RESEARCH METHODS
Textual Analysis
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It is the interpretation of texts in films, TV programmes, magazines, advertisements, clothes, graffiti, online discussion threads, and so forth.
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Usually, this approach puts more focus on the content rather than the structure of the text, as the meaning of a text cannot be captured by counting the number of words.
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Researchers try to understand how people with different cultural backgrounds make sense of the social world as shown in texts.
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There are different ways of conducting textual analysis: some are “mutually contradictory and incompatible” (McKee, 2003).
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You are not going to generate a “correct” analysis of a text, instead, you aim to provide a meaningful reading of how readers and writers interact through the text in a certain context.
Knowing Your Text
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Text is something that we make meanings from, for example, a tattoo, a book, a TV show, a magazine, or even signs printed on a T-shirt.
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The use of different approaches could lead to different understandings, even when studying similar topics and sources.
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When you are reading a text, always remember the following keys points:
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Text is not absolute, no text can truly describe reality in an unbiased manner, it only represents certain perspectives, part of the story or less accurate representation of reality.
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There are differences in value judgments.
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There are differences in the existence of abstract things.
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There are differences in relationships between things.
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There are differences in seeing things. (e.g. think about the controversies of the term “fishball riot” and “fishball revolution”)
​When dealing with text in cultures we are not familiar with, people may respond differently to the text (McKee, 2003):
WHY IS IT MEANINGFUL TO KNOW HOW OTHERS MAKE SENSE OF THE WORLD?
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It reflects how your research participants treat people around and how they respond to different things. More than that, it is closely related to our identities.
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We tend to associate ourselves and others in groups and treat them differently, and the way we do it continues to change over time and contexts. It should be clarified that no one has full control of such change in sense-making, and there are always alternatives to make sense of something in a culture.
Conducting Textual Analysis
Unlike researchers of quantitative analysis who are interested in counting the number of times the variables occur in a selected sample, qualitative researchers are interested to investigate the meanings embedded in the texts and the related context.
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We can never just describe a text, because every description is an interpretation, there are always many possible descriptions/interpretations of each text.
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But there isn’t an infinite number of reasonable interpretations of any given text at a given time in a given place.
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When we produce an interpretation of a text, we have to put it into a context, i.e. whose interpretation are we guessing at – people reading it when it was first circulated or people reading it now?
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For this methodology, none of these interpretations is the single correct one. We are interested in finding out what interpretations people are likely to make of texts: not what interpretations we think they should make.
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It doesn’t really matter what the creator of the text think is the correct interpretation (with the exception that we can find evidence that audiences actually use that information themselves to interpret the text).
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You should begin your analysis of a text by making clear what questions you are trying to answer.
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It’s fine just to pick out the most interesting and relevant parts of a text for analysis; in fact, this is the correct approach for post-structuralist textual analysis.
Online Materials
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Nowadays people tend to communicate online, through the use of words, symbols (emoji and created terms) and images. It is also helpful to study these materials in a criterial manner.
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Although the combination of words and images appears to be more complicated, the principle is similar to textual analysis: to look for the meanings and their implications.
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Contextualization is a must as the use of words and images online could be different from the common, daily use of communications (e.g. think about the “creative” use of terminologies in Golden Forum/ LIHK Forum)
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Make good use of the “keyword search” function, certain websites and online forums have the “keyword search” function that could be of great use for your selection of text
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Download the online material to prevent data loss due to sudden updates or changes in online content. This could be done by print screening your web browser.
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If you are studying online materials from discussion forums, make sure that you keep the users’ name anonymous
KNOW MORE
McKee, A. (2003). Textual analysis: a beginner’s guide. London: Sage Publications.