SOCIOL 2Z03 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Official Statistics, Subgroup Analysis, Qualitative Research
11 Sep 2018
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November 20
CHAPTER 8: OTHER SOURCES OF DATA
INTRODUCTION
• This section studies documents: letters, diaries, papers, TV, websites, photographs,
autobiographies, etc.
• A document is any source of data that:
o Can be read (including visual materials)
o Was not produced specifically for the purpose of social research
• Documents are important because they are unobtrusive and nonreactive
o Because they don’t know they are being studied it removes threat of validity
• Scott distinguished between:
o Personal vs. official documents:
▪ Official: private and state documents
o 4 criterial for accessing quality of documents
1. Authenticity: genuine and unquestionable
2. Credibility: free from error and distortion
3. Representativeness: evidence typical of what it is supposed to represent
4. Meaning: clear and comprehensible
PERSONAL DOCUMENTS
DIARIES, LETTERS, AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
• Diaries and letters used by historians, given less attention by other social researchers
o Letters are wrote for others
o Diaries are wrote for themselves
▪ When wrote for bigger consumption, they are difficult to distinguish from
autobiographies
• Used with a life history of biographical method (whether un/solicited) can be primary sources of
data or adjuncts to other sources (life story interviews)
o HOWEVER, concerned with unsolicited documents
• Difference between biographies and autobiographies can be broke down by information
available
• When evaluating personal documents AUTHENTICITY needs to be addressed
o Autobiographical ghost writers made this a huge issue but can be found in other work
• Two CREDIBILITY issues:
o Factual accuracy
o Whether they express true thoughts
▪ Can’t be taken at face value
▪ Can’t be accepted uncritically
• Photographs have issues with REPRESENTATIVENESS because they reflect needs and biases of
people who took the picture
o What isn’t being photographed
o Awareness of what isn’t photographed shows mentality of people behind camera
o Selective survival of photographs: manufactured reality (which could be focus for
researcher)
GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS
• The state is a source of information of potential significance for social researcher
o Lots of quantitative statistical info
• Lots of textual material (official reports)
• Some material is publically available and easy to access
o Parliament debates, questions and answer in Hansard, leaflets, letters, consultation
papers, etc.
• Gov docs are authentic and have meaning (clear and concise), however credibility needs to be
determined separately (whether the document source is bias)
o Caution is necessary when attempting to treat them as depictions of reality
OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS FROM PRIVATE SOURCES
• Widely varied but common category is company documents
o Companies and organizations produce a lot of documents some are public domain
(press releases, advertisements, reports, etc.)
o But many things are not public (minutes of meetings, correspondence (internal and
external) manuals)
• This material is often used by organizational ethnographers in investigations
• Very difficult to get access to even if the researcher is an insider in the organization
• Private documents also need Scots evaluation:
o Likely authentic and meaningful (clear and comprehensible)
o Credibility require scrutiny
▪ People who write documents generally write from their point of view
▪ Vealed and varied interpretations of key events
▪ Reflected positions in organizations
▪ Not free from error or distortion
o Representativeness is issue and needs skepticism (were some things destroyed, do you
have required access?
• Must be critically analyzed and compared to other data because not objective
MASS MEDIA OUTPUTS
• Newspapers, magazines, TV, films are all potential sources
• Critical discourse analysis (not definition) involves examining social and political implications on
material examine
o Approach can be taken with any medium of communication
• Film/TV/magazines are all similar for potential research (all have target audience? Uncritical
consumers)
• AUTHENTICITY: difficult to ascertain in mass media
o Authors can be anon
o Did author know all facts
• CREDIBILITY: error of distortion objective of analysis
• REPRESENTATIVENESS: can not be an issue for newspaper or magazine since publications make
a point of maintaining a consistent tone or ideological bent
• Literal meaning of mass media outputs is often clear, usually takes reflection and theoretical
analysis to appreciate these forms of communication can have
VIRTUAL OUTPUTS OF THE INTERNET AS OBJECTS OF ANALYSIS
• Text has traditionally been used to mean a written document
o Now it has a wide range of phenomena
o Contemporary scholars say text are materials that can be interpreted to produce
readings
▪ Websites and webpages
Document Summary
Government documents: the state is a source of information of potential significance for social researcher, lots of quantitative statistical info. Literal meaning of mass media outputs is often clear, usually takes reflection and theoretical analysis to appreciate these forms of communication can have. Checklist for evaluating documents: who created the document. Was the person who produced the document in a position to write authoritatively about the. Is the document typical to other documents writing on the same subject. Are there different interpretations of the document from the one offered. If it is(cid:374)"t reported, the(cid:374) its (cid:374)ot used i(cid:374) statisti(cid:272)s. Police may choose to let them off with a warning. Or: crime may be committed in a place under surveillance, police must proceed with prosecution, offence must be recorded, become part of crime rate, dark figure: not included in crime statistics.
