Qualitative Media Analysis
- David L. Altheide - Arizona State University, USA
- Christopher J. Schneider - Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada, University of British Columbia, Canada
Navigate the wealth of media documents available to qualitative researchers today with this simple guide.
It’s the only “how to” book of its kind out there.
It explains how to do qualitative textual analysis in a way that is laid out step-by-step, making it clear to students how to do it.
It’s short and to the point, covering a lot of ground quickly. I have always been able to justify it on a syllabus because it reads well and fast, it not too expensive, and it gives novices clear guidance. Personally, I’m also 100 percent simpatico with Professor Altheide theoretically and philosophically. More important, he does make it relevant to communication theory as well as practice.
The main strength is its focus on “media”, applied researchers are rapidly shifting their attention to multiple sources of data and focusing on how people and organizations communicate. Social media is also influencing marketing and public relations activities. It IS the hot topic….helping researchers figure out how to target, capture, analyze and interpret these new forms of media is essential.
The key strength of Qualitative Media Analysis is that it provides students and scholars with a rigorous, social science-based, qualitative alternative to quantitative content analysis, allowing for better and deeper interpretation of media texts. The methodology outlined by Altheide is particularly useful for the examination of previously unstudied media, where no theory and/or previous data exist to inform content analysis protocols.
It's a great book! The students told me it was relevant and easy to read.
This text is relevant to the research interests of media-savvy undergraduates today; it is also useful for instructors and graduate students seeking more clarity on qualitative methods of inquiry with regard to media of all kinds. I intend to test it out on my next (Fall 2015) senior thesis writing class at McDaniel College.
Over the past 1.5 years, the master's of education students I work with have been collecting more online forum and discussion board for research and content analysis. So I have incorporated the book as a tool to help them refine their research questions and data collection methodologies.
Good addition to Mass Media Research. This is qualitative research oriented and my course focuses more on quantitative aspect. So this is a good source on qualitative aspect. It is not too long, so for students, it is very convenient.
too print based, not enough content involving qualitative analysis of electronic media
Numerous comments and suggestions from researchers who have used the guidelines in the 1996 book have informed our efforts to integrate the new material and in some cases, clarify previous work as well. We have expanded every chapter; revised the Figures—and added a new one (Figure 1.2); incorporated research by others; offered more examples in the text—as well as an appendix that lists published work, theses and dissertations; we have also spelled out the process of qualitative media analysis in more detail, (Chaps. 3, 4, 5) and offered a new chapter on the nature and use of social media, with actual examples from ongoing research (6. Electronic Reality II). A plethora of scholarly reports, Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations have used ECA or qualitative media analysis during this time, and many of these people have provided comments, queries, and suggestions that have informed this revision. A sample of these are included in the Appendix so that the reader can check out "real world" applications of this book. We also add an expanded list of studies that have used this approach.
