PART 1 Chapter 3 THE READER, THE KING
3.2 RESEARCH METHOD AND SAMPLING
In order to fulfl the second research aim, i.e. to establish what the S o n offers its readers, a qualitative content analysis of the newspaper was conducted. This analysis focused on establishing the nature of the content and packaging thereof, as well as the approach the Son uses to communicate with its readers. The summary provided in table 2.2 was used as a framework and based on this the following questions guided the qualitative content analysis: (i) what is the nature of the content in the Son; (ii) what is the nature of the style of the Son; and ( ii) what
communication approach does the Son use? For the qualitative content analysis conducted in order to provide the background against which the reception study was conducted, available issues of the newspaper published over the past four years were analysed until data saturation was reached.
Thirty-seven issues of the tabloid were included in the content analysis. These are:
2008 2009
Wednesday, 6 August 2008 Friday, 9 January 2009
Friday, 8 August 2008 Monday, 12 January 2009
Monday, 11 August 2008 Thursday, 15 January 2009
Tuesday, 12 August 2008 Wednesday, 14 January 2009
Thursday, 14 August 2008 Friday, 16 January 2009
Friday, 15 August 2008 Monday, 14 September 2009
Tuesday, 19 August 2008 Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Monday, 15 September 2008 Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Thursday, 9 October 2008 Thursday, 17 September 2009
Friday, 24 October 2008 Friday, 18 September 2009
2010 Friday, 9 October 2009
Tuesday, 11 May 2010 Sunday, 11 October 2009
Friday, 14 May 2010 Monday, 12 October 2009
Sunday, 15 August 2010 Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Monday, 16 August 2010 Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Tuesday, 17 August 2010 Friday, 16 October 2009
Friday, 20 August 2010 2011
Thursday, 31 March 2011 Monday, 4 April 2011 Wednesday, 6 April 2011 Thursday, 7 April 2011 Friday, 8 April 2011 Table 3.1: Issues included in the qualitative content analysis of the Son
The tabloid is aimed at a different audience and is not sold in the part of the country where the researcher resides. This made it somewhat diffcult to obtain copies of the Son, which resulted in convenience sampling of the issues for the analyses. Friends and former colleagues at Media24 were of much help in this regard. The researcher also collected newspapers on various trips to the Western and Northern Cape, buying a whole week’s newspapers or obtaining newspapers at the Son’s offces. A more detailed discussion of the challenges in this regard is provided in section 5.2.3.
The Son has undergone various minor changes regarding content and layout during the past four years, but the most signifcant of these were implemented in 2011. The Son most probably made these changes based on information they received from a company they commissioned to conduct research among their readers (the researcher is in possession of these documents). Therefore, issues from 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 were included in this study in order to provide a detailed overview of the newspaper’s content and style.
The qualitative content analysis of the Son was conducted to identify possible themes, topics, stylistic characteristics, as well as other tabloid elements that the newspaper uses to serve its audiences (see Leslie, 2010:140–2). The content analysis, which entailed a systematic analysis of media content (Leslie, 2010:141; Hornig Priest, 2010:39, 40; Hornig Priest, 1992:66; Tankard, 1992:26), enabled the researcher to identify themes and topics. These functioned as guidelines for the empirical study. Johansson (2007:71) used the same method to provide the basis for her study on readers of British tabloid newspapers. Thematic units of content analysis such as recurring themes and/or topics (including genres and beats – see table 2.2) were used to determine the content the newspaper provides and on which it focuses (see Burton, 2010:10; Hornig Priest, 2010:41; Leslie, 2010:145–9; Bauer, 2002:135, 138; Du Plooy, 2002:191). The aim was to ascertain the following by means of a semiotic approach to media texts:
(i) the amount of space the newspaper allocates to stories about crime, celebrities, local news or sport, for example (see section 2.4.1);
(ii) the importance of visuals (colour, photographs and graphics) to the newspaper (see section 2.4.2);
(iii) the manner in which the newspaper presents the information (this included examining the length of the stories, genres and the packaging of the news; see section 2.4.2); and (iv) the news criteria on which the Son focuses (see section 2.4.6).
In addition, in content analysis it is important to balance the relationship between the text7 and the reader, since Dahlgren and Sparks (1992:12) warn against “the emphasis on meaning and the subjectivity in the reception process”. Keppler (2004:106) is also of the opinion that one must understand the product in order to interpret the reception, and according to Jensen and Rosengren (2001:175, 176) this is what distinguishes reception research from other approaches to media audiences: a study of and comparison between the media discourse and the audience discourse enable researchers to gain insight into the relationship between the media and the audience. Burton (2010:7) underlines this by arguing: “the connection between text and meanings is also about the relationship between media and audiences, or between media and society” (see section 4.3.3). It was therefore vital to determine the manner in which the Son approaches its readers before exploring audience interpretations of the newspaper (see sections 4.3.2.3 and 4.3.3.1). The content analysis thus gives insight into how this particular newspaper establishes a relationship with its readers. Moreover, it gave the researcher the opportunity to familiarise herself with the newspaper, making it easier to have more meaningful and open conversations with the readers.
To supplement the qualitative content analyses, the researcher initially planned to conduct a qualitative personal semi-structured interview with the editor of the Son, Andrew Koopman. However, after various communications via e-mail and an initial interview to establish his willingness to assist, it was clear that any attempts would be unsuccessful (see section 5.2.3 for diffculties experienced in the research process). After initially agreeing to an interview, reaching him thereafter was impossible. While his motivations remain unclear, his unwillingness to cooperate could, in retrospect, be due to the fact that the Son was conducting its own study during this time. However, the researcher did have the opportunity to have an unplanned personal discussion about the newspaper and its readers with the content editor of this newspaper, Neil Scott. He was enthusiastic about the research project and willing to assist in any way he could. He supplied the researcher with valuable documents regarding the tabloid's policy, as well as the research design and initial results of the newspaper's own study (see section 4.2 and 4.4).
In addition, a participant-observation method was employed to supplement the qualitative content analysis in order to determine the communication approaches the S o n uses. The newspaper's social network profles on Twitter (@sonkoerant) and Facebook (Son Koerant) were followed (and therefore observed) for a period of six months (January – June 2011). The researcher
7 According to Burton (2010:6), texts are anything “people can engage with [it] to produce meanings about themselves, their society and their beliefs”. He adds that media texts are produced with the intention to engage with an audience and that they can be either transient (like a movie) or permanent (like a newspaper or a magazine). A textual analysis is an attempt to study what he calls a “moving target”.
was thus able to see which stories the newspaper posted online, what links they tweeted (communicated/made available) or shared on these networks, as well as how they approached those readers who have their own Twitter and Facebook accounts, in other words readers who follow the newspaper on these networks. The researcher also participated in the form of replying to these tweets, posting questions and retweeting the Son’s stories and messages (sending the stories to her own followers on the network).
The aim of a participant observer is to become an unobtrusive member of the group studied and in this way it offers the researcher the opportunity to obtain valuable and otherwise unobtainable data (Hornig Priest, 2010:96, 97). Although the researcher was not physically part of a group, she was a member of the online community and therefore virtually present (see Lindlof, 1995:135). In this case, the researcher played an observer-as-participant role, which means that observation was the primary goal, in other words the researcher attempted to establish how and in what way the newspaper communicates to its online community. The role of participant was secondary to this (see Lindlof, 1995:146–8).