RESEARCH METHODS IN CULTURAL STUDIES

1. WORKSHOP #3, MA&PHD Cultural Studies Course Assoc . Prof. Carmen Dutu RESEARCH METHODS IN CULTURAL STUDIES

2. Defining concepts: culture • The shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. • These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.

3. The worldliness of meaning • Banks, J.A., Banks, & McGee, C. A. (1989). Multicultural education. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. "Most social scientists today view culture as consisting primarily of the symbolic, ideational, and intangible aspects of human societies. The essence of a culture is not its artifacts, tools, or other tangible cultural elements but how the members of the group interpret, use, and perceive them. It is the values, symbols, interpretations, and perspectives that distinguish one people from another in modernized societies; it is not material objects and other tangible aspects of human societies. People within a culture usually interpret the meaning of symbols, artifacts, and behaviors in the same or in similar ways."

4. Questions of method in CS • early form of research originated in the natural sciences • concerned with investigating based on observation and measurement: quantitative research • later: researchers working in the social sciences • interested in studying human behavior and the social world inhabited by human beings (Morgan, 1983) • attempt to increase our understanding of why things are the way they are in our social world and why people act the way they do : qualitative research

5. Quantitative M • Quantitative methodologies test theory deductively from existing knowledge, through developing hypothesized relationships and proposed outcomes for study • the investigators maintain a detached, objective view in order to understand the facts • research participants are usually kept in the dark about the study, and are often left untouched by the research itself but are expected to transfer the findings into practices. • makes use of surveying: close-ended questioning

6. Qualitative M • There is no explicit intention to count or quantify the findings, which are instead described in the language employed during the research process • Describes certain aspects of a phenomenon; used as a vehicle for studying the empirical world from the perspective of the subject, not the researcher • Produces soft data – still described by some as being inadequate in providing answers and generating any changes.

7. Grounded theory • Uses empirical data without preconceived theories • Rather than beginning with a hypothesis, the 1st step is data collection • Key codes marked and grouped into similar concepts, and subsequently categories • Proposed theory based on findings vs . theory applied to phenomena

8. Ethnographic methods • Researchers review narratives and testimonies to find trends and patterns that characterize culture • Auto/biography (self-referential), ethnography, autoethnography and feminist ethnography. Observation methods. Interviews: structured and unstructured. Conversations. Focus groups. Memory. Narrativity: experience and Stories. Experience and the social world. Situated and mediated experience. Narrative and social life

9. Researching Cultural Consumers: audiences •  Who/what are audiences? Why study audiences? • Reception studies. • Focus group and small group discussion (observation, conversations, interviews and oral history).

10. Researching cultural texts: reading as method • Questioning the text as a social object. • Content analysis. Textual approaches. • Contextualizing text: cultural, social and historical contexts. • Researching Cultural Producers. Why study cultural producers? • Archive research. The importance of material reality.

11. The Research Process • Introduction, or Problem Statement, or Problem Identification • Background and Review of Existing Literature, including definitions of special terminology used in the paper • Research Methodology: What is Being Studied, and How: • Data Collection: This presents the raw data collected via the research methodology described above. • Findings (Results and Analysis of Your Data) • Conclusions & Discussion of 'Limitations' • Notes (if needed — usually they are . . . ) • Works Cited, plus a review (where relevant) of related materials which were not cited • Appendices (if needed), for example to present research instruments which were employed (questionnaires, surveys, statistical data, etc.)

13. Ethical issues • ethical considerations for both quantitative and qualitative research are the same safety and protection of human rights • These are mainly achieved by using the process of informed consent. • Choosing just one methodology narrows a researcher’s perspective, and deprives him or her of the benefits of building on the strengths inherent in a variety of research methodology • Preference for a specific research strategy is not just a technical choice; it is an ethical, moral, ideological and political activity

14. Further bibliography 1. Michael Angrosino and Kimberly Mays de Perez, “Rethinking Observation: From Method to Context”, in: Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition, ed. Norman K. Denzin et al. (London: Sage, 2000), 673-702 2. Richard Johnston, Deborah Chambers, ParvatiRaghuram and Estella Tincknell, “The Research Process: Moments and Strategies”, in: The Practice of Cultural Studies (London: Sage, 2004), 62-84. 3. MikkoLehtonen, The Cultural Analysis of Texts (London, Sage, 2000).

15. Thank you!