The Grounded Theory and the Analysis of Audio-Visual Texts

Abstract

The aim of this article is to propose a methodological basis for the analysis of audio-visual, media-produced data. Based on the difference between the use of audio-visual material as a ‘lens’ through which a certain phenomenon is studied and the study of audio-visual data as a phenomenon in itself, ways are suggested to make use of the grounded theory research method for the study of this specific kind of data, while at the same time still respecting its nature. After discussing the difference between these two possible uses of audio-visual data for research purposes (as a ‘lens’ or as the phenomenon itself), a research procedure based on the grounded theory and Herbert Blumer’s ‘analytical elements’ is proposed for the study of audio-visual media data as a phenomenon in itself.

Notes

1. Although there exists a considerable amount of literature about the ways in which audio-visual media texts emerge as the product of interaction processes within media organisations (see e.g. Baker, 1989; Heath & Luff, 2000, pp. 61–87) and about the different dimensions that constitute that which is specific to these audio-visual texts (e.g. Fiske, 1987, pp. 281–308; Hansen, Cottle, Negrine, & Newbold, 1998, pp. 189–224), there is almost no literature avail-able regarding a methodology appropriate for the study of audio-visual media products, that is, regarding the ways in which hypotheses and theory, based in the empirical analysis of such data, can be generated systematically.

2. ‘Constructed’ in this context refers to the concept of Berger and Luckmann’s (1967) well-known ‘Social Construction of Reality’. Applied to the mass media, this would mean that the media do not ‘reflect’ (as a mirror) the subjects they use as themes, but instead construct them as they select them, make them into news stories and broadcast them to a wide viewing public (for a detailed study of these processes, see e.g. Tuchman, 1978). Especially in the case of tele-vision news programmes, journalists aim to mask this constructiveness and generate what Fiske (1987, p. 282) designates as the ‘transparency fallacy’, that is, ‘the idea that television is a window to the world’.

3. Although the study of how media audio-visual products such as news programmes or docu-mentary films are produced is relevant to an understanding of the products themselves, it represents a complementary perspective to the one proposed here. Neither study of the fabri-cation processes alone nor research exclusively focused on media sequences alone leads to an understanding of the way in which reality is constructed in the mass media.

4. For the study of news visuals as symbolism, see Hansen et al. (1998, p. 189).

5. For a more detailed discussion of the methodological problems of studying the construction of political corruption in television news programmes and the concrete use of the method-ological basis suggested in this article, see Figueroa (2001).

6. For a detailed discussion of fictionality in news programmes (see Fiske, 1987, p. 308).

7. This is an example taken from Figueroa (2001) which is a study about the construction of political corruption in Argentinian news programmes.

8. The content of these impressionistic notes would not differ much from the impressions and perspective of a ‘normal’ viewer, for example one who watches the programme without a research purpose in mind. The advantage of taking this perspective into consideration at the beginning of the study is that global, non-theory-biased impressions, for example the ones that the programmes in fact generate in the viewers, would lead to the formulation of first hypotheses. These would then be examined and further developed during the course of the research.