Sari Thomas' Article

In, Sari Thomas’ article, Artifactual Study in the Analysis of Culture: A Defense of Content Analysis in a Postmodern Age, she sets out to show that content analysis is a valid method for artifactual study. She begins by explaining how “there are no sociocultural or humanistic research techniques that provide direct access to an individuals meaning-making and subsequent application process for everyday life” (p 685). Researchers merely interpret the information, and as such “when it comes to meaning and its social implications, all-available methods are approximations of the process we seem to want to uncover” (p 686). Thomas is not criticizing every kind of research method, she is merely pointing out that content analysis is one way to approximate.

Thomas’ explains in detail how cultural analysis of artifacts can give meaning and addresses to the “big ideas operating in a culture” (p 689). She points to Berelson’s definition of content analysis to begin her case, “Content analysis is a research technique for the objectives, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication”(p 689). Thomas breaks goes through the major critics of content analysis and explains why they are unjustified.

For me this article started off really interesting, I liked the justification for studying artifacts, like books, TV, media etc. However when it came to her discussion on content analysis she lost me. She spent allot of time explaining how the critics of content analysis have got it all wrong, but not enough information on how content analysis specifically benefits artifact study. Maybe I was just confused and I missed it.

The best part of this article is the first quote I mentioned above, “there are no sociocultural or humanistic research techniques that provide direct access to an individuals meaning-making and subsequent application process for everyday life” (p 685). I found this very insightful as I begin my research proposal. My research method will be interviews and case studies, but I am currently looking at different underlying theories for the analysis of the data. I have not come across any that stand out yet, but hope to find something soon! 

Has everyone found the methods/theories they will use to analyze the 'theoretical' data?