Research methods, as Deacon et al. (1999) outline, are ways of gathering the evidence required by competing definitions of what counts as a legitimate and worthwhile approach to the investigation of social and cultural life. Two major paradigms of research methods are quantitative and qualitative (Bryman 1988; 2001), which are also referred to as the ‘positivist’, and the ‘critical’ and ‘interpretive’ approaches respectively (Bryman 1984; Deacon et al. 1999; Gunter 2002). The two methods can be viewed as exhibiting a set of distinctive but contrasting preoccupations that reflect, as Bryman (2001:276) asserts, epistemologically grounded beliefs about what constitutes knowledge.
4.1.1. The Nature of Quantitative Research
Quantitative research draws the bulk of its intellectual inspiration from the methodologies and procedures of nineteenth century natural sciences, and from certain tenets of
positivism in particular (Bryman 1988; 2001). Epistemologically, positivism posits a
‘real’, independently existing reality that can be comprehended by the objective, detached, and value-free inquirer, who stands independently of the context (Neuman 1997:14; see also Bryman 1984). The quantitative approach is characterised as exhibiting a preoccupation with operational definitions, objectivity, replicability,
causality and generalisations, among other concerns. The question of objectivity is interrogated later in my discussion of content analysis as a research technique.
This approach, in addition, is conceptualised by its practitioners as having a logical structure in which theories determine the problems that researchers address in the form of hypotheses about causal connections between the concepts, which are the constituent of the hypotheses derived from general theories (Bryman 1988). Quantitative research, as Neuman (1997) asserts, examines variables using statistical relationships between them to discuss causal relationships. The data so collected are then analysed so that the causal connection specified by the hypotheses can be verified or rejected.
The main techniques used for data collection include social surveys, experimental designs, and secondary analysis of previously collected data, structured observations and content analysis of communication content, such as the newspaper.
4.1.2. The Nature of Qualitative Research
Qualitative research, unlike quantitative research, derives its intellectual inspiration from traditions that are distinctively different from the positivist orientation. The most
fundamental characteristic of this tradition, as Bryman (1984, 1988) asserts, is its express commitment to seeing the social world, i.e., events, actions, norms, and values, among other things, from the point of view of the actor. More specifically, the interpretive tradition is centrally concerned, not with establishing relations of cause and effect, but with exploring the ways that people make sense of the world, and how they express these understandings through language, sound and social rituals, among other things (Deacon et al. 1999; also see Berg 1998).
Qualitative researchers, accordingly, are concerned with exploring how meaning is constructed and circulated through cultural practices within specific socio-historical contexts (Bryman 1988, 2001; Denzin and Lincoln 2000; Jensen 2002). The textual contents of media, including their materiality, scheduling and social uses therefore, are studied in order to explore how the media generate meaning. The qualitative method’s preference for contextualisation entails that meaningful actions, events or behaviour should be understood in the context of meaning systems. This engenders a style of research in which the meaning that people ascribe to their own behaviour and that of
others have to be set in the context of the values, practices, and underlying structures of that particular entity, such as media. The basic message being conveyed is that we can understand events only when they are situated in the wider social and historical contexts.
However, the reality one observes depends on how one looks at it, and the meanings it conveys depend on one’s allegiances and commitments (Hartley 1994; Inglis 1993).
Some of the techniques for data collection associated with this method include unstructured interviews, participant observation, ethnography and textual analysis. For this study, I employed both quantitative and qualitative methods.
4.1.3. The Combination of Methods
Quantitative and qualitative research methods have been at the centre of debates about their use within the social sciences in relation to their nature, their different capabilities and the philosophical issues that underpin them (Bryman 1988, 2001; Flick 1998).
Though some of the earlier social scientists (Filstead 1979 and Guba 1985, cited in Bryman 1988) regarded these two methods as mutually incompatible, Deacon et al.
(1999) contend that most of the questions facing communications research are best tackled by combining different research methods, that is, by way of triangulation
(Bryman 2001:274; Denzin 1989:230; Flick 1998:230). Denzin (1989) identifies the four types of triangulation as data triangulation (the use of different sources of data),
investigator triangulation (the use of different observers or interviews to detect or minimise researchers’ bias), theory triangulation (approaching data with different theoretical perspectives and hypotheses), and methodological triangulation (the use of within-method or between-methods).
In this study, I used the between-methods type of triangulation. This type of triangulation is a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods that attempts to secure an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon in question (Denzin and Lincoln 2000:5). This study benefited from this combination of methods since, as
Bryman (1988:173) has pointed out, quantitative and qualitative methods have different strengths and weaknesses, and one method strengthens the weakness of the other. In addition, if each method reveals different aspects or slightly different facets of the same reality (Berg 1998:4), then every method is a different line of sight directed towards the
same point. By employing both quantitative and qualitative methods, I was attempting to obtain a better and more substantial picture of the representation of women politicians in the Sunday Times.