling should take place at the outset of an identified research problem or topic of study, while sites remain live with accessible and searchable documents.
The capacity to define the situation for ones self and other is a key dimension of social power. The reasons to study mass media documents are to understand the nature and process by which a key defining aspect of our effective environment operates and to attempt to gauge the consequences. Altheide and Schnieder’s approach to dynamic study of discourse draws on many of assumptions but blends interpretive, ethnographic, and ethnomethodological approaches with media logic, particularly studies of news organizational culture, information technology, and communication formats. However, the prevalence of fear in public discourse can contribute to stances and reactive social policies that promote state control and surveillance. On sites like Facebook, the capacity to examine user posts over a time frame provides greater precision in determining how, why, and when select themes and frames begin to emerge and, importantly, how they become a topic of discourse. The authors also includes how to use many principles to work with secondary documents, including interviews, field notes from observations, and records. A basic consideration in organizing one’s field notes is that the data that are originally recorded determine the quality of whatever is later coded. Even though field notes are very specific and should not be enslaved to abstract concepts and theoretical issues in the day-to-day observations, there are some guidelines on the kinds of things that should be included. The research process guidelines can be treated similarly, inserted as tags into relevant sections of notes. Over the years, Altheide has attempted to integrate the range of findings form studies on the mass media, and especially TV news, with the nature and significance of media in general in social life.