Social Research Methods

1. Alan Bryman Social Research Methods Chapter 23: Documents as sources of data Slides authored by Tom Owens

2. These are ‘documents’ that….. can be read (but not just text – visuals as well!) have not been produced specifically for the purposes of research are preserved so that they become available for analysis are relevant to the concerns of the social researcher Documents available for research Page 543

3. Authenticity is it genuine? Credibility is it free from error and distortion? Representativeness is the evidence typical of its kind? Meaning is it clear and comprehensible? Criteria for assessing the quality of a document Scott (1990) Page 544

4. Personal Official State documents Official company documents Mass media outputs Virtual documents Types of documents available for study

5. Could be the primary source of data within a qualitative study Could be used as adjuncts to other methods, such as interviews or participant observation Perhaps to trace the history of an organization Diaries may also be used as a method of data collection – in turn, available to other researchers Personal documents:diaries, letters, autobiographies, photgraphs Pages 544-548

6. From the state, in the form of legislation, reports of public enquiries: Turner (1994): reports of public inquiries Weick (1990): study of the Tenerife plane crash tragedy in 1977 using documents gathered by the Spanish Ministry of Transport and Communication Can be a very time-consuming form of research Question of credibility because the original report may be biased Official state documents Pages 549, 550

7. In the public domain: annual reports mission statements reports to shareholders transcripts of chief executives’ speeches press releases, advertisements public relations material in printed form and on the Internet Not in the public domain: company newsletters organizational charts external consultancy reports minutes of meetings memos internal and external correspondence manuals for new recruits policy statements company regulations Official company documents Pages 550-552

8. Newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, film Problem with authenticity when authorship unclear Problem with credibility because of the possibilities of image distortion Mass media outputs Page 552, 553

9. Official documents published on the Internet Personal websites Forums, mailing lists and message boards Private email communication Problem with authenticity possibility of identity deception Problem with interpretation need ‘insider knowledge’ to understand texts Virtual outputs Page 554

10. Documents exist in their own right We should examine them in terms of their context and intended readership This means documents are linked to other documents Researchers are usually more interested in the content of documents but must keep the document’s original purpose in mind. The reality of documents Pages 554-556

11. Qualitative content analysis Semiotics Hermeneutics Historical analysis Analytic methods for interpreting documents Pages 556-561

12. Comprises a searching-out of underlying themes in the materials being analysed The processes through which the themes are extracted are usually left implicit The extracted themes are usually illustrated—for example, with brief quotations from a newspaper article or magazine Constant revision of themes or categories Qualitative Content Analysis Pages 557-559

13. The ‘science of signs’: an analysis of symbols in everyday life. A ‘sign’ is something that stands for something else: made up of a ‘signifier’ (a word or image) and the thing ‘signified’ (the meaning). The meaning is ‘denotative’ – the obvious meaning…. …and ‘connotative’ – the meaning in a particular context. Signs can be interpreted in many ways (‘polysemy’), so a special meaning is sometimes given, ‘the code’. The resulting analysis can be seen, perhaps unfairly, as arbitrary. Semiotics Pages 559, 560

14. Gottdiener’s (1982) semiotic analysisof Disneyland in Los Angelessuggests that different `lands‘ in the park are associated with signifiers of capitalism, as follows: Frontierland — predatory capital Adventureland — colonialism/imperialism Tomorrowland — state capital New Orleans — venture capital Main Street — family capital. A Semiotic Disneyland Research in focus 23.9 Page 560

15. Hermeneutics • The meaning of a document must be understood from the perspective of its author: who was the intended recipient; what was the semiotics ‘code’? • Requires sensitivity to the social and historical context in which the document was produced. • A formal approach developed by Phillips and Brown (1993) Pages 560, 561