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Printer-Friendly ModeCommunications professor clarifies qualitative research
submitted by Rob Drew
February 27, 2006 —
I am writing in response to Aaron Crossen's commentary on qualitative research in communication. I have had Mr. Crossen as a student and been impressed with his enthusiasm for learning. Since he asks searching questions about the field I study, I would like to respond.
Qualitative research refers to studying people "up close" through natural interaction rather than through surveys or experiments. One concern Mr. Crossen has about qualitative research is that it does not "aspire to truth." He equates qualitative methods with postmodernism, a term sometimes used to describe an abandonment of the search for universal truths. While qualitative researchers do sometimes reject larger truth claims, this is not usually the case in practice. There is nothing essentially relativistic about qualitative methods. As one example, many market researchers employ qualitative methods precisely because they often find it the best way of revealing the truth of consumer behavior.
Mr. Crossen seems more concerned with the relevance of qualitative research. Such researchers do indeed often study such marginal groups as pornography customers and fake ID users, to repeat the examples Mr. Crossen mentions. The question of relevance is a more difficult one that each student must decide for him or herself. I can certainly understand the view that in a world plagued by disease, war, and terrorism (not to mention unemployment), qualitative communication research may not rank among the most essential skills. I will say that this dilemma is neither of recent origin nor exclusive to the field of communication. Sociology in the U.S. originated largely with qualitative methods, as researchers of the Chicago School did classic ethnographies of such marginal groups as street corner gangs and dancehall dancers as far back as the 1930s. Like novelists or investigative journalists, qualitative researchers study such groups in the hope of "making the strange familiar" and unearthing insights into human behavior and social life.
I hope this gives some sense of why one might want to pursue qualitative communication research as well as why one might not want to.
Rob Drew Associate Professor of Communication