2.4 Methods of Researching Media Effects
Learning Objectives
- Identify the prominent media research methods.
- Explain the uses of media research methods in a research project.
Media theories provide the framework for approaching questions about media effects ranging from as simple as how 10-year-old boys react to cereal advertisements to as broad as how Internet use affects literacy. Once researchers visualize a project and determine a theoretical framework, they must choose which actual research methods to employ. Contemporary research methods include great variety and range from analyzing old newspapers to performing controlled experiments.
Content Analysis
Content analysis involves analyzing the content of various forms of media to notice patterns and draw conclusions. Through content analysis, researchers hope to understand both the people who created the content and the people who consumed it. A typical content analysis project does not require elaborate experiments. Instead, it simply requires access to a full sample of the appropriate media to analyze, making this type of research an easier and inexpensive alternative to other forms of research involving complex surveys or human subjects.
Content analysis studies require researchers to define the parameters of what types of media to study. For example, researchers studying violence in the media would need to decide which types of media to analyze, such as television, and the types of formats to examine, such as children’s cartoons. The researchers would then need to define the terms used in the study; they can classify media violence according to the characters involved in the violence (strangers, family members, or racial groups), the type of violence (self-inflicted, slapstick, or against others), or the context of the violence (revenge, random, or duty-related). These examples highlight a few of the ways that researchers could study media violence with content-analysis techniques (Berger, 1998).
Archival Research
Any study that analyzes older media must employ archival research, which focuses on reviewing historical documents such as old newspapers and past publications. Local libraries or newspaper offices often provide access to old local newspapers available on microfilm. University libraries generally offer access to archives of national publications such as The New York Times or Time; researchers can also find publications in online databases or on websites.
Researchers can find older radio programs for free or by paid download through several online sources. Many television programs and films have also been made available for free download, or for rent or sale through online distributors. Performing an online search for a particular title will reveal the options available.
Resources such as the Internet Archive work to archive many sources of media and information. The Internet Archive hosts the Wayback Machine, a useful tool for searching the archives of websites. Internet archives provide invaluable information for studying online media because they store information about deleted or changed websites. These archives have made it possible for Internet content analyses that researchers would have otherwise found impossible to complete.
Surveys
Survey questionnaires record data on anything from political preferences to personal hygiene habits. Media surveys generally take one of the following two forms.
A descriptive survey aims to find the current state of things, such as public opinion or consumer preferences. In media, descriptive surveys (like those conducted by the Nielsen Ratings Group) establish television and radio ratings by determining the audience size of those who watch or listen to particular programs. An analytical survey, however, does more than simply document a current situation. Instead, it attempts to find out why a particular situation exists. Researchers pose questions or hypotheses about media, and then conduct analytical surveys to answer these questions. Analytical surveys can determine the relationship between different forms of media consumption and the lifestyles and habits of media consumers.
Surveys can employ either open-ended or closed-ended questions. Open-ended questions require the participant to generate answers in their own words, while closed-ended questions force the participant to select an answer from a list. Although open-ended questions allow for a greater variety of answers, the results of closed-ended questions provide easier data to tabulate. Although surveys can prove useful in media studies, effective use requires keeping their limitations in mind.
Social Role Analysis
As part of child-rearing, parents teach their children about social roles. When parents prepare children to attend school for example, they explain the basics of school rules to help the youngsters understand the role of students. Like the role of a character in a play, this role carries specific expectations that differentiate school from home. Adults often play many different roles as they navigate between their responsibilities as parents, employees, friends, and citizens. Any person may play several roles depending on his or her specific life choices.
Social role analysis of the media involves examining various individuals in the media and analyzing the type of role that each plays. Role analysis research can consider the roles of men, women, children, members of a racial minority, or members of any other social group in specific types of media. For example, if the role children play in cartoons consistently differs from the role they play in sitcoms, then audiences might draw certain conclusions about both of these formats. Analyzing roles used in media allows researchers to gain a better understanding of the messages that the mass media sends (Berger, 1998).
Depth Interviews
The depth interview is an anthropological research tool that media studies researchers may find useful. Depth interviews take surveys one step further by allowing researchers to directly ask a study participant specific questions to gain a fuller understanding of the participant’s perceptions and experiences. Researchers have used depth interviews in research projects that follow newspaper reporters to discover their motivations for reporting certain stories and ones that attempt to understand the motivations for reading romance novels. Depth interviews can provide a deeper understanding of the media consumption habits of particular groups of people (Priest, 2010).
Rhetorical Analysis
Rhetorical analysis involves examining the styles used in media and attempting to understand the kinds of messages those styles convey. Media styles include form, presentation, composition, use of metaphors, and reasoning structure. Rhetorical analysis reveals the messages not apparent in a strict reading of content. Studies involving rhetorical analysis have focused on media such as advertising to better understand the roles of style and rhetorical devices in media messages (Gunter, 2000).
Focus Groups
Like depth interviews, focus groups allow researchers to better understand public responses to media. Unlike a depth interview, however, a focus group allows the participants to establish a group dynamic that more closely resembles that of normal media consumption. In media studies, researchers can employ focus groups to judge the reactions of a group to specific media styles and content. This can provide a valuable means of understanding the reasons for consuming specific types of media.
Experiments
Media research studies also sometimes use controlled experiments that expose a test group to an experience involving media and measure the effects of that experience. Researchers then compare these measurements to those of a control group that had key elements of the experience removed. For example, researchers may show one group of children a program with three incidents of cartoon violence and another control group of similar children in the same program without the violent incidents. Researchers then ask the children from both groups the same sets of questions and then compare the results.
Participant Observation
In participant observation, researchers try to become part of the group under their study. Although this technique typically gets associated with anthropological studies in which a researcher lives with members of a particular culture to gain a deeper understanding of their values and lives, media researchers have also used this technique.
Media consumption often takes place in groups. Families or friends gather to watch favorite programs, children may watch Saturday morning cartoons with a group of their peers, and adults may host viewing parties for televised sporting events or awards shows. These groups reveal insights into the role of media in the lives of the public. A researcher might join a group that watches football together and stay with the group for an entire season. By becoming a part of the group, the researcher becomes part of the experiment and can reveal important influences of media on culture (Priest).
Researchers have studied online role-playing games, such as World of Warcraft, in this manner. These games reveal an interesting aspect of group dynamics: Although participants do not share physical proximity, they function as a group within the game. Researchers can study these games by playing them. In the book Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader, a group of researchers discussed the results of their participant observation studies. The studies reveal the surprising depth of culture and unwritten rules that exist in the World of Warcraft universe and give important interpretations of why players pursue the game with such dedication (Corneliussen & Rettberg, 2008).
