OTHER CONTEXTS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

OTHER CONTEXTS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

What happens in classrooms, then, should be conceptualized with reference to other media-related institutions and practices. In particular, the various forms of professional mass communication research call for analysis and discussion here, since research traditions lend orientation to much media education, sometimes implicitly, and have other important social uses, as well. The issues include the knowledge interest and epistemology of particular studies, but it may be as important in this context to consider the institutional and economic origins of the theoretical orientations. Three types of qualitative research, accordingly, can

be specified. First, there exists a large body of sophisticated and expensive market research, employing qualitative methodologies, which offers detailed examination of changing social patterns and tastes to business clients, especially advertisers and product designers. At least in the development of products and advertising, qualitative methodologies may outdistance some quantitative forms of research. Much of this work is proprietary information because of its commercial relevance, though there are also commercial research journals that discuss approaches and findings in the public domain (see especially the Journal of Consumer Research). It is interesting to note that recent work on marketing and on organizations has incorporated elements of semiotics to account for the structures and functions of commercial operations as well as to suggest instrumental solutions (for an overview, see Umiker-Sebeok, 1987; also the theme issue on marketing and semiotics of the International Journal of Research in Marketing

4, 3–4, 1988). Whereas some critics may deplore this use of semiotics as a technique for commercial ends, such uses follow from the fact that most scientific theory is and presumably should be public. It is surely one responsibility of critical researchers to keep up with the substance

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and methods of this work in order to make it available for alternative uses and to discuss its social implications.

A related variety of research is the kind of studies that have been regularly conducted or commissioned also by media institutions with public-service obligations. A primary example is the research activity of public-service broadcasters in the European countries (see Docherty et al., 1988, and Gunter and Svennevig, 1987; also the publications of PUB, the research department of the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, some of which are available in English). While much of the work of these research departments, traditionally and now increasingly in a more competitive media environment, has been preoccupied with audience ratings, other studies have had the sort of general implications normally associated with basic, academic research. One important use of the latter type of studies is in product development. Thus, in-house research may provide new knowledge that is relevant not just for the decisions of upper and middle management, but also for journalists, producers, scriptwriters, and other media professionals. This recalls the reorientation of media education noted above which leads some researcher-teachers to seek allies among media professionals in order to reform media and their social uses.

The third type of qualitative research is mainly generated from academic institutions of research and higher education, and is the core of the developments documented in this volume. One limitation of this work traditionally has been its restricted circulation and impact outside the academic context. The audiences of this research tend to

be either students at the institutions or the international networks of research, both of which have limited public access. However, the social impact of research findings may also be of a more indirect, long- term, and systemic nature, being communicated to other social agents (including students) and media that enact the impact in practice. For example, Janice Radway has interestingly discussed her attempt to “make use of any opportunity that comes my way through the media themselves to discuss my findings and interpretations for wider audiences…generate more serious public discussion about the mass media and their ability to speak to very real problems in the lives of Americans” (Radway, 1986:116). Even so, some of the most cogent and valuable work suggests a picture of rather solitary researchers seeking to make connections from a research activity that is somewhat lost in its own isolation.

228 A handbook of qualitative methodologies

That is why important opportunities arise for a fourth form of research which springs from and speaks to local contexts and circumstances. Such research would seek to transcend the notions of “communities” and “campaigns” as these are normally defined in the context of mass media.