Department of MultiCultural Societies

1
???????????(Department of Multi-Cultural
Societies)

• ?? (Special Lectures)
• ????? IV(Theory and Methods,
• Part IV )

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Todays Assignment

• Look at the following web page
• Compare these 2 lists (Qualitative and
  Quantitative) and relate them to your Masters
  Research.
• Then Answer
• Which one is your study (and why) list a few
  reasons based on this list
• Explain about 2 or 3 ADVANTAGES (i.e. merits) you
  see doing your study this way
• Also explain 2 or 3 DISADVANTAGES (i.e. demerits)
  you see doing your study this way
• Importantly, are there any solutions to these
  problems (in particular) that you can think of?
  Explain
• Please write these up simply and submit them to
  Professor Holden via mail

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Qualitative Versus Quantitative

• Access this page to see an important list of
  terms
• http//www.intcul.tohoku.ac.jp/holden/University_
  Courses/Tokuron20Lectures-02/Qual-Quant.html

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Two Options

• Systematically work through these differences (on
  the chart)
• Look at how they are treated in other work

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Looking at Representative Work

• Time Out what does representative mean?
• Related to the Question about Truth
• What is the relationship between Truth and
  Representation?
• Can one have representation if one doesnt
  believe in truth?
• Sato-san and Muto-san both say that ultimate
  truth does not exist.
• Muto-sans position is what we call a
  relativist position.

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In Short

• Representation argues that from a pool of thngs,
  one or more of them can be pulled out to show the
  truth, the continuities, the logic, the reality
  of that thing.
• Representation can not exist unless we have a way
  of judging truth
• Representation can not exist unless there is such
  a thing as truth

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Famous Story What is an Elephant?

• Once there was a poor Persian village where all
  were blind. One day a strange new creature called
  an elephant appeared at the village wall. Since
  no one in the village had ever heard of an
  elephant, the three wisest of the blind villagers
  went out to discover what the new creature was
  like. They all felt the creature. The first blind
  sage felt the tail and said, "This creature
  cannot be an elephant, this is a rope!" The
  second blind sage felt the leg and said, "No,
  this is a tree!" The third blind sage felt the
  side and said, "No, you fools, this is a wall!"
• As the three sages argued amongst themselves, a
  lesser blind man, not knowing any better, mounted
  the elephant and rode away.
• Adapted from a Famous Sufi Story

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A Different Version

• One blind man felt the broad side and said the
  elephant is like a wall
• A second, felt the tusk and said it felt like a
  spear
• The third felt the trunk and thought it was a
  snake
• The fourth felt the leg and decided it was a
  tree
• The fifth touched the ear and thought it was a
  fan
• The sixth felt the tail and thought it was a rope.

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Moral

• All the evaluators were only looking at parts and
  could not see the entirety. They were creating
  general statements from parts.
• Question can we ever make general statements? Is
  it a matter of level of being too close to the
  micro, not far enough toward the macro?

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Applied to this Class

• In trying to make general statements, we must
  also be sensitive to being too embedded in the
  local too micro.
• On the other hand, one cannot compare (to make a
  persuasive argument) without comparing things
  that are similar.
• Thus, in finding examples, I have to pick from a
  pool of similar literature.
• Otherwise, we might think Oh these things are
  different because they come from different
  specialty areas
• To avoid this claim, I pick examples (today) from
  media studies
• Whether this is applicable to your areas of study
  is something you must think about.

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Lets Return to earlier discussion

• 2 Books
• Patterson The Mass Media Election
• A study of media and audience in Americas 1976
  presidential election.
• OBarr Culture and the Ad
• A study of how advertising represents otherness

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Reading Patterson

• First sentence(s)
• Todays presidential campaign is essentially a
  mass media campaign. It is not that the mass
  media entirely determine what happens in the
  campaign, for that is far from true. But it is no
  exaggeration to say that, for the large majority
  of voters, the campaign has little reality apart
  from the media version.

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From this premise, the entire analysis begins

• Look at how Americans view the election
• Look at how they use the media (in relation to
  political information)
• Look at how the media looks at the election
• See if there is some correspondence

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A Panel Design

• Look at how Americans view the election
• Look at how they use the media (in relation to
  political information)
• Look at how the media looks at the election
• See if there is some correspondence

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Research Design

• A Panel Design
• Looking at the same set of respondents more than
  once.
• Question Why?
• What do you Gain with a panel design?
• What do you Lose with a panel design?
• 2 Locations
• Erie, Pennsylvania (medium sized, Eastern town)
• Los Angeles, California (large, Western city)
• Question Why?
• Various Media
• National TV News, 1 National News Magazine, 1
  Erie Newspaper, 2 Los Angeles newspapers
• Question Why?

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If You Were the Researcher

• What would you want to know?
• Pattersons perspective/orientation was
  Positivistic. His data was numerical, based on
• Content analysis of news reports
• Standardized questionnaires
• Question could he have done this study
  qualitatively?
• What were his variables?
• What questions do you think he wanted to answer?

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Variables

• Looking at his research design, we know that he
  was testing to see differences
• between areas of the country (i.e. does geography
  have an influence on
• Media message
• The images of people who receive the messages
• Amongst kinds of media
• i.e. does TV differ in its messages from
  newspapers or magazines
• Over time
• Does media coverage and also the audiences
  opinions change over time?
• If it does change, do these things vary (change)
  in relation to one another?

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How He Wrote it Up

• Patterson divided the book into 4 sections
• How the press covered the campaign
• Here he compared the kinds of content in the
  various media
• How the audience received the content (in
  general)
• Comparing their attention to the news, in general
• Looking at the audiences interest in the
  campaign
• Looking at their reaction to different media
• Looking at any differences between geographic
  regions
• What kind of Impact (if any) the media had on the
  voters ideas and actions.
• Their perception of what was important in the
  campaign
• Their awareness of the various issues
• Their images of the candidates
• Their information of the issues and candidates
• Their view of winners and losers
• Conclusions what is wrong with mass media
  politics

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Reading OBarr

• P.1, Paragraph 3
• In this book I explore advertisements from the
  past and from abroad in order to develop a more
  critical posture toward those we must deal with
  every day. By stepping momentarily beyond the
  boundaries of the present and the local, we learn
  to ask questions about contemporary
  advertisements that parallel those we ask more
  easily about older ones. In this analysis I focus
  on those defined as outsiders (foreigners in
  particular, but also Americans who are sometimes
  treated like foreigners African Americans and
  Native Americans

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Stating Positions and Views

• OBarr tells you his assumptions right away
• His belief that viewing the past helps us better
  see the present
• His desire to develop a critical perspective
• His definitions of outsider

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Issue How to study the foreign in ads?

• Question what would your approach be?
• For instance
• What sources would you use?
• Would you make an effort to sample every possible
  photo ever made about foreigners? Why or why not?
• If you decided this is impossible, then would you
  just pick photos wherever you found them? Why or
  why not?
• Would you advertise asking for people to send in
  their collected advertisements? If so, where
  would you advertise?

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OBarrs Choices

• National Geographic
• Archival collection of Kodak print ads
• Reasons I chose them because they illustrate
  how to use cameras and what to photograph in
  touristic contexts. They frequently depict both
  how the finished photographs should look and ways
  to display or show them. Many advertisements for
  travel photography deal with foreign peoples and
  cultures, offering blueprints for their readers
  to use in constructing their own touristic
  experiences and about representing otherness.
  (P.17)

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Some Issues

• Mixing images from collections problems with
  this?
• In general, he separated the two collections
• Time is it important to separate into earlier
  years and more contemporary years?
• What reasons might you use in creating this
  distinction?
• Separating people and/or places?
• Is this an important principle? Why or why not?

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Categories

• Ultimately, OBarr separates his data into
  categories
• The 1929 National Geographic was used in one
  chapter and 3 broad categories were created
• South Africans, Native Americans, Relationships
  of Westerners and Non-Westerners
• Questions
• Why one year?
• What is the reason for creating categories?
• Is this a deductive or inductive operation?

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Contemporary Representations

• He separated Foreigners into 3 categories
• In Travel Ads
• Product Endorsements
• International Business
• Additional Issues
• relating to threats abroad
• needy foreign children

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African Americans

• An extended gallery of depictions of African
  Americans with the demonstration of how images
  have changed over time

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How do these studies relate to Truth?

• What is your view of truth?
• Do you believe that there is ultimate truth in
  the social world?
• Do you believe that truth is an objective of
  social science?
• Do you believe that a truth should be obtained by
  any means possible?
• Or, are there limits on how researchers can and
  should pursue truth?
• What are those limits?

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Some Questions for Thought

• Do you believe that there is ultimate truth in
  the social world?
• Do you believe that truth is an objective of
  social science?
• Do you believe that a truth should be obtained by
  any means possible?
• Or, are there limits on how researchers can and
  should pursue truth?