SOC200H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Content Analysis, Anomie
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Using existing statistics: researcher uses data or statistical inferences carried out by someone else data means data, statistical inferences are findings from data analysis: the unemployment rate, average income for women etc, good reasons to use existing data are that it is inexpensive, relatively easy to gather. Emile durkheim"s study of society: wanted to discover the environmental condition that encouraged or discourage suicide, examined available records and more patterns arose, found that suicide rates from year to year are consistent, also that suicides are not affected by temperature, ultimately found that suicide is a product of anomie and normlessness. Depending on our focus, there are often issues with validity and bias limited to the analysis of recorded communications: historical and comparative research, examining societies or other social units over time and comparing them to other societies and social units, when analyzing data on historical data, you cannot trust the accuracy of the statistics.