Researching the media

• Content analysis, positivist


  Measures how often a word/phrase is used in a piece of media

  • formal quantitative measuring, e.g. counting how many times 'economic crisis' is used in newspapers
  • suited to written texts/transcripts

  Can be used to investigate relationship between two phrases, however it's time consuming and doesn't take context into account
• Semiotics, interpretivist


  Studying the signs and codes of the media by analysing

  • a sign is anything that can be used to mean something else
  • adverts are open to semiotic analysis > use signs to associate their products with positive ideas

  However, open to subjectivity and bias > values of researcher may influence how they interpret sign
• Experiments, positivist


  Studying how an actual audience responds to the media, e.g. monitoring peoples behaviour after they watched a violent film (Bandura)

  • audience research = show media to sample audience > provided with interview / questionnaire
  • good results need good questions to get useful data and avoid bias

  Don't tell about long term effects and people behave differently when they know they're taking part in an experiment (Hawthorne effect)