Lecture 6 Documentary research PDF

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Documentary research...

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Documentary research: sources from the web, the media and social policy Documentary research   

Involves the gathering of documents, both textual and visual as the source materials for your research These can include government publications, annual reports, newspaper articles, images, videos, etc It is one of the most common used research methods and most research projects include some component of documentary research

Long and distinguished tradition of documentary research:   

Durkheim’s Suicide (1970) – analysed official records Weber’s The Protestant Ethic (1905) – used historical documents Marx’s Capital (1867) – analysed government records archived in the British Museum

What are documents?  

‘Documents are literally all around us, they are inescapable, they are an integral part of our daily lives and our public concerns.’ (McCulloch, 2004) ‘visual documents are to be considered in the same light as handwritten or printed and typeset documents. They are texts whose meaning must be disclosed like any other.’ (Scott, 1990)

What are not documents? 

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Quantitative datasets – i.e. raw (unanalysed) data from surveys such as the Understanding Society crim e.g. o Documentary research is NOT secondary data analysis (although some textbooks will include this in the chapter on documentary research) Academic journal articles, academic books, official statistics (e.g. ONS) – in other words academic literature o Documentary research is NOT a literature review (although some textbooks will describe a literature review as documentary research - for the purposes of your dissertation it is not)

Quantitative use of documents  

Documentary research is fundamentally a QUALITATIVE method, but documents can be used to generate quantitative data. Examples: o Durkheim’s Suicide: used documents on reported suicides to then run statistical multivariate analysis o Current examples – measurement of the restrictiveness of migration policies – DEMIG POLICY project to answer the RQ have migration policies become more restrictive

Documents   

Letters, diaries, memoirs, emails Tweets, ‘below line’ comments, status updates Blogs Government Policy papers (White Green)

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Adverts and publicity material (flyers, website) Policy reports and briefings Print and online news articles Magazines and websites Biographies and autobiographies Police records, court records Government Legislation Annual reports

Their authors           

Media companies and their editors (Sky, The guardian, News Corporation, Fox) Individuals (Joe or Josie Bloggs; Experts/ professionals) Global corporations (Google, Facebook, CocaCola, Disney) The UK Police (Regional constabularies) The legal system (The UK parliament, the Courts, The CPS) Government departments, ministries and offices (DWP, DfE, Ministry of Justice, Home office) Local Authorities (Southampton Council, The London Borough of Hackney) Third sector organisations (Barnardos, Oxfam, Citizens Advice) Community groups (Southampton Scouts, Action Hampshire, Solent Mind) The National Health Service (Hospitals, GP practices, DfHSC) Journalists

Where and how to find documents In the public domain… 

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Online o Websites (location for documents and are themselves documents) o Central and local government (government departments; DWP o Third sector organisations o News media, social media Archives o Organisations and public bodies (Third sector orgs, libraries, government bodies)

Not in the public domain (Private)…  

Diaries and records of Individuals Documents belonging to Public private and third sector organisations (access requires negotiation)

Strategies…   

Online research (using search terms, mining websites, following links, etc -important skills) Doing primary ethnographic or interview based research (asking interviewees to provide documents that are not publicly available) Applying for access to archives visiting the archives identifying the documents making notes and photocopying documents

Sampling documents 

Documents need to be sampled and selected

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The sample is defined by the research question. For example… o How has UK government employment policy changed over the period of economic austerity 2008-2018? (sample is government green and white papers on employment policy produced between 2008 and 2018) o How do images of women used by women’s health magazines in 1988 differ from those used by women's health websites in 2018? (Sample is health magazines from the year 1988 and health websites from the year 2018) o How was football hooliganism portrayed differently by the left wing and right wing press in the early 21st century? (sample is articles on football that use the term ;’hooligan’ in the Guardian and the Daily Mail from 2000-2005) Sampling strategies might include… o The search terms used (i.e. the first 50 websites on a google search of the terms ‘football hooliganism’) o A specific period of time (all the documents have to fall within that time period) o Documents from two separate points in time (a month, a year) o The political position of different news sources (right wing press left wing press ) o The Policy documents produced by different organisations/bodies about the same issue o Etc The number of documents studied will depend on multiple factors -the parameters imposed by the question, the scope of the research (time resources), the richness of the content of the documents

Examples from SSPC dissertations 

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Bureaucratisation of migration regimes, case study of the Windrush generation – documents analysed: o UK immigration acts 1968-2017 o PM speeches 1960s-2018 re immigration o Media representation of Commonwealth migration to the UK Media representations of young cyber criminals and ‘off-line’ criminals- documents analysed: o Media articles, wide range of newspapers 2010-2018 The role of UK rap music in the construction of gang culture in the UK- documents analysed: o Lyrics of grime artists in the UK (2010-2018) o Album covers o Videos Legitimisation of animals’ exploitation by farming industry advertisers- documents analysed: o Visual and textual data of meat, diary and egg products (n = 60) o Mix of print (textual and image) and video

Ethics and risk   

Documentary research might not appear to be ethically challenging if documents are in the public domain... but it can be! The internet redefines the boundaries between public and private space making research ethics an ongoing challenge Chat room data, Blogs, social media comments, ‘below line’ responses to news articles… o Are these documents in the public or private domain? o Who owns them?

o o

Should we get permission to use them? If so how?

Guidance on the use of this data is constantly being updated. Please check out guidelines from the British Psychological Society (BPS), National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM), Social Research Association (SRA), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)...