Qualitative text analysis

1. Qualitative text analysis

2. Why do qualitative text analysis? • A number of scholars say you cannot capture the meaning of a text by counting the number of times violence is portrayed or the categories of jobs named in a story, etc.

3. Why qualitative text analysis? • Sometimes subtle meanings, or implied or connotative meanings, are what you want to understand.

4. Texts are organic wholes—not just the sum of their parts • Narrative structure • Beginning, middle, end • Heroic quest, etc. • Interactions among elements • Relationships among characters • Context may be crucial

5. Some things are important but not common • Frames and framing • Implicit meaning • Parables, myths, metaphors

6. Some themes, etc. are brought to the text by the reader • This view states that much of the meaning of stories, etc. is based on the knowledge the reader or viewer brings to the text • Latent meanings are hard to ‘code’ for • You must bring an understanding of the ideas the reader/viewer uses to decode the text to the study of its meaning

7. To ‘understand’ a text, you need to be educated in an appropriate theoretical approach • It is not possible pick up that sort of understanding in a 3-hour training session • You can’t write rules that adequately capture that sort of knowledge

8. Analyzing texts • The researcher carries out the text analysis • Cannot train coders to do it for her • A wide range of theoretical perspectives are applied to texts • Semiotics • Psychoanalysis • Film genre theory • Theory of ideology (critical/cultural theory) • Feminist theory

9. Unique analyses • Because of the unique viewpoint and expertise of the researcher, the analysis and its conclusions will also be unique • Someone else carrying out a textual analysis of a movie, etc. will come to a different set of conclusions

10. The point is not to provide the single correct analysis of a text, but to provide a thoughtful and insightful reading that helps your audience to see the text in new and valuable ways • Empower media consumers to see through the veneer of the text and better understand what its meaning is • Provide your readers tools to become ‘media literate’

11. The analysis • Rather than “coding” (assigning numbers to sample units) the researcher reads deeply and tries to discern the meaning of the text as a whole or of certain significant features of the text • The researcher attempts to reveal/construct the larger or more subtle/hidden meanings of the text • Much of the meaning is ‘latent’ • Data collection and analysis are combined

12. The analyst looks at the text from the viewpoint of the theory or theories he is using to evaluate it • Writes the analysis according to the language and rules of the theory he is applying

13. Researcher subjectivity • While qualitative analysis allows for insightful evaluation of texts, it also leaves open the possibility of idiosyncratic interpretations • The ‘pull’ of prior expectations may bias the interpretation of texts—even among scholars dedicated to ‘objectivity’

14. The result • The output is a description of the text(s) based in one or more theoretical traditions that informed the analysis, rather than a set of tables and graphs representing the number of times some characteristic or category is identified • The goal is to derive a better understanding of the meaning of the text and/or of the impact of certain features upon its meaning

15. Combining methods • Sometimes the most powerful analysis is one that combines quantitative (content analysis) and qualitative (textual analysis) evaluation of texts • Radway

16. What does “Like a Prayer” mean?

17. Example: Ideological analysis of “Law and Order” • What is the role of power in the story? • Who has legitimate right to harm? • What is the appropriate means of dealing with those who break the rules? • What ‘kind’ of people break or enforce the rules? • What is the role of individual rights?

18. Example: Psychological analysis of the Dark Knight