Sharon Hartin Iorio-Qualitative Research in Journalism_ Taking It to the Streets (Lea's Communication Series) (2003)

8/18/2019 Sharon Hartin Iorio-Qualitative Research in Journalism_ Taking It to the Streets (Lea's Communication Series) (2003)

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/sharon-hartin-iorio-qualitative-research-in-journalism-taking-it-to-the-streets 1/259



Qualitative Research

in

Journalism

Taking It to the

Streets



LEA'S

COMMUNICATION

SERIES

Jennings Bryant/Dolf Zillmann, General Editors

Selected

tides

in

journalism

(Maxwell

McCombs, Advisory Editor) include:

Heider •

White News: W hy Local New s Programs Don't Cover People of Color

Lipschultz/Hilt • Crime

and Local Television

News: Dramatic,

Breaking,

and

Live From the Scene

McCombs/Reynolds

• The

Poll

With a Human Face: The National Issues

Convention E xper iment

in

Political Communication

Merrill/Gade/Blevens

• Twilight

of Press

Freedom: The Rise of People's

Journalism

Merritt •

Public Journalism

and

Public

Life: W hy

Telling

the News Is Not

Enough, Second Edi t ion

Wanta

• The

Public

and the

National Agend a:

How

People Learn

About

Important Issues

For

a

complete list

of

titles

in

LEA's Co m m unication Series, please contact

Lawrence E rlbaum Associates, Pub lishers,

at

www.er lbaum.com



Qualitative Research

in Journalism

Taking It to the

Streets

Edited by

Sharon Hartin lorio

Wichita State University

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM

ASSOCIATES,

PUBLISHERS

2004 M ahw ah, New Jersey London



Copyright

© 2004 by

Lawrence Erlb aum Associa tes , Inc.

A ll rights reserved. N o pa r t o f this book m ay be reproduced in any

form,

by

photosta t, microfo rm, retr iev al system,

or any

other m eans , w i thou t

prior written permission

of the

publisher .

Lawrence Erlb aum Associa tes, Inc., Publishers

10 Industr ia l Avenue

M ahwah, NJ 07430

Cover design by Kathryn H ough tal ing Lacey

Library

of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Qu ali ta t ive research

in

journa l i sm

:

taking

it to the

s treets /edi ted

by

Sharon

Hartin lorio.

p. cm.

Includes bibl iographical references

and

index.

ISBN 0-8058-4398-1 (cloth : a lk . Paper)

ISBN 0-8058-4399-X (pb k. : a lk. paper)

PN4784.R38T35 2003

070.407'2—dc21 2003046235

C IP

Books pu blished by Lawrence Er lbaum Associa tes are printed on

acid-free

paper, and their bindings are

chosen

for s trength and

durabil i ty.

Printed in the United Sta tes of America

1 0

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1



The

editor dedicates this volume

to the journalis ts w ho provided interviews,

gave their time

to

this

p roject

in

countless

ways,

and

work daily

to

p rovide accurate information

to the general public



his page intentionally left blank



Contents

Foreword— Jay Rosen

ix

Preface

xiii

About

the

Contributors

xvii

Parti

1 Qualitative Method Journalism—Sharon

Hartin lorio

3

2 Connected

Research:

The

Chicago

School 21

Precedent—Lewis

A. Friedland and Kathryn B. Campbel l

3 The

Changing News Paradigm: From Objectivity

41

to

Interpretive

Sufficiency—Cli f ford G.

Christ ians

Part II

4 Qualitative Case Study Methods in Newsroom Research 59

and

Reporting:

The

Case

of the Akron Beacon

Journal

—

Tanni Haas

5 Focus Groups Newsroom Style—Susan

Wiiley

75

6

Oral

and Life

Histories: Giving Voice

93

to the Voiceless—

Renita Coleman

VII



VJi i CONTENTS

7 Focused Interviews— Sharon Hartin lorio 109

8 Ethnographic

Journal i sm—

J a n e t M.

Cramer

and M ichael 111

McDevitt

9 Inventing Civic Mapping—Kathryn B. Campbell 145

10 Tex tual Analysis in Journalism—John L.

"Jack" Morris

163

11

Scientists

and

Storytellers:

The

Imperative

of

Pairing

175

Quali tat ive and Quanti tat ive Approaches in

Communication Research—Susan

S chultz Huxman

and Mike

Allen

12 Academic/Professional Partnerships: Newsrooms 193

and

Community—Jan

Schaffer

Glossary

213

Author

Index 227

Subject Index 233



Foreword

When I

look ov er

th e

landscape

of

journ alism today,

I see

changes

that are al-

m ost geological in k ind— the p la tes are shifting, the continent grinds in m otion.

Familiar

fea tu re s are still there, b ut

from

basin to range there are strange form a-

tions, and new aspects appear. Below the surface much goes on. The ground

rises w here before there was

nothing

to build on. Old ground cracks and sinks.

The

harde s t problem

in

journal ism today

may be to map it, to

d raw borders

a round

the

practice

and

def ine w hat ' s with in

or

beyond.

Is there

an audience

for

serious n e w s

?

O ne of the ways we s t ruggle is to m ap the space available fo r jou r -

nal ism. The imagined l ine between "news" and "enter ta inment" is another .

Does

the

border separa t ing journal ism from other creat ive t rea tm ents

of

rea l-

ity

by the

m edia complex

run

through counties,

or

through companies ,

or

sec-

tions

of the

newspaper, portions

of the

broadcas t schedule , segments

in the

Today

Show Probably it runs th rough ind iv idua ls— journa l is t s— producers of

news who sway one way,

then

another ; feel com mercial pres sure , resist i t ,

m a k e

space for themselves and for journal ism , then lose it, regain it here, give

it

up

over there . Where

is

jou rna l i sm

in a

company like

the

Am er ican newspa-

per giant, Ga nn et, which is som etimes d evoted to the practice w ith, let us say,

half

a h e a r t ?

Where

is " journal ism " in that screaming empire known as

Fox?

Somewhere in the mix .

Difficulties

in

saying

who is a

jou rnal is t make

for

unstable ground

in the

prac-

tice. When

did

form er political ope rative

T im

R ussert become one,

and w hy is

Net gossip Matt Drudge not one? We may be used to questions like that. But

now with

the

Internet

the

possib ility

of

opening

a

solo p ractice

in

journal ism

has

r e tu rned , and we are little used to that. Put up a website w ith good reporting and

commenta ry

and you may be

successfully practicing journalism, even tho ugh

no

IX



F O R E W O R D

one said you could. In March of 2003, former New York Daily N e w s reporter

Chris Allbritton, operating on his own, sn uc k over the Turk ish border into Iraq

and fi led reports abo ut the war to his website for readers anyw here in the wo rld.

M att Drudge

is

easy

to

recognize

as a

type from

the

past , Allbrit ton

is

not.

W ho

funded h im? Readers d id— remarkable people who contr ibu ted over $ 10,000 to

his plan of w ork. W ho edited and published

h im?

H e him self did. W ho distr ib-

uted his reports? The

Internet

did. Why did he do it? He w anted to report inde-

pendently on the war and proved himself up to it. W hich ex ecut ive in the m ed ia

com plex said, "Go be a jou rna list for us ?" No one. W ho set up the laws o f a free

press under which

he

opera ted?

There

were

none; it w as a

s ta te

o f

war.

W ho is

more independent

than

C hris A llbr i t ton? Cer ta inly no one wo rking for

T ime

magazine or C N N .

Journalism: I t 's gett ing hard er

to m ap it, to fix it in the

frame

for

sc ru t iny

and

analysis. Around

the

year 2000, where

on the

globe

was

there

a

free press,

and

therefore

the

possibility

of

real journalism ( the kind

a

dem ocracy s tarves w ith-

out) , and where was there n ot? That continent star ted t ipping in 1989 and drifts

more every day. W e know that in a given nation, the press is not necessarily free

or not free, an d a phrase like sem i-free does not help. When there is jou rnalis m

only because some have

the

courage

to

report

and

publ ish

in a

s i tua t ion

of

high

danger

and

m urderous th rea t,

the

practice

is

indistinguish able

from

rebellion

and

underground

politics.

On the other

hand , when

a

free

and

respo nsible press

in an

open society

is

forced to repo rt new s of a terror s tr ike, and of a possible terror s tr ike , and of

the state of a ler t when someone in the government th inks there might be a

terror s tr ike, thu s bringin g

on

some

of the

psychic d isrup t ion

for

wh ich ter ror-

is t acts are unde r take n in the

first

p lace; w hen th is happens to us v ia news re-

por ts

from

our ow n professionals , doing the ir job . . . the pra ctice of

journal i sm

by

some is indistinguishable from the practice of violence by others, even

though jou rna l i s t s

do no

v iolence them selves

and

obey

all

their eth ical codes.

Below the

surface m uch goes

on. I

doub t tha t Am er ican jou rna l i sm ,

if it ha s a

soul

(and w hat ser ious profess ional th inks

it has n o t ? ) , has the

sam e soul from

before

September 11 , 2001.

Journa l i sm : The th ing i s in f lux , in a degree greater than u s u a l . In order

for

people to have jou rn a l i sm , ca re abou t i t , a t t end to i t , and b ene f i t

from

i t ,

they

first

have

to think of

themselves

as a

pub l ic wi th

both the

r igh t

and the

need

to know wha t ' s go ing on in the wor ld . The person who has need for

news repor t ing (and a l l the fea tu res , ana lys i s , and com m enta ry tha t su r -

rounds

it)

l ives

fo r

some por t ion

of the day in

h is to r ica l t ime ,

o ne

p r emise

of

w h i c h

is the

poss ib i l i ty

o f affect ing

h i s to r y th r ou g h ind iv id u a l

and

d e m o -

cra t ic

choice. Where

tha t p oss ib i l ity sp reads , jou rna l i sm can a lwa ys f ind n ew



FOREWORD

xi

g r ou nd ; w h e r e

the

possibil i ty

of

demo crat ic

choice

d ies , journ al ism

too

goes

dead . But the publ ic can go dead j u s t by ceas ing to care abou t the w or ld ou t -

side; and it migh t if jou r na l i s t s are not smar t , sens i t ive , and a t t u n e d to the

problems of rea l people .

W hy should we assume, as Qua litative Research In

Journalism

does,

that

social

science

and the

tools

of academic research have anything to

teach journalism ?

The

basic reason,

I

think,

is

that these people

are in the

sam e busine ss. Scholars

try

to

unde rs tand

the

world

and the

people

in it.

Journalists

try to do the

same

thing. It's

a

hard problem,

so

they

both

need

all the

help they

can

get.

Tw o pro fessionals alive to the sam e que stion (W hat 's really going on out

t he re? )

ca n ob viou sly ins truc t each other. Thu s, social science, if it 's any good,

m u s t have smart things to teach journal ism about how be t te r to unders tand

people

and the

larger public world.

One

premise

of

this book

is

tha t . Am ong

the m any sm ar t th ings d iscussed are

focus

groups turned not to selling but to

grasping things like the lives of cit izens or the heal th of the com m uni ty ; in te r -

viewing layered and cu t for civic context, not j u s t quotes; questionnaires with

ideas inside them; disciplined observation not only of the except ional but of

the typ ical ; com m unity m apping showing assets as wel l as problems; e th nog ra-

phy in the

service

of

bet ter

and

more diverse reporting; oral history

as

cousin

to the

new s; interpreta t io n

as the

inevi tab le ,

not the

occasional thing

in

j o u r -

nal ism; the vir tu es of the case stud y in social science for the relate d prac tice of

exp lana to ry

jou r na l i sm . The au thors represented here , many of w h om h av e

wo rk ed

in

newsrooms ,

set out to

p rove

that

academic research

can

indeed

teach jou rna l i sm abou t how to unders tand what ' s going on out there . They

succeed

m ar v e lou s ly in tha t .

But

is the reverse proposition equally t rue? I think it is. Jou rnal is ts have very

good lessons to offer academics, those of us who s tudy news production. The

most imp or tant th ing journal is ts

can

teach scholars, researche rs, academ ic crit -

ic s (an d even public philosophers)

is how to be

useful—useful

to

jou rna l ism ,

but

also to com m unit ies , publ ics , and nations.

I

never knew

if my ow n

ideas abou t "public journalism" we re cracked,

profes-

sionally speaking, until I tr ied to make them useful to busy people who had

newspapers

to put out and broadcasts to assemble ... by dead line tha t day. Simi-

larly, I

found

it

impossible

to

know

which of the

many potent constructs

and re-

search s t ream s

in

modern social science

had the

potential actually

to

improve

journal i sm

until the editors and I tried to make such literature useful at, say, a

staff re t rea t

for the

Virginian-Pilot,

a

daily

in

N or fo lk ,

V A

(Rosen, 1999, chap.



xii F O R E W O R D

4). I

learned

a lot when I

discovered that news reporters

and

desk editors found

the

academic notion

of

framing

a

useful idea when they were trying

to

change

the way

they reported

on

routine public controversy (lyenger, 1991; Neuman,

Jus t ,

&.Crigler, 1992).

They

could ask novel questions like, How do we usual ly

frame this story? or, Wait a minute, can we re-frame this story.

7

In fact, they

did ask those questions, and started changing their work with the answers.

(Framing ... who

would have known?)

To try to be useful when the plates are shifting, the ground is cracking, and

the

global fight

is on for the

freedom

to

remain

a

journalist—this

is a

discipline

worth having.

The

essays reported here stay within that discipline, sometimes

called pragmatism, and this is what makes them

different

and valuable.

This

line of work is being transformed, writes Sharon lorio in her compelling over-

view. I

could

not

agree more.

—

Jay

Rosen

New

York

University

R E F E R E N C E S

lyengar,

S.

(1991).

Is

anyone

responsible?

How television

frames political

issues.

Chicago: Univer -

sity of Chicago.

N e u m a n , W . R. , Jus t , M. R., &Crigler, A. N.,

(1992)

Common knowledge: News and the con-

struction of political

meaning.

Chicago: University of Chicago.

Rosen,

J .

(1999).

What are

journalists for?

New

Haven,

C T: Yale University Press.



Preface

The idea for this project emerged from a discussion among professors and pro-

fessional journalists who assembled in the year 2001. The setting was the na-

t ional

meeting

of the

Association

for

Education

in

Journalism

and

Mass

Communication in Washington, D.C. In one of the discussions held at the

meeting,

both

the professional journalists and the

professors

in attendance

found

themselves in agreement. They recognized a pressing and increasing

need, whether driven

by

technology

or

other

change,

for

techniques

to

help

journal ists better connect with the daily lives of individuals. Both groups were

interested in

ways

to improve reporting, particularly political and social-issues

coverage. Many

of them

shared another common bond, their interest

in

news

that links people's personal concerns and stimulates public understanding—in

other words, the practices of

civic—public

journalism.

As the discussion developed, the professional journalists who described

new

reporting techniques being implemented in their newsrooms were struck

by the professors' responses. T he professors perceived the work of the

profes-

sionals not so much as new techniques but ones directly related to research

methodologies in existence for decades. Both groups were intrigued. In aca-

demic circles, the contributions of

journa l ism

to qualitative research method-

ologies in the social sciences were widely known. On the

other

hand, the

journal i s t s

knew little about this relationship, and neither group appeared to

unders tand the results o f applying and adapting qualitative (interpretative)

methods

to

current newsroom practices.

Xll



X JV PREFACE

Both groups wanted to know more .

They

began to ask questions. How

closely

did the reporting

methods described

by the

journalists compare

to

spe-

cific

quali ta t iv e methodologies used

b y

social

scientists? How do

these qua l i ta -

t ive methods

differ

from quan t i t a t ive

o r

s ta t i s t ica l m ethods tha t

journal is ts u se

daily

in

their work?

H ow

extensively

are

quali ta t ive methods being used

in

newsrooms?

What

makes these techniques valid as report ing tools?

Reliable?

Sufficient to meet the requ ireme nts of objec t ive news repor t ing? Are there pre-

cedents

for

this kind

of

repor t ing? O vera ll , w hat

exact ly do

reporters need

to

know about using quali ta t ive research in

journal ism?

Responses

to the questions

raised form

the

basis

of

this m ultiauthored volum e

and the reason for its pub lication. The aim of the volu m e is to show

ways

tha t news

coverage is expand ed and enhanced throu gh the use of

qu alitative

methods devel-

oped in the social

sciences.

Chapters 1 through 3 provide back ground fo r an under-

standing

of

qualitativ e research m ethods, their historical bond

to

news reporting

and

writing,

and

their relationship

to the

traditions

of

objectivity

in

m edia. Chap-

ters

4

through

10

each describe

a

particu lar qualita tive methodology— oral

and life

histories, textual

analysis,

focused interviews, ethnography, focus groups,

civic

mapping, and case studies— and show how each is being used in newsrooms. C hap-

ter 11

dem onstrates

th e

results

of

pairing qu alitative

and

quan titative methods,

and

Chapter

12

explains

ways

academics

and

professional journ alists

can form

partner-

ships

fo r

newsroom research

and

street reporting.

While

this volum e is w ritten for a general audien ce of those interested in the

craft

of

journalism, it is im portan t, at the outset, to m ake a

brief

statem ent about the

volume's intellectual

orientation.

First, the work

presented here

develops from the

premise that the

major forms

of em pirical research in the social sciences are related

and

benefit each other. Rather th an holding either qua litativ e (interp retative )

methods or quantitative (statistical) methods to be superior to the other, the ap-

proach here

is

that

for

some projects qualitativ e research

is

best, for others quan ti ta-

tive research works better, for still others multiple qualitative and quantitative

methods

are

needed. M oreover, explanatory power

is

strongest w hen

a

f u l l

range

of

appropriate methods is emp loyed.

While

this conceptualization is growing in ad-

herents,

it is far from

univ ersal among social scientists, most

of

whom work within

and advocate th e sufficiency of either qualitative or quan titative research.

U nderstanding the s tandpoint from w hich the co-au thors '

view

rese arch is im-

portant

because

it

informs

another

perspective

of the

chapter authors, most

of

whom are

affiliated

w ith civic-public journalism.

This

view point is th at the role of

media in society is not and

cannot

b e truly objective. T he conceptualization here

is that,

like

the most

useful

research

projects,

the

best journalism em ploys

an

array

of

reporting techniques. Traditional reporting, how ever,

cannot suffice

for the

full

range

of

skills necessary

fo r

complete news coverage

in

today's interactive

and



P R E F A C E

XV

global media environment. The individual journalist 's personal perspective, the

culture

of his or her

newsroom,

and the

mission

of the

media organization

as an

employer—all

influence

the

choice

of

reporting m ethods.

The

goal

of the

authors

of

this volum e is not to advocate any one me thod overall but to present a range of

strategies for valid and reliable coverage.

This

volum e is w rit ten for journa lists and those who hope to become jou rn al-

ists. Ste p-by -step instructions are provided to readers interested in using one or

more of the qu alitative methodologies presented here in their own work . Exten-

sive examples from published new s stories

are

embedded throughout

the

chap-

ters,

as

well

as information gathered

from

interviewing journalists who use

quali ta t ive

journalism in their own reporting. The autho rs provide a

full

and de-

tailed discussion of quali tative m ethods in journalism with

specific

i l lustrations

drawn from contemporary newsrooms.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This

volume is made possible by the authors whose work it includes. The 12

friends and colleagues who prep ared the chap ters that follow worked ably and

quickly to mee t the rapid deadlines and respond to requests for revisions. Due to

the

exp ertise

of the

c ontr ibutors, this

was an

easy volum e

to

edit

in

many ways .

M a n y people m ade this volum e possible. Carrie W yatt , m y assistant, helped

the p ro jec t in imm easurable ways, and I w an t to thank Shannon Litt lejohn who

edited the early drafts. I owe special gratitud e to Dr. W illiam Bischoff, dean of

Fa irm ou nt College of Liberal A rts and Sciences at Wichita State U niversity for

his

supp ort of this research and to the colleagues wh o work in his office for their

patience and assistance with the project . The Pew Center for C ivic Jou rnalism

provided some of the graphics

that enhance

this work and is thanked for that

con tr ibution. Th e reviewers provided useful com men ts and suggestions. Linda

B athgate, comm unications editor at Lawrence E rlbaum Associates, graciously

guided this book through

the

publication process. Editorial Assistant Karin

Wit t ig Bates w as especially helpful, and Book Production Editor Marianna

Vertul lo faithfully

oversaw every production detail . This acknowledgment

would

not be

complete without mentioning

the

mem bers

of the

Civic Jou rnal-

ism

Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass

Co m m unication. The inspiration for this volum e sprang

from

the group's activi-

ties. Their cont inued comm itment to teaching professional skills and disciplin-

ary know ledge w ithin the conte xt of dem ocratic service to society is exem plary.

—Sharon

Hartin

lorio

Wichita

State

University






About

the Contributors

Mike Allen

(PhD, Michigan State University)

is a

professor

and the

direc-

tor of

forensics

in the

Department

of

Communication

at the

University

of

Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His publications address issues of social influence in

the

context

of

interpersonal, organizational,

and

mass mediated communica-

tion. He has published three books and more than 80 articles in journals such

as Communication Monographs,

Law and

Human Behavior, Communication The-

ory,

Criminal Justice and Behavior, Evaluation the Health Professions, and Ar-

gumentation and Advocacy.

KathrynB.

Campbell

(PhD, University

of

Wisconsin-Madison)

is a

visiting

assistant

professor at the University of Oregon, where she teaches in the news-

editorial

sequence, coordinates an endowed internship program, and directs a

summer

journalism workshop for minority high school students. For nearly a

decade, she has been actively involved in the research and practice of civic j ou r -

nalism with a special interest in cross-disciplinary community studies.

Clifford

Christians

(PhD, University

of

Illinois)

is a

research professor

of

communications in the Institute of Communications Research at the Univer-

sity of Illinois-Urbana. He is the author or co-author of six books, among them

M e d i a Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning (with Mark Fackler,

K im

Rotzoll,

and

K a th y

McKee, 6th ed. 2001), Good News: Social Ethics

and the Press

(with John

Ferre and Mark Fackler, 1993), Communication Ethics an d

Universal

Values (with

Michael Traber, 1997), and Moral Engagement in

Public

Life: Theorists for Con-

temporary Ethics (with Sharon Bracci, 2002). His teaching and research inter-

ests include the philosophy of technology, dialogic communication theory, and

professional

ethics.

xvii



X VJ i i ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Janet M . Cramer

(PhD, Univers i ty

of

M inneso ta )

is an

ass is tant professor

in the Department of Communication and

Journal ism

at the

University

of

N ew Mex ico . H er research is developed from a h is tor ica l persp ect ive and fo-

cuses on the issues of gender, race, and class in media. Cramer is a former

broadcas t jou rna l is t wh o a lso has worked in pub l ic re la t ions and adv er t is ing .

She has

w rit ten several

book chapters and has

published

in Journalism Mass

Communicat ion Monographs .

Renita

Coleman (PhD, University of M issouri) is an assistant professor at

the Manship

School

of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University .

She wo rked as a reporter, editor, and designer for 15 yea rs at new spap ers inc lud -

ing

the

Raleigh

(North Carolina)

N e w s

&

Observer

and the

Sarasota

(Florida)

Herald-Tribune.

Among

her

p ublications

are

articles

in Newspaper

Research jour-

nal,

Journalism &

Mass

Communicat ion Ed ucator, Journal of Heal th Communica-

tion,

and

Journal

of

C ommunicat ion Inquiry.

Lewis

A.

Friedland

(PhD, Brandeis U nive rs i ty) holds the r ank of professor

in the School of Journal ism and Mass Communica t ion at the Univers i ty of

Wisconsin-Madison,

w h e r e

he

d irects

the

Cen te r

for

Com mu nica t ion

and

Democracy. A form er broadcas t jou rnal is t , Fr ied land is the co-au thor wi th

C arm en Sir ianni of Civic Innovation in Am erica (2001 ) and c o-ed its the Civic

Practices Netw ork. He has published articles on the su b jec t of med ia and com-

mu n i ty life

in a

variety

o f

jou rna ls inc lud ing Comm unicat ion

Research and

M e-

dia,

Culture

Society .

He cont r ibu ted to the book , M ass M edia, Social Co ntrol

and Social Change.

Tanni Haas

(PhD, Ru tgers U nive rs i ty) is an ass is tant professor in the De-

p a r tmen t of Speech Com m unica t ion Ar ts & Sciences at Brooklyn College.

His

research

on the

theory

and

pract ice

of

pub l ic jou rn a l i sm , jou rna l i sm codes

of e th ics , organizat ional communicat ion e th ics ,

and

qua l i ta t ive resea rch

methods has appeared in Com municat ion Theo ry, Harvard

International Journal

o f

Press/Politics, Journal ism: Theory, Practice

&

Crit icism, Journalism Studies,

Journalism

Mass

Com municat ion E ducator, Journal ism

Mass Communica-

tion

Quarter ly, Management Communicat ion Quarter ly, and N e w s p a p e r

Re-

search

Journal

as well as more

than

half a dozen ed i ted books . He current ly

serves on the

editorial board

of

Journalism

Mass

Communicat ion Educator

and

New spap er Research Journal .

Susan Schultz

Huxman (PhD, University of Kansas) is an associate profes-

sor

in the

E lliott School

of

C omm unica tion

at

Wichita S tate University . Am ong

her pub lications are a co-autho red m edia l i teracy book,

The Rhetorical

Act:

Thinking,

Speaking, and

Writing

Critically (2003), referred articles

in

Journal o f

Communicat ion, Communicat ion Studies , and Communication Quarterly, and

chapters in Communication in Crisis an d Oratorical Encounters: Selected Studies



ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS xix

and Sources of Twentieth-century Political Acc usat ions a nd Apologies .

She was

rec-

ognized

as the

1998 Kansas

Speech Communication Association

College

In-

s t ruc tor

of the Year. She has conducted

research

for

Knight-Ridder, Inc.

and

served as a consultant to

The Wichita

(Kansas)

Eagle.

Sharon Hartin

lorio (PhD,

Oklahoma State

Universi ty)

is an

associate pro-

fessor in the Elliott

School

of

Communication

and associate

dean

of Fa irm ount

College

of

Liberal Arts

and

Sciences

at

Wichita

State University.

She has

worked as a

newspaper repor ter

and in

public relations.

H er

book,

Faith's

Har-

vest: M ennonite Identity

in

Northwest Oklahoma, received an

award from

the Na-

tional Federation of Press W omen.

Among

h er jou rnal publications are articles

in Journal

of

Communication, journalism &

Mass

Comm unicat ion Ed ucator, jour-

nalism Qu arterly, and

Journal

of M edia

and

Re ligion. She has

conducted research

for

Kn ight-Ridder , Inc.

and

The

Wichita

(Kansas)

Eagle.

Michael

McDevitt (PhD, Stanford Universi ty)

is an

assis tant professor

in

the School

o f Journa l ism

and

M ass Com mu nica tion

at the

U nivers i ty

of Colo-

rado-Boulder . He worked in the San Francisco Bay area as a repor ter and edi-

tor ia l writer . His research explores how com m unica t ion-based campaigns can

s t imu la te

ci t izenship among people

who are

otherwise disengaged

from the

poli t ical process .

He has

publ ished

in

Journalism and Communication M ono-

graphs, Communicat ion Research, Political Communication, Journalism and M a ss

Communicat ion Quarter ly, Mass Comm Review, and Journalism

&

M as s Com-

municat ion Ed ucator.

John L. J

ac

k Morris

(PhD, Universi ty

of

M issouri)

is an

assistant

profes-

sor of journal i sm in the

Depar tment

of

Comm unications

at

L oyola U niversity

of

N ew

O rleans, Louisiana. H e worked as a new spaper repor ter and editor in Kan-

sas

and

Colorado

for

nine

years

and

taug ht pr int journalism

at

Ad ams State C ol-

lege in Alam osa, Colorado

from

1988-2003. His research focuses on interactive

communica t ion be tween wr i te rs and readers to improve the quali ty of news

writing.

His

book,

A Study of Audience Interact ion in Journalism: Cit izen-Based

Reporting,

w as publ ished in 2002. He has published

other

articles o n this topic in

Newspaper

Rese arch Journal and Studies in Comm unicat ion Science s.

Jay

Rosen (PhD, New

York

U nive rsi ty) is an associate professor of

jou rna l -

ism

at New York Universi ty and currently is

chair

of the D epar tm ent of Jo ur -

nalism there. From 1993

to

1997,

he was the

director

of the

Pro jec t

on

Publ ic

Life and the

Press ,

a

jo in t pro jec t

of the

Knigh t

and

K et ter ing Foundat ions

de-

signed to fu r the r pub l ic journa l i sm . He has w r i t ten in

both

scholarly and pop-

u la r jo u rn al s on the pre ss, politics, and pub lic life. What Are

Journalists For?

is

the

t i t l e

of his

1999 book. Rosen's work

h as

appea red

in the Colum bia Journal-

ism Review , Harpers, The N at ion, The N ew York Times, and the

on- l ine journa l

Salon,

a mo n g

other

ve n ue s .



XX

A B O U T

THE

C O N T R IB U T O R S

Jan

Schaffer (M.S.J ., N orthw estern U niversi ty) served as executive director

of the P ew

Center

fo r

Civic Journ alism

in

W ashington, D.C., w hich

w as

created

in

1993

to help

pr int

and

electronic journalists develop

new

models

of

news

coverage that reconnect citizens to civic

life.

She shared the

Puli tzer

Gold

Medal fo r

Public Service

for a news

series that

appeared in The

Philadelphia

In-

quirer, where she w as an editor and reporter for 22 years . She recently lau nch ed

a successor p roject to the Pew Center, J-Lab : The Ins t i tu te fo r In terac t ive Jou r -

nalism

at the

Universi ty

o f

M ary land tha t

will

develop in terac t ive ways

for

citi-

zens to

p ar t icipate

in

pu blic issues.

Susan

Willey (PhD, University

o f

M issouri)

is an

a ssistant professor

of

jour -

nalism

at

Flor ida At lant ic Univers i ty ' s Nor thern campus

in

Jupiter ,

Flor ida,

where

she is establishing a

journalism

program.

W illey

has 17

years experience

as a

jou rnalis t , reporter,

and

assignment editor.

She was

both

the

religion

re-

porter

at the St. Petersburg T imes and a

Poynter Fellow from 1993

to

1995.

Her

pub lications include ar ticles

in New spap er Research journal, Jou rnalism

&

Mass

Communicat ion Educator, and

The

Quill. She edited a book on c o mmun i ty de-

velopment for the K ettering Found ation Press. W illey serves on the editor ia l

board of the journal

of Media &

Religion.



Part

I






1

Qualitative

Method

Journalism

Sharon Hartin

lorio

Wichita State

University

For

journal ists a nd those w ho hope to be journal ists in the 21st century, one

thing

is

abu nda ntly clear—this l ine

of

work

is

being transform ed. Technological

change has created a 24-hour news cycle where breaking news is reported

around th e clock, and shocking world events can be viewed almost at the in-

stant they happ en— then observed as they

continue

to develop. Myriad inter-

national sources disseminate social and political opinion to individuals w ho

choose not only their mode o f inform ation delivery but the very nature of the in-

formation they receive. Y et, the m ost rema rkab le shift is not the astonishing

pace of delivery or the capability of individuals to select the new s they receive;

the m ost significant develop m ent is the netwo rk of technologies

that

let indi-

viduals

interact w ith people wo rldw ide, more specifically,

to

interact w ith those

w ho provide the ir news. Everyda y people use new spa per call-in columns, W eb

sites, list

serves, talk-radio, talk-television,

and a host o f other

tools

to connect

with

new s m edia, and they do it every day.

The increasing accessibility to information, th e speed of its delivery, and the

individual's more active role in information exchange create a new dimension

for

journal i sm. Informat ion is now so abundant and the world so intercon-

nected

that

journal is t s m ust

not

only

find new

ways

to

provide an alytical con-

text for the growing onrush of information, they must learn to present the

information in a mode that is not generalized or passive but is individua lized and

3



4

IOR10

dynam ic. Some of the ways journ alism is practiced are in transit ion. This sh ould

not be surprising, but it is challen ging.

The challenge is to fill the gaps for people th at m ere access to, and m ediated

interaction with, informa tion cannot. To bridge tha t gap and su rvive in the cu r-

rent media environment , journal is ts

will

need

to

l ink ind iv idu als ' personal

in-

terests

and

common concerns

and the

larger issues that touch people's daily

lives. F or this w ork, jou rna lists are going to need specific t ra ining beyond t rad i-

tional repo rting skills.

Helping journalists me et

these

new challenges also may resolve som e of the

com plaints directed toward journ alism over t ime. New s m edia, both historically

and recently , have been accused of ignoring the interests of the pub lic by allow-

ing

manipulation

by

politicians, special

interest

groups,

and

their

own

business

interests (Bag dikian, 2000). O ne exp lanation for this s i tua tion is tha t the

agenda of mainstrea m jo urn alism is shaped to highlight events over issues then

sensationalize those events, thereby missing stories important to individuals '

common concerns. The intense focus on stron g-im pact new s does create a u n i -

form

news product (Graber , 2001 ) , a nd this , in t u r n , offers ano ther focal point

for public skepticism.

While

the

complaints appear

to

r ing true , they em anate

not

from

low

com-

m itment on the pa rt of new s organizations but develop

from

num erous , d iverse ,

and complex causes. Nonetheless, journalists

trained

to know effective meth-

ods to expand reporting of grassroots problem s overlooked in a m edia- rich at-

mosphere and how to apply the m ethods in an interact ive media environment

surely

would

not

hu r t

the

situation

and

likely w ould h elp

it. While

challenging

in m any respects , the milieu of ab un da nt inform ation and direc t feedback has

potential

to

open o ppor tuni t ies

and

correct some

of the

problems

of the

pas t .

THE INTERACTIVE ME DIA ENV IRONME NT

The ability of the public to have direct, ongoing interaction w ith m ediated infor-

mation

is a

decided advantage,

but not one

that subst i tu tes

for the

work

of

jour-

nalists. According

to

Thompson

(1995 ), com m unication technologies

foster new

forms

of action and social relationships, but often technology use is not recipro-

cal. For example, talk-radio and call-in television shows,

Thompson

(1995) ar-

gues, are merely one-shot opportunities for individu als to broadcast an opinion.

Similarly, other writers (Bennett & Entman, 2001; Poster, 1999)

note

that the

Internet does

not

always encourage

a

public sphere

for

rational debate.

Rather than being diminished, the role and training of journ al is ts become

more crucia l in the new media environment . New technologies open points of

entry

for

people

to exchange

ideas,

but

interactive technology alone cannot



QUAI J T AT I V K

J O U R N A L I S M

help individuals bring their common concerns to news media attention or pro-

j ec t

a

representative picture

of the

constituent groups

in

society. Those needs,

however , become primary obligations of

those

who conceive a democratic role

for the press. Following the traditional routines of journalism , however, may not

always

move 21st-century journalists forward. To communicate in their new en-

vironment, journalists need training greater than before.

While contemporary journalism training incorporates

a

range

of

reporting

methods,

the

rapid changes that

now

impact journalism create

a

demand

for

journal ists

with specialized skills. The chapters included here

focus

on methods

for journal is ts rather

than

the impact o f technology or its use in the newsroom,

even though some productive discussion along those lines

is

included.

The

pur-

pose

of this book is to provide journalists with the professional, empirical

news-gather ing tools they need to operate in the current media environment.

The authors of the chapters to

follow

demonstrate how valid, reliable proce-

d u re s

developed

in a

particular field

of the

social sciences—qualitative

s tudy—can be used to increase coverage. The authors present tangible, qualita-

tive social-science practices as a guide for:

1.

Finding newsworthy

but

overlooked

or

underreported concerns;

2. Organizing that information within broader contexts; and

3.

Providing a conduit for people's interaction along the way.

This

kind

of

reporting increases traditional news coverage.

The

chapters

that

follow

show

how

qualitative methods

can be and are

being used

to en-

hance journalism.

JOURNALISM EDUCATION

Universi ty

programs

and

professional development training

for

journalists

teach traditional skills for reporting and writing news, but, at present, journal-

ists do not learn a great deal about using additional methods to find and analyze

information. The traditional journalism skills taught in American universities,

for

much o f the past century, were mostly procedural (Meyer, 2001). Techniques

for constructing

a

news story lede, rules

fo r

editing copy, interpretation

of

libel

and privacy

laws,

and other reporting conventions were the mainstays of the

cu r r i cu lum.

Little attention was given to the development of journalism or the

basis of its methods.

In 1973, Philip Meyer sought to increase professionalism in journalism by en-

larging the

concept

of journalistic training and practice. H is book

Precision Jour-

nalism explained how the tools of quantitative social science research could and



6

IQRIO

should be applied to the practice of journalism . The book focused on m e thods of

data processing and statistical analysis. I t showed journa l is ts ways to conduc t

and interpret

surveys

and

public

opinion

polls,

and it

emphasized

the

impor-

tance

of

social scientific research

for

high-qu al i ty journa l ism .

Meyer

thought his

work

might not be

accepted

by

journ alis ts because,

in

asking journ a l is ts to apply t he t echn iques o f social scienc e to the i r repor t ing,

M e ye r

perceived

a move away from the journa l is t ic

code

of s trict ob jectivi ty

(1991, p. 4), but M eyer ' s book w as rece ived w el l in newsrooms and a c a de me .

Neither

academics

nor

professiona l journ a l is ts v iewed prec is ion jou rna l ism

as

a major threa t

to

objectivi ty. Perhaps this

is

because

the

epis temology

on

which M eyer ' s tra in ing res ts i s emb edded w i th in a pos i t iv is t theore t ica l

f rame-

wo r k .

This

t radi t ion is based on the be l ie f tha t the social, like the n a t u r a l ,

wo rld is an order ly system . W ithin this fram ew ork , the role of the scien tis t is

that

of a

deduct ive ,

detached

observer

w ho

uses explici t procedures

for the

purpose

of

observing

and

measur ing .

In short, precision

journalism ,

though

a new concept, was

based

on an

estab-

lished model of scientific research developed from the na tu ral sciences, one

that holds as its

primary purpose

the

search

for

objective reality. This model

of

scientific research parallels m any of the s tandard prac t ices of "objective" re-

porting

in

journa l ism. Expanded

and

retitled

The N e w Precision Journalism ,

sev-

eral updated edit ions

of

Meyer ' s work were re leased,

as

recent ly

as

2001.

Un iversity professors welcom ed the books as help ing advan ce jo ur nal ism as a

discipline. Journ alis ts appreciated M eye r 's w ork because i t helped the m and did

not threaten the trad it ional norms of objective report ing (e .g. , f inding facts and

report ing them w ithou t was t ing t ime ) .

QUALITATIVE RE SEA RCH AND J O U R N A L I S M

In social science there are two overarching methodological

perspectives. M eyer

introduced

one of

them , quanti ta t iv e research m ethods, into

the

nomencla ture

of journalism .

Qualitative

research emerges from

a

different worldview. Q uali-

tative researche rs seek

to

explain

the

wor ld ra ther than m easure

it. Th e

world

of

qualitative social

science

is explanatory.

Dealing

pr imarily with words, qua li ta-

tive research

is

holistic

and

b la tant ly in terpre ta t ive . Qu al i ta t ive researchers

go

into

the field" to gather data by observation and interaction with people from

whom they

hope to

learn. Qua li ta t ive researchers a lso exa m ine exta nt texts

or

artifacts

in

their work.

They

record what they

find in

w r i ting

or o n

videotape,

then

analyze and in terpre t it to show how the world mak es sense to those they

study. To ensure rel iable and valid findings, qu ali ta t iv e research ers set up s tr ict

protocols

to

search

for

answers

to

their research questions.

T he findings of qua l -



QUALITATIVE JOURNALISM

i tat ive researc h develop from "the ground (field) up" and within the context of a

larger social world.

Even though qu alitative research and quantitative research emerge from dif-

ferent epistemological orientations

and the

distinction between them

is

obvi-

ous,

the two forms of research are not m utu ally exclusive. The past 20

years

have witnessed a growing dialogue between qualitative and quantitative re-

searchers (Jensen, 20 02). Exciting work is now being conducted to specify how

the tw o m ethodologies together bu ild knowledge, as Susan Hu xm an and Ma rk

Allen

w ill explain in a subsequent

chapter.

It

is obv ious tha t , from the basic approach of knowing rea l i ty to the way

journa l i s t s

practice their

craft,

qual i ta t ive research shares much in common

wi t h jou r na l i sm . The emphas is on observation and in -dep th in te rv iewing to

ga ther in fo rmat ion , the skeptic 's approach to in te rp re ta t ion , and the impor -

tance of perspect ive in explanat ion—all are pr incipal foundat ions of t rad i-

t iona l jou rna l i s m as wel l a s qua l i ta t ive methods .

Common

to

both

the

j ou rna l i s t

and the qua l i ta t ive resea rcher is the

concern

wi th cu r ren t phenom -

ena and the action of ind iv iduals .

In academic circles, the relationship of the journal is t and the qual i ta t ive re-

searcher

has never

been

incompatible. A s Kath ryn Campbel l and

Lewis

Friedland describe

in

their chapter , early qualitative resea rchers drew heavily

on journ alist ic practices. In fact, at the tur n of the last centu ry, sociologist Rob-

ert Park literally took his s tudents

into

the streets to discover comm on concerns

tha t w ere shared by the g eneral public and rep ort a repres entativ e picture of the

groups they studied based

on the

researchers ' interaction with group m em bers

(Park

&

Burgess,

1925). Park, who transform ed the U niversity of Chicago

into

a

cente r

for

par t ic ipant-observer-based

fieldwork

and

helped originate qualita-

t ive

methodology, was himself a former journal is t .

Theory tha t is associated w ith the social reality being observed by Park and

his s tudents developed from the thinking of Thomas & Znaniecki (1927) ,

George He rbert M ead (Miller , 1982), and others. Working on the premise that

society w as form ed from the micro-interaction of individu als, a theoretical ori-

enta tion emerged called sym bolic interaction. Another U niversity of C hicago

scholar of the period was John Dewey (1 92 7), the leading Am erican prag m atist

of

the

era, who se thinking provided

a

philosophical base

for

this wo rk. O verall,

the

scholarsh ip

was

associated with interp retative orientations

to

research .

The

Chicago scholars were familiar with

the

journal is t ic model

of

investigation.

In the press , how ever, parallels betw een qua litativ e social scientists an d

j our -

nalists are virtually nonexistent.

There

is not m uch jou rnal ism training th at

connects

the

two,

and

some

of the

traditions

of

journal is ts

can

exacerbate

the

differences. For example ,

both

qual i ta t ive researchers and jou rna l i s t s go into



8 IQRIQ

the field as open-m inded observers, but journ alism tradit ions require an inter-

pretation of open-mindedness that can position the journal is t as a passive and

innocent w itness" (Meyer, 2001,

p. 3).

Likewise in-de pth interv iewing , which

in

qualitative research results in categorizing and analyzing a wide range o f

differ-

ent opinions, can becom e in the journ alist 's w ork a vehicle for framing opposing

or conflicting views in order to produce "balanced" news stories. Perhaps be-

cause a cr it ical factor in the practice of m odern jou rna lism has been the search

fo r objective facts, the similarities of journal ism a nd qual i ta t ive research for the

most p ar t have gone unrecognized in journal ism edu cat ion.

THE

ROAD

TO THE

21st CE NTU RY

The

sociologists, anthropologists, social psychologists,

and

phi losophers

at

the University of

Chicago

in the first two decades of the 20 th cen tu ry fo rmed a

nuc leus

o f

inte l lectu al thou ght tha t igni ted Am erican socia l sc ience research .

As the

y ears passed, howev er,

the

init ial influence

of

Park

and other

research-

ers associated with the Univer s i ty of Chicago began to w a n e .

Eventua l ly ,

the

center

of sociological s tu dy broke t ies with pra gm atis m and the model of the

journa l is t -scholar as

researcher, shifted

its

in te rac t ive o r ien ta t ion ,

and de-

par ted

the

University

of

Chicago.

Leadersh ip

in the

s tu d y

and

p rac t ice

of

soci-

ology moved toward posit ivism

and

emb r aced

the

q u a n t i t a t i v e m e t h o d s

pract iced by U.S. Ea st

Coast

academics .

Over

the en su ing ye ars, sociological

s tudy developed into a t least th ree m ajor theore t ica l paradigm s and severa l

schools

of

though t , am ong which

both

q u a n t i t a t iv e

and

qua l i t a t i ve m ethodol-

ogies are p rac ticed . Meanw hi le , the t r a in ing of journa l i s t s , also fed

ini t ia l ly

by

the em ergent p os i t iv is t paradig m , moved towa rd an increas ingly reified in t e r -

p re ta t ion of objectivity .

The

training

of modern

journalists

can be

traced

as a

gradu al evolution that

corresponds

with the development of news media technologies from the intro-

duction of new spapers to the presen t. During the 1920s univ ersity program s in

journalism

education began to grow in num be r and, eventually, became the es-

tablished pa th to a career in the field. The curriculum developed as general edu -

cation in the liberal arts and sciences. Univ ersity edu catio n in journ alism

included the concepts of inverte d pyramid writing, and person al de tac hm en t of

the reporter from the news event. The establishment of professional training for

journalists

coincided roughly with

the

em ergence

of a

code

of

objectivity

as a

fully

nuanced standard

by

which

th e

profession

of

journalism could

be

m easured .

Al though there was widesp read ag reement tha t t rue ob jec t iv i ty was impos-

sible g iv en h u m an frailty, balanc ed repo r t ing based

on the

ideal

of

object ivi ty,

it

w as thoug ht , co uld be achieved . T he theory that a

code

o f ob jec t iv i ty w ou ld



QUAL I T AT I V E J O U R N A L I S M

provide

the

most effective guideline

for the

profession draws

from a

book

newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann wrote

as a

young

man in

1922.

Lipp m ann recognized

the

subjective natu re

of

public opinion

and

feared

its ef-

fect

on d emo cratic processes. He wrote tha t the usefulne ss of jou rnalis ts

rested

on the

ability

to objectify

facts.

As an

overarching

f ramework , the

code

of objectivity and the

traditions

for

reporting

and

training journa lists that sup -

porte d it develope d into a mighty, rhetorical bu lw ark . How ever, lim itations

could

be

noted

as

early

as

1947, when

a

report

from the

Commission

on

Free-

dom of the Press (Hutchins Commission Report) pointed out considerable

weaknesses

in American journalism.

As

corporate n ews system s grew and technology adv ance d, by the 1970s

the

percept ion

w as

increasing that relationsh ips betw een pu blic

and

press

were diminishing. Concerns we re raised about the unintended

effects

of the

journal is t ic

norms.

It was

thought

the way

journal ism

w as

being practiced

might

be creating reactive journalists whose reporting, in a latent rathe r tha n

overt manner, could

be

managed (Bagdikian, 1972; Tuch man, 1978).

By the

1990s,

with former complaints st i l l unresolved,

a new

generation

of

critics

pointed to the news media's possible connection to a

different

kind of prob -

lem,

a

decline

in

civic particip ation

and

increasing fragmentation

of

c o m m u -

n i t y l i fe . These

o b j e c t i o n s s e e m e d t o r e s o n a t e a c r o ss p r o f e s s i o n a l

const i tuencies

and the

public

bo th

inside

the

United States

and in

other

countr ies . The

critics spanned

a

range

of

m edia professionals (Y ankelovich,

1991; M er rit t, 1995; Fallow s, 1996; Dionne, 1998)

and

academics (Entman,

1998; Pool, 1990; Putnam, 1993, 1995; Schudson, 1995).

In examining

the

roots

o f

these issues,

Jay

Rosen (1999a) revisited

th e

p rag-

mat i sm

philosopher John Dewey developed

in the

early 1900s

at the

Univer -

sity

o f Chicago and foun d Dewey's work a suitable structu re fo r contemporary

journa l is ts

beca use i t grounde d the role of the jo urna list in the

"useful"

and

exper ient ia l ra ther than the au tho ritative model (Dewey, 19 27). Other critics

po inted o ut th at rep orting practices, including the code o f objec tivity, once

thou ght to benefit democracy, because they allowed news media to be w atc h-

dogs of governm ent action, co uld, in current circum stances, be conceived as

disserving

dem ocrac y (B lack , 1997; Carey, 1992, 1997 ).

W ith

p ublic access

to

worldwide

m edia sy stem s, some

of it

interactiv e access,

the 2

I s t - c en tury prob-

lem

has become not wh ether reporting of real-world happenings can be bal-

anced throu gh the use of a code; they can be. The more im portan t que stion is

how the

deeper belief systems (national, religious,

or

group ideologies) inex-

tricably

ingrained in all com m unication (Fouca ult , 1969/1982; Hab erm as,

1991; Mannheim, 1929/1986)

can be

accounted

for in the

reporting

of

c u r -

ren t even ts. The chap ter included here that is autho red by

Clifford

Christ ians





I .

QUAL I T AT I V E J O U R N A L I SM 11

interaction

of

jou rnalists with w idening sectors

of the

public

b eg

reexamination

of

journalism training

and the

root

ethic of the

profession.

Portland

(Maine)

Press

Herald Editor Lou Ureneck wrote in

Nieman Reports:

W h a t th e press needs today is more context and insight, not less, and th at context and

insight

inevitably

bring with them th e exercise of subjectivity ... The challenge to the

public-minded press today is to find ways to accommodate th e ever present need for

fair

and dispassionate

inquiry

and the new and growing need to generate

energy,

meaning and

solut ions

... The

likelihood (is) that

th e

press m ore

often fails

readers

through

t imidi ty than

bias.

(1999, 2000)

In 2002,

T he

Freedom Forum Foundation compiled insights

from the

careers

of new s execu tives and published them und er the t it le

Bes t Practices:

The Art of

Leadership in

News Organizat ions (Coffey, 2002) . Among

those

comment ing

abou t br inging

different

perspectives

into

the

newsroom

w as

Alberto Ib arguen ,

publisher

of

T he M iami Herald

and Nan cy M aynard, a previou s editor and

co-owner

of The Oakland

(California)

Tribune. The

comments

of

Maynard re in-

forced

Ibarguen's point . M aynard offered,

in

brief,

that

"News people generally

do not spend n early enough t ime ta lking to the people ...

that

they cover" (p.

41 ) .

The

executives ' commentary reveals

the

extent

of

assim ilation

into

m a in -

stream

journa l ism made

by the

ideas brought

forward in the

1990s.

The impo r t a n c e of ac t ive d ia logue de f in i te ly has moved up the sk i l l - l ad -

der of j o u r n a l i s m and the charge of the journa l i s t to be ind i f fe ren t and w i th -

d r a w n

in

o r de r

to

achieve fa i rness

in

repor t ing

has

mo ve d s o m e wha t l owe r

on the ladder . How w i ll jou rna l i s ts go abou t the i r work in the mids t of th is

m a j o r

shift?

The correct

rout ines wi l l develop over t ime.

At

p resen t ,

the

t h r e a d s

of

in te rpre ta t iv e social sc ience

that

we a ve t h r o ugh

the

ideas

of the

scholars

and

p ro fes s iona l journ a l i s t s pas t

and

p resen t ,

th e

e x p e r i m e n t s

o f

the pub l i c j o u r n a l i s t s , and the in te rac t iv i ty

offered

by the new media t ech-

no log ies sugg es t t he possibil i t ies o f rev is i ting the

connection

o f j o u r n a l i s m

w i t h

qua l i t a t ive me thodo log ies .

W H E R E QUALITATIVE

METHODS

MEET JOURNALISM

With

each

passing decade, jo urn alism training

has

become m ore professional

to

m eet w hatev er chal lenges

are

posed

by the

media

environment of the

era . C ur-

rently,

the need exists for specialized skills to discover unrepo rted comm on

problems a nd

context

o f issues and report th em in a way

that

will help in div idu-

als

interact w ith larger networks. Some jou rnalis ts

are

applying

the

knowledge

of

qualitative social

science

research methods to produce verifiable and a c c u -

rate reports

that

advance this endeavor.



12 IQRIO

There is no general epistemology tha t organizes qu alita tive methodology,

but

all

qualitative research

is based on inductive exam ination of

collected data.

To ensure

that

the research is fair, balanced , accura te , and t ru thfu l and to en-

able

the

reader

or

public

to

evaluate

the

study, qualitative researchers:

1. Conduct

their

studies

in a

nat ural setting,

2.

Follow str ict , m ultip le protocols for valid and reliable research design and

execution,

3. Consider the backgrou nd and perspect ive of the re searc her(s ) and the

possible effect this might have

on the

research when designing

the re-

search,

and

4-

Include in the writ ten report enoug h inform ation on the rese arc he r(s) ,

the p lan, and the conduc t of the s tudy to allow the readers /v iewers to de-

cide for themselves the t ru thfu lness and accu racy of the accou nt .

A wide range of qualitative

methods

exist. L ike the many s t rands of a rope,

those

m ethods m ore of ten employed make up the w ider p ieces , and , entwined ,

the strands together p roduce a unified and strong methodology. One of the

th icker , more prom inent s t rands with in qu al i ta t ive methodology

is

p a r t i c ip an t

observation. It is the practice that deals with going into the field, observing or

interacting with a group, and

then

analyzing the si tuation in order to record

comm onali ties and develop a w r i t ten repor t .

T o provide some organ izat ion for u n d e r s t a n d i n g how qu a l i t a t i v e r e s ea r ch

works, the pa r t ic ipant observa t ion method can be broken down into three

main ca tegor ies tha t can then be used as a metaphor to i l lus t ra te three e le-

m enta l processes with in qua l i ta t ive methodology. The ca tegor ies are not dis-

crete

bu t form a

c o n t i n u u m w i th

the

p rom inent r e fe rence po in ts p rov id ing

a

vis ion of w hat qu al i ta t ive methodology is ( the rang e of m ethods involve d) and

how it is

con duc ted ( the protocol

and

leve l

of

i n v o l v e m e n t

of the re-

sea rcher ( s ) ) . The categories are:

Observat ion:

What

sets observational s tudies apart is that the researcher

does

not m ake contact w ith the

subject

(s) of the research.

These

researche rs in-

vestigate artifacts such as pottery, fashion , o r pop ular cu l tu re icons . They use

unobtrusive measures to collect data, for example; these researchers may ob-

serve

the actions of ind iv iduals , but at a d is tance. Inves t ig at ive repor ters u se

this technique

to

m onitor

and

s tudy

the

coming

and

going

of

people

and

their

associations w itho ut disturb ing the beh avior of those observed. O ne of the larg-

est

areas

of

observational s tudy

is the

examinat ion

of

tex ts

or

w r i t ten works .

Textual ,

or

rhetorical ,

analysis

ex amines books, movies ,

and

o ther media .

To an-

alyze a text, the research er "reads betw een the l ines" to inte rpre t und erlying



1 .

QUALITATIVE JOU RNALISM

13

m eaning. M orris 's chapter explains textu al analysis and shows how reporters at

The

Washington Post use it in their work.

Participant Observation: This research happ ens in the social wo rld. The re-

searcher collects data while observing people interact

and by

interacting w ith

them. Then the researcher analyzes and w rites about them es found in the set-

ting. In order to an alyze the setting, the researche r m aintains some level of inde-

pendence in the si tuation. That level is dependent on the subjects s tud ied and

the purpose of the research. For example, in the focused interview study de-

scribed

by this autho r in a subs eque nt chapter , the researchers who co nduc ted a

one -time in terview w ith each respondent were more marginal

than connected

to

their subjects .

The

reporter

who

interviewe d

a

young woman

to

tell

the

story

of her life, entered her world to a limited degree. His work is discussed in the

chap te r

on

oral history

by

Renita Coleman.

T he

community mapping project

introduced in Kathryn Campbell 's chapter placed the journalists doing the

mapping in

direct and ,

in

some instances, re peate d contact with

the

individuals

and

groups

from

which they

wanted to learn. The

case study described

in the

chap te r b y Tanni H aas w as based largely on participation as well a s observation.

In

tha t study, journa l is ts a t the

Akron

Beacon

Journal spent a lengthy t ime period

on the project and worked in partnership with a number of civic groups. In

short , particip ant observers, within predefined l imits , engage th e

daily life

of

those they

study. They

do so not

j us t

to have an un derstanding of w hat is going

on, but to provide a systematic report . This is why the researcher m ust always

m aintain some distance in his relationship w ith those he is s tudying.

Participation: This level

of

research

is

marked

by

complete imm ersion into

a

cul ture . The

researcher

w ho

tak es this approach

m ay

live

fo r

extended periods

in

the sam e com m unity w ith those she is studying. The danger, or, to some research-

ers, the benefit , is that the researcher becomes engulfed in the setting. In those

cases, wh ethe r by design or chance, the researcher becom es the subjects ' advo-

cate. Since eth nograp hy requ ires the researcher to enter fully into th e life world of

the subjects, it is the qualitative technique in which the researcher may be most

susceptible to

"going native."

Not all

ethnography

is

marked

by

com plete assimi-

lation. The student journalists in the chapter by Michael McDevitt and Jane t

C ram er produ ced their research and pu blished their stories while retaining an an-

alytic

perspec tive regarding the w orld of the street people they studied .

On the

other hand, Susan Willey 's chapter advocates social action theory

and

shows

how

news organizat ions

can

become d irect ly involved with

the

publ ic in coming to ju dg m en t abo ut an issue. W illey 's cha pter is devo ted to fo-

cus grou p research , a process of ten associa ted w ith quant i ta t ive research and ,

on the

qu a l i t a t i v e t e ch n iqu e con t inu u m,

usual ly

foun d toward

th e

more

d e -

tached s ide of the scale.



14 IQRIO

Willey gives directions for using focus groups in participatory, action-ori-

ented

journalism . Willey 's chapter clear ly i l lustrates tha t in qua li ta t iv e re-

search, the research design and objectives establish the level o f invo lvem ent of

the

researcher more

than

the

choice

of

qua l i ta t ive technique

itself. In

journa l -

ism,

the

extent

of

involvement

of the

journa l is t

who

uses qua l i ta t iv e m ethods

for

developing a proje ct is , as in all reporting, set by the new s organiz ation and

the

individual reporter assigned

to the

story.

DOING QUALITATIVE

METHOD

JOURNALISM

Using qualitative

methods

in

journalism

is not difficult. Methods

used range

from

large-scale case studies conducted

by

mult iple team s

in

converged new sroom s

to

an oral history interview story conducted by a single reporter for a small town

newspaper. T he projects can extend over a period of time (creating ethnography ,

for

example) or be

done

in a series of focus groups conducted in one evening.

Q ual i ta t ive methods can be used by news organizations as a prerepor t ing

tool

to identify

ne tworks

of

credible,

but

noneli te , sources

a nd

their rela t ionship

to

political processes (mapping);

o r

they

can be

used

to identify

grassroots

issues

and

inform election coverage

(as in the

focused in terview exam ple)

or in

ma n y

other

ways

that enhance

new s coverage.

The

advantage

of qual i ta t ive

method-

ology is that it brings the reader and view er into the s tory. K now ing how to get

in-depth data and

first-pe rson insights

and

w h a t

to do

wi th them

is the

essence

of

quali ta t ive reporting.

Guidelines for

reliable information gathering

and

valid

documentation are

detailed for each m ethod in the chapters to follow. T he following are genera l

guidelines

for

applying

a

qu alitative

method in a

newsroom setting.

1. Choose

the right story: Not every story is right for qu ali tat iv e reporting.

Enterprise stories are one ex am ple of a good fit . M an y stories reported w ith

quali ta t ive methods

are

"bubble

up"

political issue s

not

found

on

poli t ical par ty

platforms.

Some develop

from

social problems that are being addressed outs ide

governmental processes or are

fea ture

stories that

exemplify individua ls

and

groups. Part of choosing the right story is crea ting a "space" for the story— de-

ciding

its

scope

and

pa ramete r s .

It is

impor tan t

to choose the

q ua l i t a t i ve

re-

sources—the m etho d— that wil l deliver

the

story best.

2.

Take

i t

outside:

To

ma ke

the

s tory interactive ,

g o

into

the "field"

w i th per -

sonal/micro-level qualitative techniques. Plan ways

to get

i n pu t

from

individu-

als at

m ore

than one

point during

the

story-b uild ing process.

When useful, offer

ways

people

can connect w i th the story through Web site, list serve, and other

interactive technology. Look

for

themes tha t resonate— over looked

or

un de r -



QUALITATIVE JOU RNALISM 15

reported issues comm on across the general public or those

that reflect

the con-

cerns

of distinct groups of people.

3.

Bring

it

home: Above all, build

th e

story from

th e

"ground up." Keep

the fo-

cus on an

inductive rather

than

deductive approach.

Let the

reporting

b e defined

[framed] in the context and perspective of the participants or

subjects

of the re-

porting. To gua rantee the w ay that information is collected and repo rted develops

from data that is ve rifiable and accurate, follow th e protocol of the par t icu lar

m ethod in use and utilize "triangulation" (e.g., more than one m ethod of collect-

ing information)

to

ensu re lack

o f

distortion

and

freedom

from

error. Finally,

ex-

plain the news organization's purposes and the reporter

(s )

methods and level of

involvem ent prom inently in the

final

coverage tha t is published or aired.

NOTES FROM

THE

FIELD :

A PULITZER PRIZE

WINNING

SERIES

In 1999, editors

at

The New

York

T imes decided

the

time

w as

right

to

explore,

again,

the

changing nature

of

race re lations

in the

United States.

The

editors

were aw are that national conversations a bo ut race are often viewed by the pub -

lic as

dead-en d m onologues— not conversa tions

bu t

opportunities

for

reaffirm-

ing previo usly held p osit ions. "The tradit ion al lan gua ge of race was so

entrenched that people j u s t

didn't

w a n t to go there again," it seemed to repor te r

M ichael W inerip (personal conversation, 20 02).

He was

par t

of a

group

of

ab ou t

30 at the T imes who we re looking for a vehicle to m ove reporting abo ut race be-

yond obvious , polar ized , and familiar dialogues.

The group of repor ters and ed i tors a t the

T imes

asked them se lves , wh a t

wo u l d engage reade rs?

The

team came

up

wi th

the

idea

to

w ri te abo ut race

re-

lat ions

at the p erso nal level "intuitively." "W e w ante d to find people who d id-

n 't

pu l l

their pun che s , and we w ante d to come up w ith different s i tua t ions—

s i tua t ions tha t r eaders wou ld see as typ ical , bu t w ere relationships across s i tu -

ations that many might find too sensitive to talk about. We w ere looking for

the

op p o r tu n i ty

to get the

kind

of

story that people read

and

realize, 'Oh ,

my

god,

i t ' s true '" said Winerip.

"The stories, of course, were all t rue—believable , even mundane. In

fact,

tha t ' s what we were looking for—the mundane—the set t ing too small , too

n ua n c e d ,

to rise to the level of even a local issue in the community . The mo-

m ents tha t w e wanted to captu re were s i tua t ions that wou ld not m ake news s to-

ries

based on their importance, but reflected the common moments tha t

consu m e people 's daily l ives. W e met several t imes and came up with a bou t 150

ideas.

Then we narrowed it to 15." The 15-part series that resu lted received a

Puli tzer Prize and la ter became a book titled How Race i s

Lived

in

Amer ica



16

IORIO

(Lelyveld,

2000). Winerip turned one of the 15 ideas in to the s tory "Why Har-

lem Drug

Cops Don't

Discuss Race." He also handled the report ing team

through

the

process

of finding

their interview locations

and

repor t ing

the s i tua-

tions

as

they developed.

"W e

searched hard

to

find

a

wide range

of

people

willing to be

involved,"

Winerip said.

Some

report ing projects

err on the

side

o f

over -report ing s i tua-

tions involving the poor. We looked for a var iety of exp erience s. For ex am ple , we

wanted to do a story abo ut race relat io ns in the workplace , and w e wa n t e d to

look

at

blue-collar workers .

I had done

some report ing

on the

steel mills,

and

someone

sugges ted tha t

w e

might look there

for a

story,

but I

d idn 't th in k tha t

would work.

Fo r the

m ost par t ,

the m en I had

in terviewed were

all

middle-aged,

and they had sub s tant ia l sa la ries. The indu s t ry was dec l in ing.

They

really didn' t

represent the

type

of

worker

we

wanted

to

portray.

We

w anted something

'rawer. '

W e

thought

of

doing

the

story

from a

un ion /non-un ion pe r spec tive .

What

were

the

lives

of

people, black

and

white, working across

those

divides?

B ut that

didn't seem

to be the

right vehicle either.

W e

wa n t e d

to

have

a

tough ,

blue-collar

situation,

but the

point

was to capture the workers ' relationships,

the i r a t t i tudes and feelings toward each other . W e t ho ugh t o f the ch icken and

pork facto ries along

t he

Southeas t

Coast

and

ended

up

sending

a

reporter

to

live

there

and

work

in a

pork factory."

Getting

into

the field was accomp lished by trial and error.

When

I w ent into

th e

precinct

to do my

work ,

I met

Maria.

I

knew

right off

tha t

she was a first-rate

police

officer. I

didn 't know

if I

wanted

to do a

s tory about tha t kind

o f

person

or

her first-rate squad. I had an opportunity to visit another squad, but they were

bland.

I

decided

to go

back

and

stick w ith Maria." Getting into

th e field

also took

time. "You have

to

give reporters time

to

mak e mistakes.

When [Times

reporter]

Amy Harmon was

looking

for a

pair

of

execut ives

to

interview,

she was

turned

down by, probably, 1 00 companies. After

that

i t daw ned on us that major estab-

lished corporations w ou ldn't talk to us w itho ut add ing so m any restrictions, we

just

w ouldn't

be

able

to get the

information

we needed. But we

found

people in

the

dot .com world were independent entrepreneurs

and willing to

ta lk

to us.

That's how we

settled

on the

pair

of men to

interview

who had

m ade millions."

In

retrospect ,

the

criteria

for the

s tor ies that became part

of the

series w ere

(a)

a m un da ne s i tuation was the vehicle for each s tory, (b) the s i tu atio n pro-

vided

the

oppor tuni ty

to get

people 's su bjec tive perce ptions,

and (c) the

people

in the s i tuation w ere wil l ing to ta lk . "We had to

find

people willing let you com e

back again and again, wil l ing to spend the t ime i t takes," W inerip said .

Winerip's

wo rk, as the report ing coach for the team , called for him to apply

m any of the too ls used in qua l i ta t ive research. "O veral l, w e w ante d the repor t -

ers to dig in

deep

and

hang

in. I

coached

the

team

not to

tak e notes

at first," he



1 . QUALITATIVE

JOURNALISM

17

said. That's an easy way to burn out or scare o ff th e subjects [interviewees]. M y

counsel to the reporters was to be patient and wait awhile, and then begin tak-

ing notes.

I

also coached them

not to get too

personal

at

first. It's like

any

other

relationship.

It has to be

given time

to

develop. Y ou

can't get too

close

too

soon.

Even though these people have committed to do the interviews, they don't

know what they've committed to, so you have to ease into the relationship and

the interviewing. In establishing the relationship, you

walk

a fine line,

Winerip said. You end up liking th e people. I always do, but it's n ot friendship.

You've

got to hold back and learn not to give in to friendship. Your job is not to

force

anything, jus t tell

the

story

as it

emerges, without drawing conclusions.

As the

series went

to

publication, additional information

on the

topic, some

of it in interactive form, complemented the 15-story series. Some accompany-

in g

stories told

in

first-person voices

and

question-and-answer stories produced

by

Times magazine correspondents appeared when a special edition of the Times

magazine

published part of the series. A Web site was created not to mimic or

regurgita te the print series but to be i ts ow n iteration of the project, Winerip

said.

It was a

groundbreaking project

for the

Times

W eb

site.

A n

e-mail discus-

sion board w as heavily used. When published in book form, the reporters'

first-person

impressions

o f

race relations

in

general

and

their personal perspec-

t ives

on racial

issues

were included.

Overall, the purpose of the series was to get to human beings and to learn

from them. The series was a huge commitment. Y ou can't do something like that

cavalierly. It takes perseverance. That's the thing, the key to it all. The whole

idea was to let the people talk for themselves and let the reader put it

into

the

larger context, Winerip concluded.

The

reporters

at The New

York Times

did not set out to do

qualitative method

journal i sm.

Certainly, many

on the

team, including Winerip, were

not

even

aware of the term. The reporting that resulted did, however, correspond closely

with

the

purposes

and

principles

of

qualitative research.

The

conceptualization

of individuals ' personal circumstances as newsworthy and important to the un-

derstanding of larger social issues of the day is indicative of the qualitative ap-

proach. From

the

initial desire

to do

in-depth, in-the-field reporting

to the use

of

multiple settings and multiple opportunities to gather personal insights all

the way to the

presentation

of the

findings

in

stories

that

included

the

role

of the

reporters

and the Times the process was an unambiguous approximation of

thorough qualitative research.

The

qualitative method provides

an

avenue

for

reporting

that

reaches

the

ind iv idua l and brings the common concerns of everyday people

into

the pub-

li c

sphere. Using qualitative research techniques

in

journalism

is not a new

idea . However, until recently,

the

qualitative method

has not

been given



18

IORIO

m u c h

at tent ion

by

journalists . C hanging cond itions, both inst i tut ionally

and

technologically, now encou rage this specialized training for journalists. T he

purpose of this volume is to focus on qual i ta t ive method journal ism. The

chapters in Part I provide backg round fo r unders tanding the early history of

qual i ta t ive research

in th e

United States

and its

re lat ionship

to journal i sm.

The

chapters

in

Part

II

each describe

one or

more qu al i ta tive methods

and

show

how

they

are

being applied

in journal ism

today.

R E F E R E N C E S

Bagdikian,

B. H.

( 1 9 7 2 ) . Th e

e f f e t e

conspiracy and other crimes by thepress .

New

York: Harper

&

Row.

Bagdikian, B. H. (2000). The media monopoly (6th ed.) . Boston: Beacon Press.

Bennett, W. L, &

En tman ,

R. M.

(Eds.) . (2001) . Mediated polit ics . Cambr idge ,

UK:

Cam-

bridge University- Press.

Black , J. (Ed . ) . (1997) . Mixed new s :

The

public/civic/communitarian journalism debate.

M a h w a h ,

N J:

Lawrence E rlbaum Associates .

Carey,].

W.

(1987, March/A pri l) .

The

press

and

p ubl ic discourse. The Center Magazine, 4-16.

Carey, J . W. (1992) . The press and the public discourse. Kettering Review (W inter) , 1-22.

Carey, J. W. (1997). Com mu nity, public, and jo urnalism . In J. Black (E d.), Mixed neu's:

The

public/civic/communitarian

journalism debate (pp. 1-17). M ahw ah, NJ : Lawrence Er lbaum

Associates.

Charity,

A .

(1996). Doing public journalism.

N ew

York: Guilford Press.

Coffey, S. (2002) . Best pract ices:

The art

of leadership

in

neu 's organ; zations. Ar l ing ton , VA: The

Freedom Forum.

Comm ission on Freedom of the Press. (194 7). Afree

and responsible

press . Chicago: Univ ersi ty

of

Chicago Press.

Dewey, J. (1927). The p ublic and its problems. Denver, CO: Swallow Press.

Dionne,

Jr., E. J. (Ed . ) . (1998). Community works. W ashington, DC: The Brookings In st i tu -

tion.

Entman, R. M. (1998). Democracy

without citizens.

N ew

York:

Oxford Universi ty Press .

Fallows,

J .

(1996) .

Breaking

th e news.

N ew

York: Vintage Books.

Foucault , M. (1982). The archeology

of

knowledge (A. M.

Sheridan,

T rans.) . New York: Pan-

theon. (Original work published 1969)

Glasser,

T. L., &.

Salmon,

C. T

(1995) .

The

politics o f polling

and the

l imi ts

of

consent .

InT L.

Glasser &. C. T. Salmon (Eds.) , Public opinion and the communication of consent (pp.

417-436).

N ew

York:

G uilford Press.

Graber,

D. A. (2001). Adapting

political news

to the needs of

twenty-f irs t centu ry Ameri-

cans. In W. L. Bennett

&L

R. M.

En tman (Eds . ) , M ediated Politics (pp.

433-452).

Cam-

bridge, U K : Cambridge University Press.

Habermas.J . (1991) .

The

structural

transformation

of

th e

public

sphere

(T .

Burger , Trans.) . Cam -

bridge, MA: MIT Press.

Jensen, K. B. (2002). The qualitative research process. In K. B. Jensen (Ed.) , A handbook of

media

and

communication research

(pp.

235-253). N ew York:

Routledge .

Lelyveld,

J.

(Ed.) . (2001). Hou' race is lived in America.

Ne w York:

Times

Books:

Henry Hol t

&

Company.

Lippmann ,

W .

( 1 9 2 2 ) . Public opinion.

New

Y ork: H arco urt , Brace

&.

Com pany.

Mannheim, K . (1986). Ideology and

Utopia

(D . Kettler, V Meja , & N. J. Stehr, Trans.). N ew

York:

Routledge &. Kegan Paul . (O riginal wo rk published 1929)



I

QUALITATIVE JO URNAL ISM

19

M e rr i t t , D. (1995). Public

journalism

an d

public

l i f e : W hy

telling

the new s is not

enough.

Hillsdale,

N J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Meyer ,

R (1973). Precision journalism. Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Press.

Meyer ,

R

(1991, 2001).

Th e n ew

precision journalism.

Bloomington,

IN :

Indiana University

Press.

Miller, D. L. (Ed.). (1982). The individual and the

social

s e l f : Unpubl ished

work

of

George

Herbert

M e a d .

Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

Park ,

R. E., & Burgess, E. W. (1925). The city.

Chicago:

University of

Chicago

Press.

Peters , J. D. (1995). Historical

tensions

in the

concept

of public

opinion.

In T. L. Glasser & C.

T. Salmon (Eds.),

Public

opinion and the communication of consent (pp. 3-32). New

York:

Gui l ford Press.

Pool, I. S. (1990). Technologies

without boundaries:

On

telecommunication

in a global

age.

Cam-

bridge ,

MA:

Harvard University Press.

Poster,

M. (1999). The net as a public sphere. In D. Crowley &.R Heyer (Eds.),

Communica-

tion in

history

(pp. 335-337). N ew York: Longman.

P u t n a m , R. (1993). Making democracy work.

Princeton,

NJ:

Princeton

University Press.

P u t n a m , R. (1995). Bowling alone: America's declining social capital,

journal

of

Democracy,

6 (1 ) ,

65-78.

Rosen, J. (1999a). Deliberation in order to write. Kettering Review, 1 9 1 ) ,

53-60.

Rosen, J. (1999b). What are journalists for? New

Haven,

CT:

Yale

University Press.

Rosen, J., Merritt, D., & Austin, L . (1997). Theory an d practice: Lessons from experience.

Dayton, OH: Kettering Foundation.

Schudson, M. (1995).

The

power

of

news. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Si r i anni ,

C., & Friedland, L. A. (2001). Civic

innovation in America: Community empower-

ment, public policy, and the movement for

civic

renewal. Berkeley,

CA :

University

of

Califor-

nia Press.

Thomas, W. I., & Znaniecki, E (1927). The Polish

peasant

in

Europe

and

America.

N ew

York:

Knopf .

Thompson,

J. B.

(1995).

The

media

and

modernity. Stanford,

CA:

Stanford University Press.

Tuchman,

G .

(1978). Making news: Astudy in the construction

of

reality.

N ew

York: Free Press.

Ureneck, L. (1999, 2000). Expert journalism. Nieman

Reports,

53(4)

&54(1).

Y ankelov i ch , D . (1991). Coming

t o public

judgment:

Making

democracy

work in a

complex

world.

Syracuse ,

N Y :

Syracuse University Press.






2

Connected

Research

The Chicago School Preceden t

Lewis

A.

Friedland

University of

Wisconsin-Madison

Kathryn B. Campbell

University of

Oregon

The very term "qualitative research" implies that it is som ething set apa rt, de-

fined

by

certain methods

or

approaches—that

is, by

particular "qualities."

By

implication, "qualitative research" is

done

in contrast to "quantitative re-

search," which

has its own

rules

for

summ ing

up

social, psychological,

and

polit-

ical life in numbers and equations. These assertions are more or less tru e, but

they

are also more or less beside the main point, at least the one we wan t to

make

in this chapter. Qu alitative research, as practiced in the foun ding trad i-

tions

o f

sociology

at the

University

of

Chicago,

is

defined

not so

m uc h

by how it

goes ab ou t knowing, but h ow it defines w hat i t w ants to know a bo ut. That is to

say, the g oal of resea rch in the C hicago tradition is to get as com plete as possib le

an u nde rstanding of w hat is being studied, and that means

always

trying to u n-

ders tand the larger picture, or context.

Research

in

this traditio n, called

th e

C hicago School

of

sociology, oft en trie s

to look at whole communities—neighborhoods, social groups, or even big cit-

ies; occasionally, it tries to look at all of these at once in relatio n to each other. It

is a kind of research tha t tries to und erstan d people, their actions, and insti tu-

tions

in all of

their complicated interactions with each other. Qualitative

re-

21



2 2 F R I E D 1 j \ \ I ) A N D CAMPBELL

search unders tands tha t th is complex pic ture of soc ia l o r communi ty

life

sometimes will

not

show statistical relationships among "variables,"

1

such

as the

classifications

such

as

gender , edu cation,

and

income that

are the

ma in s t a y

of

quantitative research.

This

em phasis

on the

whole community does

not

neces-

sarily

m ake qu a l i ta t ive research be t te r than var iables -based, qu an t i ta t iv e re-

search, but it does make it d i f f er en t— even when , as was often the case in the

larger Chicago

School studies, statistical

and

oth er d ata a lso w ere used

to un-

derstand how the com plicated par ts of a large com m unity f i t together.

So,

m ore

than

anything e lse , qua l i ta t iv e research

as we will use the

term

is

holistic, meaning that it tries to s i tua te the things it s tudies in their broadest

possible con text.

There

a re m any

ways

to do this, and m ost of the m

rely

o n

var i-

ous forms and combinations of interview s and observation. The larges t possible

p ic tu re

of

some g roup

o f

social pheno m ena

is the

goal .

THE CHICAGO SCHOOL ME THOD

Q ual i ta t ive research can be descr ibed in a nu m be r of

ways ,

and each has a dif-

ferent

shade

of m eaning. "Ethnog raphy" is li teral ly w rit ing about people or

cu l ture . I t grew

from

the w r i t ings of the

ear ly

an th ropo log i s t s who l ived w i th

tr ibal cultures outs ide

of the

United

States and

wrote

up

ev eryth ing possible

(or

a t leas t every thing they could see) abou t the w ay the people l ived and

worked together . T he ha l lma r k o f this work was the anthropologis ts ' c lose

con tac t w i th peop le— the i r r e sea rch " sub jec ts "— over

a

per iod

o f

t ime. T heir

research methods inc luded

both

"par t ic ipant observa t ion ," m eaning tha t they

watched the i r research sub jec ts w hi le do ing th ings wi th them ; and "depth in -

te rviews ,"

mean ing tha t they pa r t i c ipa ted

in

ex tended conver sa t ions ove r

t ime, asking people abou t w hat th ey were do ing

and

w h a t

it

m e a n t.

T h e

t e rm

"fieldwork" g rew to m e a n j u s t this kind o f researc h: going ou t in to the "field,"

tha t i s , the p laces w here people co ndu ct the i r daily l ives .

This

r em a ins a de f in -

ing e lement of all qua l i ta t ive research.

A t

about

the

time that early anthropologists were

visiting

countries beyond

th e borders of their homelands, sociologists at the University of

Chicago

were

asking

the

same kinds

of

questions ab out

life in the

U nited States.

The

shape

and

size

of the city of

Chicago

was changing quickly in the

early

part of the 20th cen-

tury

under

t he

pressures

of

u rban

industrialization a nd

m assive imm igration.

Un-

de r s tand ing these changes—and

the

soc ia l problems tha t accompanied

them—posed

a

hu ge challenge

for

researchers.

In

some

ways, the

com muni t ie s

that

sociologists wanted to investigate w ere m uc h more comp lex than the societ-

ie s

s tudied

by the

anthropologists.

T he

anthropologis ts went

to

remote areas

in

order to grasp society and cu ltu re as a whole, in locations w here things we re pre -



2.

CO NNECTED RESEARCH

23

sumed to change very

slowly

and societies were coterminous with small groups. In

Chicago, however, waves

of

immigrants speaking different languages

and

dia-

lects—Swedish, Yiddish and dozens o f others—and African Americans moving

from the

South mingled

in a

city that could

not

expand quickly enough

to

feed,

house, and

offer

work to all of them.

They

competed fo r housing and

jobs

and of-

ten clashed in village-like ghettos. Each group was a whole community, and to un-

derstand these grinding, intersecting communities in relation to one another

required

understanding

each

separately. The Chicago researchers handled that

challenge by going into each of

these communities,

living in

them,

and describing

th e lives of the people there as a whole—much the way anthropologists ap-

proached

the

study

of

culture.

The

Chicago researchers used

the

techniques

of

depth interviews and participant observation (while never shying away from the

tools of mapping or statistical data). The task was to get the broadest picture pos-

sible of how the city worked, to discover how such a cacophonous clash of lan-

guages, interests,

and

ways

o f

life could hang together—much less integrate—to

make

something that could be properly called a city at all.

Howard Becker, a sociologist who was trained at the University o f Chicago

after World

W ar II and is one of the

leading practitioners

of


in

his

generation, described

th e

larger goal this way:

The point is not to prove, beyond doubt, the existence of particular relationships so

m uch as to describe a system of relationships, to show how things hang together in a

web

o f

mutual influence

or

support

or

interdependence

or

what-have-you,

to

describe

the connections

between

the specifics the

ethnographer knows

by

virtue

of

having

been there. (1996, p. 56)

UNIQUE QUALITIES OF THE CHICAGO METHODS

Having been there

and the focus on the interconnection of

groups

and

rela-

tionships are, more than anything else, what distinguishes qualitative from

quant i ta t ive research. A more formal way of understanding this relationship at

the broadest level is that qualitative research proceeds by understanding

"cases"

that are, often, very dense and complex bundles o f actors, actions, and

meanings. From the standpoint of qualitative researchers, cases are extremely

rich sources

of

data,

and a

great deal

can be

learned

from

a

single, well-done

case study. Another way of saying this is that a qualitative case contains many

different

elements, each of which is, in a way, its ow n case within a case.

For example,

if we

want

to

study

the relationship

between

a civic

journal-

i sm-or iented newspaper and its community, we can see this as one large case:

the case of a community-newspaper relationship, and, indeed, it is. However,

within

this larger umbrella, there are a number of different cases. T he newspa-



24 F R I K D L A N D AN D CAMPBELL

per

itself

is a

case;

the

editors

and the

reporters

are

s eparate cases.

A ll

h ave dif-

ferent ro les— inst i tu t ional , in terpe rsonal , and profess ional . They have a

relationship: their roles mesh, m eld, and som etim es clash. A ll of the people in-

volved have ideas abou t w ha t good jou rna lism is , abou t how to do i t, and ab out

where the line should be drawn between the newsroom and the comm unity . We

can

m ultiply this

for

publishers, photograp hers, g raphic art is ts ,

and so on.

Per-

haps editors

and reporters learned about civic journalism in a workshop given

by a found at ion. Then the fou nda tion and its own set of relation ships and ideas

become part of the case.

All of this occurs before the researchers even begin to th ink ab ou t the com m u-

nity.

W e

have already suggested

jus t

h ow

internally

different

(or

"differentiated")

any one group can be. For example, most communities in the United States in-

clude a group of elites, tha t is, the leaders in business, political, gov ernm ent, and

social circles. M ost com m unities also have d ozens, if not hundreds , of civic and

community associations. People

are

often divided

by

class, income,

or

social sta -

tus— and, certainly not least, they can be divided by race and ethnic background.

Different cross-sections

of the

com m unity m ight respond

very differently to

jour -

nalism initiatives. In

North Carolina,

for exam ple, when The Charlot te Observer

began its landm ark projec t on race, crime, and c om m unity called "Taking Back

Our

Neighborhoods,

wealthier white residents in one part of town saw things

quite

differently

than African Americans in others. The people within the Afri-

can

American community

saw

things differently, depending,

for

example ,

on

w hethe r they were homeow ners. Each of these

issues

w as a case tha t in tu rn made

up the case of civic journa lism in Charlotte, and each had to be exam ined. At the

newspaper, researchers interview ed editors, repo rters of all sorts, grap hic design-

ers,

editorial w riters, and m any others. The resea rche rs w alked the streets, not

only

in the

Charlotte neighborhoods covered

by the

series

but

also

in

neighbor-

hoods

that were not. They talked

to

A frican Am ericans

in poor

neighborhoods

and to

A frican

American

homeowners;

to

wo rking-class

White

citizens;

to

down-

town businessmen; to the chief of police and to officers on the bea t (for this case

and others of public journalism , see Sirianni & Friedland, 2001). E ach told a dif-

ferent

story, and each account went into making up the case.

The r ichness of a single case allows for qu ali tati ve res earc he rs to describe

an

ex t raord inary am ount

of

complex i ty and ,

at the

sam e t ime ,

to

achieve

the

pr imary

goal of any good social science: re duc ing the com plex ity of any social

phenomenon

so

th a t

we can

u nd e r s t and

it

be t te r

and

comp a r e

it to

similar

cases . Case-based research can d escr ibe how gro ups are organ ized , in tern al ly

and in re la t ion to each o ther ; the h is tories of eve nts , tha t is , how th ings hap -



2. CO NNECTED RESEARCH

25

pened;

the

meanings

of

events,

both to the

actors themselves,

in

their

ow n

words, and to

outside observers, ei ther other interview

subjects or the re-

searchers themselves. O ne hallm ark of this work then is its "thickne ss" or rich

detail .

Contemporary anthropologist

Clifford

Geertz (1973) describes the

goal of his research as "thick description." Again, Howard Becker (1996):

A few basic questio ns seem to lie at the heart of the debates abou t these methods:

M u s t

w e

take account

of the

v iewpoint

of the

social

actor

and, if

w e

m u s t ,

how do we

do it?

And :

how do we

deal with

the embeddedness of all social action in the

wor ld

of

everyday life ?

And: how

thick

can w e and should we make our descr ip t ions? (p . x iv)

These

quest ions lie at the intersection of the main perceived

differences

between qual i ta t ive

and

quantitative research.

A

quant i ta t ive researcher

m ight say tha t the case that we ju s t described is only one case, or has "an N

[number ] of one." To say anything meaningful, the quantitative researcher

might a dd, man y cases of the same thing are needed, and the only way to mak e

sure

th at they are the sam e thing is to ask the same que stion in the sam e way of

many different subjects at

about

the

same t ime (put

differently, to

m ake sure

that the questions are "valid."). This is done to make sure that the re-

searcher

(s) can

generalize

from

all of

these variables throu gh

the use of

statis-

tics that a l low measurement

of both how the

variables relate

to

each other

("correlate") and the

a m o u n t

o f

error

in the

m easu rem ent ("reliabi li ty") . This

kind of resea rch has a large N, often in the h un dr ed s or higher for each vari-

able, sometimes also called

(confusingly)

cases.

This is an o ld argum ent . Sometimes it is framed as the co nflict be tw ee n "in-

duc t ive" research, in which social scientists look at many individual things

(cases)

in order to build up generalizations about them that can

then

be

"tested" through "deductive" research. Deductive researchers propose hy-

potheses

and the n test them (using expe riments, surveys, or other qua nt ita -

tive tec hniq ue s) . Q ualitative researchers do not l ike this description, becau se

it app ears to reduce w ha t they do— the generation of comp lex studies involv-

in g

m a n y

different

variab les in relatio nsh ip— to "one" thing, tha t is, one va ri-

able,

wh ich is then seen to be

insufficient

for genuine hypothesis testing.

However,

m ost serious social scientists recognize this story as tired at be st, de-

scribing

a

certain kind

of

division

of

labor,

and

silly

and

misleading

at

wors t .

The ul tim ate goal of social science is the e xplanation of com plex social ph e-

nomena ,

and both

qu an t i ta t ive

and

qual i ta t ive me thods

are

needed

to do

th is .

Indeed, when

w e

tu rn

to the

classical origins

o f

Am erican sociology,

the

Chi-

cago School, we

find

that this is precisely wh at happened.



26 FRIEDI j \ND A N D CAMPBELL

WHY DID THE CHICAGO SCHOOL EM ERG E?

One of the most im portant problems that the ear ly sociologists at the University

of Chicago wanted to address was tha t of social integ ration. From the late 19th

century and

into

the 1930s, the United States was under extraordinary pres-

sure. Up to that t ime, there had been something l ike a consensus

(certainly

among political and intellectual elites but one also shared by many Am ericans)

that the U nited States was a w hite, Pro testan t nation, bu il t on rura l value s of

hard work

and self-sufficiency.

Torrents

of new

immigrants—most ly from

southern and eastern E urope but also

from

Asia, Latin America, and else-

where—began

to

undermine this consensus.

To put i t

differently,

this older

v i-

sion of American democracy and community no longer worked. Democracy

and community

life

came to be seen as problem s to be solved rath er th an ideals

that could be taken for granted.

Some of the m ost impo r tant th inking about the problems of democracy and

community

was

also ta king place

at the

University

of

Chicago during this

pe-

riod.

In particular , the philosopher John Dewey and George Herbert Mead be-

gan to rethink traditional

ideas.

They saw

that

a

democracy

that depended on

unchanging,

fixed ways

of

life

might

not

survive.

D ewey addressed this que stion

directly th roug h

h is

w ritings

on

democracy

and

through

h is

influent ia l works

on

the

philosophy

of

educat ion. Mead sought

to

u nd e r s t and

how

perceptions

of

self

are formed in relation to others. Each opened new perspectives on so-

cial-psychological change and integra t ing new experiences.

The

Chicago researchers built

on

this fou nd ation . They developed

new

tech-

niques of investigation that were

fitted

to the problems at hand : rapid urb aniz a-

tion

under the pressure of imm igration; the strains in social integration, and the

challenge to democracy. They tried to develop new theory to help guide their

study

of the social world. The techniques included ethnograph y, of course , but

the

researchers also embraced mapping

and use

of statistical d ata.

The

goal

was to

understand

the

city (and,

by

imp lication,

th e

nation)

in its

complexity,

and

every

research technique

that

could

be

borrowed, refined,

or

invented

was

needed.

What

does this have to do w ith

journa l i sm

research and pract ice today? Ev-

erything. The problems of unde rstanding and integrating diversity in a globaliz-

ing age pose incredible new challenges to

both

social science and jou rna lism .

The

holistic approach

of the

Chicago School

is

more,

not

less, necessary today.

It

gives journ alists both inspiration

and

license

to

engage fully

in the

process

of

discovery. The wo rld is not

simply

out there, fixed, w ai t ing to be turned into

variables and measu red . It is changing shape before o ur eyes, and only an en-

semble of methods that is ad equ a te to captur ing that chang e is a d e q u a t e to

jour -

nalism

or

social

science

in the

21st century.



2.

CO NNECTED RESEARCH 27

FOUNDING SCHOLARS

As we

have suggested, journ alis ts

in

search

of

theoretical, empirical,

o r

po lemi-

cal

inspirat ion w ould b e hard-pressed to e xha us t the potentia l of the work pro-

duced

in the first

third

of the 20th

century

in the

developing discipline

of

sociology at the U niversi ty of

Chicago—a

body of research, theory, and research

methods known as the Chicago

School.

Robert E . Pa rk , a journa l is t who had

not

earned

his PhD in

philosophy unti l

he was 48, and his

colleagues

at the

Uni -

versity of

Chicago helped invent

the

academic discipline

of

sociology, c rea ting

the

m ethods they needed

to

develop

and

test theory

in the

rea l w orld

and

insis t-

in g that sociology

be of

some practical use.

Founded in 1892 as par t of a w ell-fund ed pr ivate universi ty, the De partm ent

of Social

Science and

Anthropology

was

headed

by

Albion Small,

a

theorist

w ho

promoted empir icism

and saw the

s tudy

of

sociology prim arily

as

p repa ra -

tion for citizensh ip and a way to improv e society. O ne of Sm all's

faculty

appoint-

me n t s was W. I .

Thomas,

whose theories atte m pted to explain social chan ge and

motiva t ion

and who

espoused system atic , m ult ifaceted research c ulm inating

in

com parativ e analyses . His

major

w ork, coauthored w ith Flor ian Znanieck i , was

th e five

-vo lum e study,

T he Polish

Peasant

in

Europe

and

America (1918) . Thomas

in tur n recru ited Park, the form er new spaper reporter . Park, a long w ith his re-

search p ar tner , Professor Ernest W . Burgess , developed theories of hu m an ecol-

ogy a nd

urban change, including

the

natural his tory

of the

city. Together, they

supervised a generation of grad uate research ers who stud ied v ar ious aspects of

city

life,

using

Chicago

as their laboratory.

Park and Burgess

encouraged their s tudents

to

test their developing theories

of

urb an change using data they collected f irs thand

and

data gathered

by

o thers

for

o ther purposes . This type of fieldw ork has since

been

refined

into

methodol-

ogies

such

as

case stud ies

and

pa r t icipant observation.

The use of

s ta t is t ical data

was cen t r a l to their work; the research ers collected some data them selves, bu t

Burgess

also worked creatively with census data . Students learned s ta t is t ical

me thods

from

the pioneers in

that field:

L. L.

Thurstone,

Em ory Bo gardus, and

Will iam E

O gburn. Some scholars have at tem pted

to pin the

subsequen t d iv ide

in

sociology over quanti ta t ive versus quali ta t ive methods on the Chicago

School,

o r to

label

th e

Chicago School

as

atheo retical,

but

those approaches

are

pure mythmaking.

The

theory-guided,

multimethod

approach is the

true Chi-

cago tradit ion ,

well

i l lustrated

in a

series

of

m onographs such

as The Hobo

(An-

derson, 1923),

T he Ghetto

(Wirth, 1928),

The

Taxi-Dance Hall (Cressey,

1925) ,

and The

Gang

(Thrasher,

1927) .

In

sociology, deb ate over the

Chicago

School legacy begins with the question

of

w h e t h er

it can

properly

be

called

a school and

ranges

w idely,

touching

on



28 F R I E D L A N I ) A ND CAMPBELL

the extent to which the

Chicago

School sociologists w ere social reform ers, w ere

influenced by pragmatist philosophy, and were deliberately or jus t misguidedly

reconstructed by succeeding generations in order to justify new theories or to le-

git imate new m ethodologies. Critics charge th at the

Chicago

sociologists w ere

conservative apologists

for the

s ta tus

quo who failed to

recognize

the

implici t

norms of

their

o w n work .

Others

d i spu te the s t rength of the l ink from the Chi-

cago

School

to M ead's symbolic interactionism, and He rber t B lum er ' s version

of

it. What has rarely

been appreciated,

even in sociology

7

, is the vitality and ex-

citement that permeated the interdisciplinary' w ork of the Chicago sociologists

and the

passion connecting their academic

and

personal lives.

It is

this interdis-

ciplinary,

interconnected,

mult imethod

approach to

understanding

the

com-

plexities

of

comm uni ty

life

that

offers

journa l is ts

a

critically needed his tor ical

and theoretical grounding for their contemporary- work.

IMPLICATIONS

FOR

JOURNALISM

A thorough grounding in the exploratory theory and methods found in the work

of

the Chicago

School

has several im plications for jou rnalism and jou rnal ism re-

search.

First,

the

Chicago School

sociologists began

wi th

the

idea

that

social

re-

lationships were

not

static,

nor

could they

be

cap tu red

by

single

and

discrete

approaches to unders tanding them . These innovative think ers used every b it of

information available to

them:

firsthand

data

they collected; secondhand sta-

t istical

da ta from social service agencies; newspaper accounts;

and

my r iad per -

sonal docu m ents such as let ters and diar ies.

The Chicago School's

mult imethod

approach

appears

to be

regaining some

favor today as sociologists try to apprehend the incredible complexity of con-

temporary com m unities and are urged by their colleagues to forgo the var iab les

paradigm as the sole method of und erstanding social interaction (Abbott ,

1997).

That

is, the collection and analysis of statistic s is deem ed im po rtan t and

necessary, but not

sufficient. This

ackno wled gm ent clear ly has imp lications for

journalists

and

journalism

researchers who are teaching

themselves

the

kind

of

sociological research envisioned by the Chicago

School.

The journ a l is t ic con-

nection

to Park is especially strong:

Dr. Park

had been a

newspaperman be fore

he

t u rn e d

to

sociology.

He had

been fasci-

nated

by the

city.

T he

prob lems which

the

c i ty presented in terested

h im

greatly.

H e

was interested

in the

newspaper ,

it s

power

of

exposing

conditions a nd

arousing public

sen t iment ,

and in

tak ing

the

lead

in

crusades against s lums , explo i ta t ion

ot

i m m i -

grants , or cor rup tion in m unic ipa l

affairs.

The exposes by Lincoln Steffens, and the

whole t rad i t ion in journa l i sm which he s t im ula te d , was the poin t of dep ar tur e in th i s

th ink ing . But Dr . Park found that , w hile news paper

publ ic i ty

aroused a great deal ot in-

terest

and

stirred

the

em ot ions

of the

publ ic ,

it did no t

lead

to

c on s t r uc t ive ac tion .

H e



2.

CO NNECTED RESEARCH

29

decided that something more than news was needed, that you had to get beneath the

surface

of

things.

So he

returned

to the

university. (Burgess

&

Bogue, 1964,

p. 3)

A

second implication

fo r

contemporary journalism research

is

that

it

need

not

be presented in the jargon of expertise or in obfuscated, pedantic prose; one of the

strengths

of the

Chicago School

is the

accessible nature of

its

published work.

The

clearly

explicated ideas and research published in Chicago generated an entire

discipline. Part

of

that

explication is the presentation of

information

in a

graphi-

cally meaningful way. Both characteristics of Chicago research are exhibited in

the eminently readable books it produced in the 1920s and 1930s, such as The

Hobo

(Anderson, 1923),

The

City (Park, 1925a),

The

Gang (Thrasher, 1927) ,

The

Ghetto

(Wirth, 1928),

and The jack-Roller

(Shaw, 1930/1966).

A third implication for journalism is the discovery of a tradition of acknowl-

edged community connections. Park (1939, p. vi) wrote

that

sociology is impor-

tant as a community resource of information, and he spelled out the dual role of

the

sociologist: sociologist

as

scientist

and

sociologist

as

member

of the

human

communi ty

whose expectation

is

that

his

research

will be

applied beneficially.

A final implication fo r journalism research is simply the sense o f excitement

that

the

Chicago School sociologists

can

inspire.

As

Abbott (1997) exhorted

his

colleagues in sociology:

Sociology stands before a great n ew flowering. N ew methods are available for borrow-

ing.

Problems

for

analysis

are

more pressing

and

more exciting than ever. Above all,

w e

possess

a

goodly heritage

of

both theoretical

and

empirical work

in the

contextualist,

in te rac t ionis t

tradition, bequeathed

us by the

Chicago School. That work provides

a

foundat ion and an

example

f or

where sociology ought

to go. (p.

1182)

Abbott's words

are

equally applicable

to the

practice

and

study

of

journalism

today.

HISTORICAL

CONTEXT

FOR

CHICAGO

SCHOOL

RESEARCH

Qualitative methods did not, of course, spring forth fully formed from the Chi-

cago School. Research ideas were borrowed, revised, tested, revised again,

codified

in a

graduate student handbook (Palmer, 1928),

and

field tested

again. T he sociologists' work drew

from

and complemented practical social

research in three other areas: the massive study of poverty conducted by

Charles Booth in London, the urban research done by Jane Addams and the

s e t t l emen t house pioneers

in

Chicago,

and the

community studies under-

taken

by the

tireless activists

who

sustained

the

social survey movement

in the

U n i t e d States fo r more

than

30 years.



3O F R I E D L A N I ) A N D CAMPBELL

Charles Booth

Booth's Labour and

L i f e

of the People in London

series was publ ished in m u l t ip l e

volumes between 1889 and 1902, reflecting more

than

a decade of careful and

detailed research.

Booth

(1889, 1891) began his ma m mo th s t udy of urban pov-

erty

and

associated factors such

as

employment

and

religious life

by

surveying

and

then

m apping London neighb orhoods— house by house, s treet by s treet ,

block b y block. H e dem onstrated conclusively tha t in div idu al behavior , social

s t ruc ture , and social w elfare (and, it migh t be argued , civic life) we re inextr ica-

bly interconnected (Booth, 1902).

H e

crea ted w hat might

now be

called

a

da t a -

base of statistics on wages and households that informed debate over Brit ish

social policy

for

decades following

the

comple t ion

of his

17-vo lume

study.

2

H is

analyses

were accompanied by thick descr iptive mater ia l that brought the

streets of London to life am id the pages and p ages of tables and ch arts . Booth d i-

rectly and ind irectly provide d the m odel for the type of research en cou rage d by

the Chicago School soc iologists. As Booth had done, the Chicago School re-

searchers foun d ways to combine qua l i ta t iv e and q uan t i ta t iv e research, tacking

back

and

for th be tween theory-dr iven ded uct ive reasoning

and

induc t ive the -

ory building.

Jane Addams and Hull-House

Charles

Booth

and the

Chicago

School academics were not the only researche rs

to use

maps ,

surveys,

interview s, census da ta ,

and the

like

as

they tried

to

un de r -

stand

the

complexity

of

u rban life. Burgess

and

Bogue (1964),

in

their "long

view" of ur ba n sociology, readily acknow ledge the w ork of Booth's contem po-

raries

at

Hul l -House :

It is important to mak e clear that th e Depar tment of Sociology stud ies w ere not the first

field studies in Chicago. If you go back as far as 1895 in the

Hu l l

House Papers, you will

find urba n studies. I t wou ld be

correct

to say tha t system atic urb an studies in Chicago

began with these Hull-House studies. Edith Abbott

and

Sophonisba Breckenridge,

in

w ha t

w as then th e Chicago School of

Civics

and

Philanthropy

(later th e

School

ot So-

cial

Service Ad m inistration of this un ivers ity), had carried on a series of stud ies of the

immigrant

and of the

operation

of

Hull-House. They began these studies

as

early

as

1908.

And of

course there were

other

isolated studies

o f

Chicago during

th e

early

de-

cades of the twentieth century. Similar work had been going on in New York City and in

other cities where there had been social

surveys

or inve stigatio ns of

s lums,

(p. 4)

Hull -House , founded

by

Addams,

was the

second set t lement house

in the

United States

3

and arguab ly the m ost inf luential . Its founding ideal was the

"conviction that social intercourse could best express the grow ing sense of the

economic un ity of society" w ith the w ish th at "the social spirit" w ou ld be the



2. C O NNE C T E D R E S E AR C H 31

"undercurrent of the

life

of H ull-House, w hateve r direction the stream m ight

take" (Residents, 1895, p. 207). Hull-House had living space for up to 20 per-

m an en t resid ents, a library branc h, art gallery, clubs and class space, coffee

houses,

gymnasium, a kindergarten, a music school, a co-op women's apart-

ment , a men's club, a theater, and the first public playground in Chicago. H un -

dreds of visitors, including imm igrant residents of the neighborhood, stream ed

into Hull-Ho use weekly to talk and learn a bou t everything from philosophy and

politics

to

finding

a job and

raising

a family.

The foun ding Hull-H ous e residents, comprising for the m ost part a group of

educa ted ,

middle-class social reformers, set out immediately to survey their

neighborhood with the

intention

of providing statistics u po n w hich plans for so-

cial improvements could be based (Residents, 1895). Led by Florence Kelley,

th e su rve y work w as modeled on the Booth s tudies . T h e pa ins tak ing

house-by-house s urve y of income, househo ld size, and ethnicity included per-

sonal interviews with residents and provided the data for Hull-House Maps and

Papers, first published

in

1895.

The

Social Survey

Movement

A s

the settlement house activists pursued their studies,

another

strand of re-

search developed into w hat came

to be

known

as the

social survey m ovem ent,

sustained

in

great measure

by the

Russell Sage Foundation.

The

social survey

movement comprised nearly 3,000 studies unde rtake n by large and small cities

across the United States between the tu rn of the century and the early 1930s.

The leaders of the social survey mo vem ent were, in general, associated with the

Russell

Sage Foundation

4

and e xplicitly com m itted to social refo rm . They also

were well acquainted with the Booth studies, the work of Addams and Kelley at

Hul l -House , and with the academic investigations of the Chicago School. The

Russell Sage Foundation's financial support was critical to the social survey

m ovem ent , which w as rooted in the ideals o f the charity organizations of the pe-

riod.

The

social surve y m ove m ent arose,

in no

sm all pa rt, becau se

the

char i ty

organizations

decided that

direct giving w ould

not

provide

a

long-term solution

for po ver ty and its associated social

ills,

including the truly grim w orking condi-

tions f ou nd in new ly industrialized cities. The Ru ssell Sage Fou ndation ca ta-

loged,

published,

and

distr ibuted

a

large library

of

reports

and

instruct ional

pamphle t s

for

citizens

in

communities wishing

to

survey themselves;

it

encour-

aged the use of maps and other graphic

devices

to illustrate survey findings; and

it

helped finance m any of the social survey studies.

The benchmark survey w as under taken in Pi t tsburgh in 1906. The archi tects

of th e study, led by journalist Paul U. Kellogg, eschewed the muckraking ap-



32 FRIEPIAN1)

AND CAMPBELL

proach

popular

in the

same period.

When

Kellogg

was

asked

to

investigate

and

report on living and working

conditions

in P i t t sburgh , he put together a re-

search

team and sought sponsorship from the Chari ty Organization Society of

N ew

York,

for wh om he w orked as m anaging editor of a leading philanth ropic

journal of the period, Charities and The Commons . He also asked for and re-

ceived funding

from the

new ly form ed R ussell Sage Fo und ation.

In

1907,

Kellogg

and a team of researchers began to investigate and do c ume n t the work-

ing and

living

conditions in

P i t tsburgh ,

a

heavi ly

industr ia l ized

ci ty whose n am e

w as

already synonym ous with iron

and

steel.

The survey resul ts were publ ished in six volum es between 1909 and 1914,

but the

books were only par t

of the

story

o f

this innovativ e research.

The

find-

ings were p resented

in

speeches, m agazine ar ticles , photographs,

and a

t ravel ing

exhibit ion; thu s the Pit tsbu rgh Surve y was notable for i ts organized at te m pt to

publicize i ts

findings amon g

the

people

w ho had

been surveyed.

In

keeping wi th

the research ers ' goals of empower ing res idents through informat ion, d issemina-

tion of the survey resul ts to the people o f the city w as an integral par t of the en-

terprise.

The

Pi t t sburgh Civic Exh ibi t

of

N o v e m b e r

and

Dec em ber 1908

disp layed

maps , pho tographs , d rawings , and inven t ive g raph ic

d isp lays

(Kellogg,

1909, p. 51 9), such as a 250-foot-lon g

frieze

of hu m an s i lhouet tes rep-

resenting

the

n umbe r

of

dea ths

from

typhoid fever

in

1907.

The 622

s i lhouet tes

of men, wom en, and children were placed 3 inches apart a long the walls of an

exhibit

room

in

Carnegie

H all; large signs over

the

doors comp ared Pi t t sburgh ' s

death

rate

from

typhoid

to the

lower rate

of

oth er large cities

and

demanded:

"Who

is

responsible

fo r

this

sacrifice?"

(Wing, 1909,

p.

9 2 3 ) .

The Civic E xhibit also include d an opening session on the "civic bearing s" of

the

survey (Kellogg, 1909,

p.

519) .

A s

Koven (1992) no ted:

T h e P i t t s b u r g h survey can be v iewed as a t e n t a t i v e in i t i a t i ve to m a k e t he survey

the

basis

fo r

d ia log ue across c lass l ines be tween

the

s u r v e y o r s

and the

c o m m u n i t y .

At the

very leas t ,

i t

de f ined

t he

c o m m u n i ty

no t

on ly

as

ob jec t s

hut as

c o n s u m e r s

o f

the survey, (p .

370)

O n

Apr i l

1 8 ,

191 2— short ly

af ter the

surve y i t se lf

w as

c o m p le te d ,

but be-

fore all of ihe six

vo lume s

had

been pu b l ished— Kel logg addres sed

the

Ac a d -

em y

of

Po litical

Science

on

"The Spread

of the

Survey Idea. "

He

noted

t ha t

the su rvey movement had c a p tu r e d the imagina t ion of the c i t izenry , w i th

more

communi t i e s a sk ing

fo r

su rveys

than

there were people

to

c o n d u c t

them.

Su rveys , he sa id , were w anted in c i ties such as

Buffalo,

Sag Harbor , Syr-

acuse ,

and

Spr ingf ie ld;

in the

s ta tes

of

Ken tucky , Rhode I s land ,

N ew

Jersey,

Pennsy lvania , I l l ino is , M issour i , M innes ota , Texas , and K ans as ; and even as

far

a wa y

a s

B r i ti sh Co lum bia

and

In d i a .



2.

CO NNECTED RESEARCH

33

DEVELOPING THEORY AND METHODS TOGETHER

At the

sett lement houses

and

throughout

the

social

survey

m ovement,

the re-

search ers' goal w as to grasp the complexities of modern urban

life

for the explicit

purpose of civic improvement and reform. At the University of Chicago, aca-

demic research in sociology took a short step in a slightly different direction. The

goal

of

understanding urban

life

was

accom panied

by a

more explicit desire

to de-

velop theory th at could explain it— theory that would

be

used,

of

course,

by

social

planners,

rath er than the academics themselves, for the be tterm ent of society.

The Natural Areas

of the

City

O ne of Park and Bu rgess ' most tested theories w as that of the "natu ral areas" of

the city. Pa rk contended that cities tend to "conform to the same pattern, and

this patt er n invariably turns out to be a constellation of typical urb an area s, all

of which can be geographically located and spacially defined" (1925b, p. 11).

Cities, these urban ecologists believed, are made up of interrelated parts . The

Chicago

sociologists

saw the

city

as a natural

area—one that grows

in

relatively

predictable ways that could only be mo dified by the landscape and m ight be af-

fected

a bit by hum an intervention, but nev ertheless one whose character was

shaped

by

nat ura l processes

of

selection

and

differentiation.

Park and

B urgess theorized th at cities also underg o

a

natu ral process

of

con-

centra t ion and decentralization, with business, culture, and politics concen-

trating

in the

center

at the

points wh ere transportation systems intersect (Park,

1925a) .

Dece ntralization,

their

theory su ggested, occ urred in the pu sh for resi-

dential areas

away

from

the center.

These

natu ral processes, they believed, also

sifted

and winnowed the population. The Chicago

School

sociologists tended

to talk ab out the g row th of cities as a succession of invasions, comparable to the

introduct ion of a new plant species

into

an area. The "invasions" often started

in the center, where it was easier for newcomers to get a foothold—a place

where

they could find other im m igrants , good transportation, and cheap hous-

i n g—bu t

then

m oved successively out through a series of conce ntric zones. The

Chicagoists expected social disorganization

as a

resu l t ,

bu t

they also expected

reorganization

as a

natu ra l accomm odation

to the

change.

They

expected

im-

migrants of all ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds to follow this pattern,

describing com m unities such

as the

"Little Sicilys,"

the

"C hinatowns,"

and the

Jewish ghettos as transition zones.

To test the ir theories of social organization and d isorganization, the Chicago

sociologists, using a cadre of graduate students, poked and probed the various

neighborhoods and socioeconomic aspects of their own city—always with the



34 FRIEDLAND

AND

CAMPBELL

idea that their research w as intended to inform the future study of all cities.

Thomas,

one of the

earliest members

of the

Chicago

school faculty,

pioneered

the

methods that were subseque ntly adapted by Park, Burgess, and their stu de nts as

they immersed themselves

in the

everyday life

of Chicago.

Together, they pro-

duced a rema rkable series o f sociological studies published betwee n 1923 and the

mid-1930s.

This

chapter concludes w i th a brief review of Thomas and

Znaniecki's study

of

Polish imm igrants

and

Anderson's

s tudy of

hobos, illustratin g

how the

Chicago

researchers employed various methods to make sense of wha t

they were finding and to relate

each

of the par ts to the others.

The Polish

Peasant

in

Europe

and

America

Thomas

and Znaniecki

noted

in this classic work, first published in 1918, that

people live their lives ne ith er scien tifically nor s tatistically . "W e live by infer-

ence,

Thomas

and

Znaniecki s ta ted

flatly, and

wha t

is needed are

cont inuing

life history studies "along with

the

available statistical studie s

to be

used

as a ba-

sis for the inferences drawn" (1918, p. 301). Statistics, he said, must be put in

the

context

o f life h istories and c onstantly check ed for validity. In

other

words,

Thomas

w as

arguing

for an

i terat ive, complem entary,

and

interactive method-

ology upon which to base the emerging discipline of sociology.

Thomas

and Znaniecki (1918) theorized that the behavior of Polish immi-

grants had social causes, not racial or ethnic origins (p. 58). In their research,

Thomas

and Znaniecki used various kinds o f documents in various parts of their

study. For example, letters from Poland were sources for their description of the

immigrants' lives before they came

to the

United States. Newspapers

and

other

archives provided information they used to describe the changes in Polish poli-

tics,

economics,

and families; p arish a lbu m s we re used for sim ilar purposes in the

United States; and a detailed life history of one m an, W ladek W isznienski, was

used to support the auth ors' social theories. Doctors, social w orke rs, editors, and

teachers were interviewed

for the

study,

but the

Polish people themselves were

not.

Thomas, it

seems,

did not

approve

of

personal interviews with

his

subjects ,

which

he felt

"manipulated

the

respondent excessively"

(Bulmer,

1984,

p.

54).

The Hobo

The

mul t imethod

approach to

research em ployed

by the Chicago

sociologists

is

also w ell illustrate d

by a

series

o f

monographs, most based

on

doctoral disserta-

tions comp leted under the direction of Park and Burgess. The first w as Ander-

son's The

Hobo,

published in

1923. (Another

of

these

monographs, The

Taxi-Dance Hall,

is discussed extensively in chap. 8.)



2. C ON N E C T E D RESEARCH 35

Park w rote introductions

fo r

many

of

these books,

and in

T he Hobo's preface ,

he

pro m ptly declared

the

intended generalizability

of the

studies:

It

is, in

fact,

th e

purpose

of

these

studies

to emphasize not so

m u c h

the

par t icular

and

local as the generic and universal aspects of the

city

and its

life,

and so m ake these

studies not merely a contr ibut ion to o ur information but to our p e r ma ne n t scientific

knowledge of the city as a c o mm u nal

type.

(1923, p.

xxvi)

M an, Park added,

has

made

the

city,

but the

city

has

also m ade

the

man ;

and

in this case, the city has turned a partic ular type of m an— the pioneer— into the

hobo

(1923,

p .

xxiii) .

Anderson's

ow n

preface

to his

book

offered

a

similar assessm ent.

He had be-

come interested in the life of the wanderer , he acknowledged, mainly because

he had been one,

both

during his upbringing as one of 12 children of Swedish

imm igrant farmers

and as a

young

m an

skinning mules, laying railroad track,

and w orking in lum ber camps and m ines across the U nited States. A fter finally

finishing high school and college in Utah , he hopped his last freight to the Uni -

versity

of

C hicago

for

graduate school, arriving

in

1920.

The

Hobo is a classic exam ple of the integ rated methodology

that

the Chi-

cago sociologists used

to

investigate urban

life.

The

m onograph br ims w ith

rich descriptive prose as And erson revealed to his readers the intr icacies of

Hobohemia, its

Main

Stem

(the

central

area) ,

as

well

as its

inhabitants,

their lifestyles, and their

ways

of thinking. A long the w ay, his anecdo tal and

s ta t i s t ica l ev idence accumula ted

fo r the

a r g u men t

he

made abou t

th e

causes

of th is "vagabondage": " (a) unemploym ent and seasonal w ork , (b) indus t r ia l

inadequacy, (c) defec ts of personality , (d) crises in th e life o f the person, (e) ra-

cial

or nat ional d iscr im inat ion, [and] ( f ) w and er lus t . " Any solu t ion to the

problem of hom eless men that does not address these fundam enta l s t ruc tu ra l

problems

at the

"core

of our

American

life," he

concluded ,

is

simply insuffi-

cient (Anderson, 1923,

p.

86).

Anderson's

(1923) study also

included a

look

at the complicated

role

of

elites, w h om he called "influen tials," in Hobohemia. For example, he found tha t

Dr. Ben R eitm an, "King of the Hobos," was disdained by the hobos, dismissed as

an aristocrat because

he

owned

a

Ford

(p.

173).

The

hobos, Anderson reported,

were

great and v oracious readers; to some e xten t, they were w riters as well , pu b-

lishing in hobo new slett ers and progressive publications. Public speaking was a

form of neighborhood ente rtainm ent; the Hobo College even provid ed a pu blic

sphere of sorts and training in public speaking— plus lunch (pp.

2 2 6 – 2 2 7 ) .

A n-

derson's detailed

and yet

holistic approac h

to the

s tudy

of

Hobohemia capture d

the complex web of relationships and activities in a community of people

masked by stereotyp ical depictions of the

nation's

vagabonds.



3 6

In

The Hobo,

Anderson organized his evidence em pir ically as

well .

He of-

fered a

typology

of homeless men

(1923,

pp. 87–88) that

defined

hobos as mi-

gratory w orkers . He classified nonworkers as t ramps and bums, d is t inguishing

between those

who

traveled

and

those

who did

not .

He

es t imated

the

n u m b e rs

of

hom eless at "probably" more th an a m illion (p. 105) and prov ided a classifica-

tion

of the kinds of w ork hobos did (p. 107). His search for doc um ents tur ne d up

few

employment records , prompt ing

h im to

comment: "Their records

are not

merely

inad equ ate; they are a joke" (p. 11 1). Clear ly, suc h records and d ocu -

ments were important to his research and their absence was felt .

Draw ing on his research as well as his personal experience, A nderson specu -

lated about

the

factors that defined

the

relat ionship among hobos, other

cit i-

zens,

and the

police.

He

suggested that

the

more hobos

who

congregated

in a

given area,

the

more

an

ind iv idua l

hobo w as

seen

as a

problem despite

the fact,

he

noted,

tha t the average

hobo

hasn't the courage to be a first-class crook (pp.

163-165).

Anderson also suggested that the hobos' longings for a classle ss soci-

ety

drew

them to

socialist labor movements

(p.

167) even though, ironically,

they were

basically unf i t

for

g roup

life

(p.

247 ) . A l t ho ugh

one of the

s tudy ' s

sponsors, the Commit tee on Homeless Men of the Chicago Council of Social

Agencies , p inpointed unemployment

as the

und er ly ing problem

o f

Hobohemia ,

And erson's consistent m essage, derived from his int im ate know ledge of his sub -

jec t ,

w as

tha t

hobos

desired the ir

way of

life

and

would r e tu rn

to

it— despi te

the

best

efforts

of

reformists,

missions, homeless agencies,

and

educa tors .

THE AUTHOR ITY OF MULTIPLE

R E S E A R C H

ME T H O D S

The

inclusive research

of the

Chicago sociologists

and

their contemporar ies

demonstra tes tha t qua l i ta t ive

and

quan t i t a tive me thods have

a

shared history.

Booth pioneered mapping

and

data collect ion

in

whole communi t ies ; se t t le -

ment house

activists and the social surv ey advoc ates drew

upon Booth's

work

and championed civic par t icipation a s the pa th to social reform . At the U n ive r-

sity

of

C hicago,

Thomas and

Znaniecki provided

a

work ing model

for

collecting

and

ana lyzing

life

h is tor ies; sub seq ue nt research

refined and

improved

on

the i r

methods while inventing others . T he dat a classif ication, de pth interv iew s, and

part icipant observation techniques explored

in

The Hobo

and

other Chicago

School

s tudies demonstrate research whose goal w as under s tand ing the city

and its

res idents

in the

largest possible social context.

W e wa n t to r eemphas ize tha t the recons t ruc t ion o f context in the Chicago

model de m anded that s ta t is t ical da ta be used w hen eve r i t was availab le, and of-

ten, that it be collected w hen i t was not . The in terplay of observa t ion , in terview,

FRIEDL ND ND C MPBELL



2.

CO NNECTED RESEARCH 37

research, and classification, however, always flowed into the larger theoretical

and empirical task of understanding the city, and, through the lens of the city,

the larger social forces reshaping the nation.

W e have looked at the Chicago School for several reasons. The first is the

enormi ty of the task that they undertook. To seek to understand the city as an

organic whole is an extraordinary undertaking and rarely attempted. In the

field of mass communication, a few remarkable research projects have tried,

however , to begin to build a larger contextual understanding of whole cities,

ma k in g

use of both qualitative a nd quantitative data. Professor Sharon Iorio

(1998)

of

Wichita State University directed

a

1992 qualitative study

in

Wich-

ita, Kansas,

that

is one of the

earliest examples

of

research

using multiple

depth interviews in a single city to guide a civic journalism project. P rofessor

San dra J. Ball-Rokeach (2001) of the Annenberg

School

for Communication

at the University of Southern California is currently attempting to recon-

s t r u c t social and communication patterns in large parts of Los Angeles. Pro-

fessor Jack McLeod of the University of Wisconsin has spent 40 years

developing a complex portrait of Madison, Wisconsin, using primarily quanti-

tative techniques (see, for example, McLeod et al.,

1996).

As authors of this

chapter,

w e are

also engaged

in

large-scale civic mapping

a nd

ethnography

in

Madison and plan other community-wide studies.

Some readers

of

this volume

will

themselves become researchers. Regardless

of their inclinations toward qualitative or quantitative studies, w e urge them to

consider the larger problems of reconstructing relationships in a single commu-

nity.

Others will become journalists, perhaps civic journalists, and the problem

of constructing the context of community will be central to all of the work

that

they

do.

Journalists

w ho

learn

to

look

at

communities

as

complex webs

of

rela-

tionships among people and institutions

will find

a whole series of interconnec-

tions that will deepen any story. The theory that w e

offer

here

says

that a

commu ni ty is woven of interconnected

fabric,

Becker's web of mutual influ-

ence. If we are right, then the best w ay to report on community fairly and accu-

ra t e ly—or

to

research

the

effects

of

such reporting—is

to

know that

we b and to

follow

its connections using a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods.

The result will be research and reporting in the authentic, authoritative voice of

one who has

truly

been there.

ENDNOTES

Throughout this chapter,

we

have

chosen

to set

apart, with quotation marks, some

of the

te rms

commonly used

in

quantitative

and

qualitative research.

We

have done

so

deliber-

ately to try to

call attention

to

their meaning

and the

role they play

in

determining

the way

we

ask questions a nd seek answers.



38

F R I E D L A N D

AND CAMPBELL

2The

publication history of the Booth s tudies i s complex. The most readi ly avai lab le publica-

tions

are those that

collapsed

the

s tudies in to

four

vo lume s ,

t he

second

of

w h ic h

w as an

appendix of maps .

The first w as Neighborhood Guild in New Y ork, founded in 1886. Hull-House w as modeled

on Toynbee Hall in

London's

East End; it still exists and has a l ively website at

www.toynbeehall .org.uk/

4The Russell Sage Fou ndatio n

w as

established

by

Marg are t O livia Sage,

w ho

gave

a

goodly

port ion of her husban d ' s $65 million estate to var ious char i t ies in the ear ly 1900s.

Widowed a t 78, she was adam ant about us ing the money to improve social and l iv ing con-

ditions in the United States . With an in i t ia l endowment of $10 mi l l ion , th e Ru ssell Sage

Foundation began

its

work

in

1907.

The new

foundat ion ' s board qu i ck ly e s tab li shed tha t

it

would no t provide aid to individuals , i t would not

fund

univ ersi ty research, and i t wou ld

not contr ibute to church-sponso red endeavors. I t w ou ld a nd d id, however , provide fund-

ing for large-scale community surveys (Glenn, Brandt , & Andrews, 1947) .

R E F E R E N C E S

Abbott, A. (1997) . Of t ime and space: The contemporary re levance of the Chicago School.

Social

Forces, 75(4) , 1149–1182 .

Anderson,

N . (1923) .

The

hobo.

Chicago:

U niversi ty of Chicago Press.

Ball-Rokeach,

S. J.

(2001 ) . Storyte l ling neighborhood: Paths

to

belonging

in

diverse urban

environments . Com munication Research, 28(4 ) , 392–428.

Becker, H .

(1996).

The epistemology of qua l i t a t ive research. In R. Jessor & A . Colby & R . A.

Shweder (Eds.) , Ethnography and human d evelopment: Context and meaning in

social

inquiry

(pp . 53–71) .

Chicago:

U nive rs i ty

of

Chicago Press.

Booth,

C. A. (1889). Labour and l i f e

of

th e

people:

Volume I, Eas t London (2n d ed., Vol. I). Lon-

don: Williams and Norga te .

Booth, C. A. (1891) . Labour a nd

l i f e

of th e people: Volume II , London continued (Vo l. II ) . Lon-

don: Williams and Norgate .

Booth, C. A. (1902) . L i f e and labour of th e

people

in London: Final Volume (2nd ed . Vol. IV ) .

London: M ac mi l lan and Co., Limited.

Bulmer, M. (1984) . The Chicago

School

of

Sociology.

Chicago: Universi ty of Chicago Press.

Burgess,

E. W., & Bogue, D. J. (1964). Resea rch in urb an society: A long view. In E. W. Bu r-

gess

& D. J.

Bogue (Ed s.), Contributions

to

urban sociology (pp. 1 – 1 4 ) . Chicago: U nive rsi ty

of Chicago Press.

Cressey, P. G. (1969). The taxi-dance hall . Montc lair , NJ: Pat terson Smith. (Original work

published in 1925)

Geertz, C . (197 3) . Thick descr iption: Toward a in terpre t ive theory o f c u l t u r e . The interpreta-

tion

of

cultures (pp. 3–30). New Y ork: Basic Books.

Glenn, J. M., B ran d t, L., & A n dre w s , F. E. ( 1 947 ) .

Russell Sage

Foundation,

1907–1946

(Vol.

1). N ew York: Sage.

lorio, S. H. (1998, A ug us t) .

Public

discourse, economic/fiscal

policy

issues, and ciric journalism.

Paper presented at the Associat ion for Ed ucat io n in Jou rnal is m and M ass Com m unica-

tion, Baltimore, MD.

Kellogg,

P. U.

(1909, Janu ary

2).

C harities

and

The Commons (Vol. X X I, 14 ) .

Koven, S . (1 992 ) . Surveying the social survey. In M . Bulm er , K. Bales & K . K. Sklar (Eds.) ,

The social survey

i n historical

pe rspective, 1880–1940 (pp. 368-376). Cambridge , England:

Cambridge University Press.

M cLeod, J. M ., Daily, K., Guo, Z., Eve land Jr. , W . P., Bayer, J. , Y ang, S., & W ang, H . (199 6).

Com munity in tegrat ion, local media use , and d em ocrat ic processes . Com munication Re-

search,

12 ( 2 ) , 179-209.



2. CO NNEC TED RESEARCH

39

Palmer,

V. (1928) .

Field

s tudies in sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Park ,

R. E.

(1923) . Preface .

In N.

Anderson,

The

hobo (pp.

00–00). Chicago:

U niversi ty

o f

Chicago Press.

Park ,

R. E.

(1925a) .

The

city: Suggestions

for the

investigation

of

hum an behavior

in the ur-

ban en viron m ent. In R. E. Park , E. W . Burgess & R. McKenzie (E ds.) , Th e city (pp. 1–46).

Chicago: Universi ty o f Chicago Press.

Park ,

R. E.

(1925b) .

A

spacial pattern

and a

moral order.

In E. W .

Burgess (Ed .) ,

The

urban

community: Selected papers

from

the proceedings

of

the

American

sociological society,

1925 (pp.

3 – 18 ) . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Park , R. E. (1939) . A n outline

o f

th e p rinciples

of

sociology. New Y ork: Barnes & Noble , Inc .

Residents of H u l l House. (1895) . Hull-House

maps

and

papers.

Boston: Crowell & Co.

Shaw, C. R.

(1966). The Jack-Roller. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press.

(Original

work

published

in 1930)

Sir ianni , C., & Friedland, L. A. (2001). Civic

innovation

in

America: Community emp ower-

ment, public p olicy,

and the

movement

f or

civic

renewal . Berkeley, C A: University of Califor-

nia Press.

Thomas , W. I., & Znaniecki, F. (1918) . The

Polish

peasant in Europe and America. New York:

Alfred

A . Knopf .

Thrasher ,

F.

( 1 9 2 7 ) .

Th e

gang.

Chicago:

University

of Chicago

Press.

Wing, F. E. (19 09). Thirty-five years of typhoid. C harities

and The

Com m ons (Vol. X X I, 19).

Wir th , L . (1928) .

The

ghetto. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.






3

The Changing

News Paradigm:

From O bjectivity to Interpretive

Sufficiency

Clifford G. Christians

University

of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The

contemporary version

of the

press traces

it s

beginning

to the

1890s.

The

media developed into an industrial st ruc ture, and the first forays

into

journal ism

education appeared. The press took shape as a com plex and divers ified social

institution, with journalists an expert class pursuing specialized tasks. The

N or th A m erican press began und erstand ing itself during this decade not as a

political forum or

socializing force ,

but as a

corporate

economic

s t ruc ture mar-

keting a commodity for consumers. Structural patterns of authority and ac-

countability w ere utilitarian

in

form,

and

utilitarianism characterized

the

press's

organizational

cul ture, which in turn w as rooted in industrial production and

marke t

distribution.

The

industrialization

and

commercialization

of the

media

displaced an earlier news cul tu re that had used part isan ad vantage as i ts main

stand ard. W ith

the

industrialization

of the

press , med ia occ upations, especially

journa l ism, began to redefine themselves as middle-class professions and

sought

a place within the rising unive rsity system.

A universi ty educat ion for journal ists w as first seriously attem pted late in the

19th cen tury.

By

1910 w hen Flexner

had

wri t ten

his

m onum ental Report

to the

Carneg ie Found ation for the Ad vanc em ent of Teaching on professional train -

ing in a univ ersi ty context , jou rnal ism educat ion had adopted a func t ional

4



42

CHRISTIANS

model

for

itself com patible w ith

the

utility theory

that

dom inated

the first de-

bates about

the

commercial press ' character

and

role.

The key

imp e tus beh ind

the

creation

of these early university programs in journalism was the

need

for

the

press

to

enhance

its

respectabi l i ty

in the

face

of

heated pub lic cr i t ic ism .

In

the

early

and

m id-19th century , journa l ism

was a

low-pres tige occup at ion

in a

highly compet i t ive m arket . Because journ a l is ts w ere perce ived

to

have very l i t -

tle

power, the pub lic was not impressed by the typical new spape r or reporter , but

was

not especially alarmed either.

However , c i rcum stances began to change dramat ica l ly as the 19th century

neared its end. The press expanded rapidly in all the urban centers of Britain,

wi th m ajor na t iona l new spapers coming in to exis tence and p laying a prom inent

role

in

British jou rnalism

fo r

most

o f the

following cen tury

(People,

1881; Daii\

Mail ,

1896;

Daily Express,

1900;

Daily

Mirror, 1903). W hile m ul t ip le ownership

of weekly new spape rs s tar te d ear ly in the 18th century , press chains c reated by

the press barons in the late 19th and ear ly 20 th cen tur ies began gaining a domi-

nant

ma rket pos it ion (Cu rran

&

Seato n, 1997,

pp. 28-29).

Newspapers

in the United States

grew

in

circulation, industrialized

their

pro-

duc t ion ,

and

in t roduced economies

of

scale throug h m odern d is t r ibut ion

and

through rel iance

on

advert is ing that

led to

increasing monopolization

of

local

marke t s in the later 19th and early 20th centur ies . The r is ing pow er of the press

m ade lapses tha t ear l ier

had

been

colorful now

seem

to be

dangerous . Ne wsp a -

per

owners , l ike rai lroad magnates , were seen

by

m a n y

as

robber barons

and

ant i -democra ts .

This

popu la r pe rcep t ion

of

co r rup t ion

had a

s ignif icant

a mo un t of

truth

to it. In response, respectable elem ents of the press sough t to

develop a more polished p ub lic image.

Major

new

communication technologies between

1837 (telegraph)

and

World

W ar I

(telephone , 1876,

and

w ireless, 1899) gave birth

to the

modern

in-

te rna t iona l communica t ion sys tem.

These

technologies spawned some

of the

first

transn ational com panies: Marconi (operating in several cou ntr ies w ith the

p a r e n t c o m p a n y in the U n i t e d K i n g d o m ) ; S i e m e n s and S l a b y - A r c o

(Telefunken

after

1903)

in

Germany;

Thomson

in

France; Western Union,

AT&T, and

United Wireless

in the

United States; Phil ips

in the

Ne the r l a n ds

(Fortner, 1993, p. 77 ) . The

first

submarine

cable

was laid across the straits of

Dover in 1851, and the

first

transatlantic cable was

laid

in 1866. Britain com-

pleted

its first

direct cable

to

Bombay

in

1870

and to

A us t r a l ia

in

1872 .

With the

development

of the

submarine telegraph,

the

turn

of the

cen tu ry

marked

th e

zenith

of the

monopolistic power

of the

great cable com panies,

to be

overturned themselves

by

M arconi. Monopoly becam e

a

cru cial issue

fo r

interna-

t ional communication henceforth, with regulation entangled by domestic and

imperial

interests.

"The

period up to

World

War I was one of

rising nationalism,



3 . CHANGING NEW S PARADIGM 43

creation

and

consolidation

of

empires,

and

intense commercial rivalry.

The ten-

dency w as to equate national interests with those of a country's m ajor indu strial

concerns

(Fortner,

1993,

p.

87).

As long distance technologies established new

centralizations

of

pow er, cooperation

was

necessary

fo r technical

reasons.

How-

ever, in

these early years

of the

transnational communication system,

"it was na-

tion

against

nation,

comp any ve rsus comp any, suspicion opposing suspicion

...

[in the]

com petition to control the means of communication and to establish

commercial hegemonies and information monopolies" (Fortner,

1993,

p. 92 ) .

OBJECTIVITY

AS

NORM

Concerns

abou t m edia ethics followed

the

same trajectory. Journalis t ic cond uct

has been

criticized

and

debated

since the oldest known

newspaper published

in

Germany in 1609. How ever, abuses of the press we re not explicitly linked to e th-

ical principles un til

the end of the 19th

century. During

the

1890s

a

transit ion

occurred from everyday comm entary in new spaper ar t ic les to a m ore ref lective

period related

to

ethical precep ts (Dicken G arcia, 1989).

A

com monsense

utili-

tar ianism em erged

as the

overall framework. Sensationalism

had

been

a

s taple

of

the

entire century,

but it

took

serious institu tiona l form

in the

late 1890s

from

the Hearst and

Pulitzer

circulation

battles during

the

Spanish-American War.

As electronic com m unication systems were established, pr ivacy becam e an ur-

gen t issue as sensitive d iplom atic, military, and com m ercial info rm ation crossed

mult iple

bord ers, especially

in

Europe (Fortner,

1993, pp.

88–89).

Freebies

a nd

j unke t s ,

scourged

by

m edia critics since 1870, were treated m ore

systematically

in the co ntex t of indiv idual accoun tability. A pla tform was laid for the

free

press-fair t r ia l deb ate, a l though w ith vir tually no progress beyond insisting on

the press 's r ights.

The

initial work

of the

1890s, though rudimentary

in

ethics, evolved into

a

serious effort

dur ing

the

1920s

as

journalism education

w as

established within

the

l iberal ar ts . Four im portant textbooks

in

journalism ethics emerged from

Am erica's hea r t land during this per iod: Crawford's Ethics

of Journalism

( 1924 ) ,

Flint 's

The

Conscience of the

Newspaper

(19 25 ), Gibbons's

Newspaper

Ethics

(1926) , and

Henning's

Ethics a nd Practices of

Journalism

(1932) .

None

recog-

nized

the

others

in

quo tation

or

a rgument ,

yet

they were similar

in the

topics

they considered central: reporters

and

sources,

economic

tem ptations

and con-

flicts of

inte rest , national security,

free

p ress-fair tr ial, deception, fairness, accu-

racy, sensation alism , and p rotectio n of privacy.

This arousal

of

ethical inquiry followed

a

period

of intense

m edia cr i t ic ism.

M u ck rak e r s

such as Sinclair (191 9) exposed the corruption of the m oney power

in the

wire services

and in

d aily newspapers

that

were increasingly monopolis-



44

C H R I S T I A N S

tic. Thinkers such as Lippm ann (19 22) perceived the

fundamenta l

irrationality

of public opinion and the

failure

of

journalism

to info rm it properly. Some pro-

fessional

lead ers them selves recognized the pe rils. W riting in 1924, Lord Re ith

of

the

BBC,

fo r

exam ple, art iculated

a

strong ethos

of

p ublic service:

"I

th ink

i t

will

be

admitted

by all

that

to

have exploited

so

great

a

scientific invention [ra-

dio] for the p urpose and p ur su it of en terta inm ent alone wou ld have been a pros-

titution of its

powers

and an

insult

to the

character

and

intelligence

of the

people" (MacDonald

&

Petheram, 1998,

p.

83). Moreover,

the

experience

of

propaganda

in

W orld

W ar I and the

rise

of the motion

picture

in the

1900s

and

1910s p roduc ed a palpable

feeling

of c ult ura l peril among both reformers and

traditional

opinion

leaders.

How ever, the flurry of ac tivity in the 1920s, the g row th of professional s o-

cieties w ith codes of ethic s, the e xpa nsion of cur r i cu la in to the l iberal ar ts—

none of

these could preve nt

the

demise

o f

ethics

in the face of an

a n t i t h e t i c a l

worldview,

scient i f ic natu ral ism . Scient i f ic nat ura l ism

aggressively

ordered

the s t ruc ture of knowing dur ing th i s pe r iod — natu ra l i sm in the sense th a t

genuine know ledge can be iden t i f ied only in the n at ur al laws of the ha rd sci-

ences

(Purcell, 1973).

For

Quine (1953), philosophical inquiry

w as

na tu r a l

science reflecting

on

itself,

and al l

m ean ing fu l knowledge

w as

c o n t i n u o u s

with

the

paradigmatic disciplines—physics, chemistry,

and

biology.

A d-

vances

in the

physical sciences became

the

a p p l a u d e d ideal

as

academi -

cians—including those in c o m m u n i c a t i o n — p r o m o t e d its me thods and

pr inc ip les . O ne pacese t t ing educa tor , Murp hy , conc luded in 1924: "Jo urna l -

ism . . . is em erging from an im agin at ive type of wr i t ing in to one go verned by

scientifically

sound p r inciples . W e now recog nize tha t the

scientif ic

a t t i t u d e

toward news m ater ia l s

is the

only

safeguard

w e

have aga ins t

journ al ism grad-

ua tes

be ing capr ic ious and em ot iona l" (p . 31 ) . Cen tered on h um an ra t iona l -

ity

and armed w ith the sc ient i f ic m etho d, the facts in news were said to

mirror reality. Universities institutionalized

the conventions of

ob ject ive

re-

por t ing

in

jou rna l i sm cu r r i cu la .

The

period

from the

1930s

is typically de-

scribed as the social scientif ic phase of com m un ica t ions s tudy , and

objec t iv i ty w as a quasi-scient ific me thod app rop r i a t e to it (Emery,

Emery,

&

Roberts, 2000).

Carey correctly attr ibuted the em ergence of

objectivity

in

journalism

to the

struggle

within

th e

press

for a

legitimate place

to

stand within

the

com plexities

of rapid industr ialization:

W ith the end of partisa n journal ism,

journalists

w ere deprived of a point of view from

w hich to describe the w orld they inhabited.

That

world w as less and less governed by

political part ies , and

journalists

were se t free of those part ies in any even t , so journa l -



3. CHANGING NEWS PARADIGM 45

ists, capitalizing

on the

g rowing prestige

of

science, positioned them selves outside

the

system

of politics, as observers stationed on an Arch ime dean point above the fray of

social

life. (Carey, 2000, p. 335)

Originally this form of journalism — beginning m ost prom inently with the

wire services— was rooted "in a purely comm ercial m otive: the need of the mass

newspaper to serve politically heterogeneous audiences without alienating a

significant

segment"

of

them. Subseque ntly this s trategy

of

repo rting "w as ratio-

nalized

into

a

canon

of professional com petence and ideology of

professional

re -

sponsibility." Journa lists became "a relatively passive l ink in a com m unication

chain tha t records the passing scene for audiences" (Carey, 2000, pp. 137–138).

Stretched across the fa ct-va lue dichotomy of scientif ic naturalism , journ alis-

tic

m orali ty becam e equivalent

to

unbiased rep orting

of

neutra l da ta .

The

seeds

of

this ethic of independence existed already in Henn ing (193 2), thoug h d uty to

the p ublic realm dom inated (as i t did w ith Gibbons, 1926). Presenting un va r-

nished facts was heralded as the standard of good performance, with readers

and view ers presum ably deciding for them selves wh at the facts meant . Objec-

tive

reporting was not m erely a technique, but a m oral im perative (Lichtenberg,

2000). Reporters considered i t vir tuous to bracket value judgments

from

the

transmission

of

information.

In

C.P. Scott's famous

declaration in the

Manches -

te r

Guardian (6 May 1921): A newspaper 's "primary

office

is the gathering of

news . . . The unc louded face of trus t [m ust not] suffer wrong. Com ment is free,

but

facts are sacred" (quoted in MacDonald and Petheram, 1998, p . 53) .

Patterson (1948), for exam ple, m ade an im passioned plea in his Don R. M ellet

Memor ia l Lecture that reporters demonstrate moral leadership in improving

democrat ic

life,

and the cornerstone of their responsibility he considered "ob-

jective reporting

and

unslanted facts." News

corresponds

to

context-free neu-

t ra l

algorithms,

a nd

ethics

is

equated with impartiali ty .

Concern

fo r

ethics d uring

the 30s

through

60s

occurred only

on

isolated occa-

sions. The Rep ort of the C ommission on Freedom of the Press in 1947 was the m ost

famous counterstatemen t of this period. O ccasionally there w ere pock ets of resis-

tance

in

jou rnalism's intellectual

and

vocational

life,

but the

professional statistical

m odel prevailed nonetheless.

The

scientific wo rldview

was the

ruling paradigm .

A

preoccupation with that value-centered enterprise called ethics seemed out of

place in an academic and professional environment committed to

facticity.

Attacks on the objectivist worldview have multiplied through hermeneutics,

critical theory in the Frankfur t School, Am erican prag m atism , W ittgenstein's lin-

guistic philosophy, Gram sci, and,

in

their

ow n

way, Lyo tard's denial

of

master nar-

ratives and

Derrida's sliding

signifiers. The

antifoundationalism

of our own day

indicates a crisis in m aintaining an incontrove rtible dom ain s ep arate

from

h u m a n



46

CHRISTIANS

consciousness. Institutiona l structu res and policies rem ain neu trality-d riven , but

in

principle

the

tide

has

turned

at

present toward restricting objectivism

to the

territory of mathematics, physics, and the natural sciences. Objectivity has be-

come increasingly controversial as the w orking press's professional stan dard ,

though

it

rem ains entrenched

in

various

forms

in our

ordinary practices

o f

news

production and dissemination. In Carey 's m ore dram atic terms:

The conventions of objective reporting w ere developed as part of an essentially

uti l i tar-

ian-capitalist-scientific

orientation toward events.... Y et despite their obsolescence, we

continue to live with these conventions as if a silent conspiracy had been under taken

between

government,

the

reporter,

and the

audience

to

keep

the

hou se locked

up

t ight

even though

all the

windows have been blown

out

(Carey, 2000,

p .

141 ) .

INTERPRETIVE SUFFICIENCY

This mains tream view

of

news

as

objective inform ation

is too

narrow

fo r

today's

social

and

political complexities.

A

m ore sophisticated concept

i s

t r u th

in

jour-

nalism

as

authentic disclosure.

The

notable Hutchins Commiss ion Repor t

called for this altern ativ e in 1947. It advo cated a deeper defin ition of the press's

mission as a "truthfu l, com prehensive and intell igent accoun t of the day 's

events in a context which gives them m eaning" (Commission

for

Freedom of

the

Press, 1947, p. 2). Bo nhoeffer 's Ethics contends co rrect ly that a t ru th fu l a ccou n t

takes hold of the context, motives, and p resupposit ions involved (Bonhoeffer ,

1995,

ch. 5). In his

term s, tell ing

the

t ru th depends

on the

qual i ty

of

discern-

men t so

that

penu l t ima tes do not gain ultimac y. Tru th m eans, in o ther words , to

strike

gold, to get at "the core, the essence, the n u b , the hear t of the ma t t e r "

(Pippert, 1989,

p.

11) .

Qualitative Methods

Once knowledge

is

released from epistemological objectivism, guidelines m us t

be sought somewhere. F or their orientation and specificity, media that enhance

public life turn to interpretive studies or w h a t is of ten ca l led qual i ta t ive re -

search. Forsaking the que st for precision journalism does not m ean im precision,

but precision in disclosure and authe nticity . To replace news gathering rooted in

the m ethods of the n atu ral sciences, r igorous qua litativ e proce dures m us t be

followed instead. Fiction

and

fabrication

are not

acceptable subst i tu te s

for

fact

and accuracy. Re porters aim ing fo r crit ical consciousness amo ng the publ ic will

seek what

might be

called interpretive

sufficiency. They

will polish

their re-

search and w rit ing skills in term s of qua li tativ e strategies. Explicit appeal to the

interpretive approach will enhance the n ews story 's com pleteness, rather than

crudely tailoring events into

a

cosmetic cohesion. While interpretive suffi-



3 . C H A N G I N G NEWS PARADIGM 47

ciency,

in some form, has long served as a trademark of distinguished journal-

ism,

it is an everyday imperative fo r citizen-based

reporting.

In effect, with

interpret ive sufficiency

w e

raise

the

ante, weaving

it into our

expectation

of or-

dinary

press performance.

Interp retive stud ies are an alternative view of hu m an knowing. In this persp ec-

tive, investigations m us t be grou nded historically and biographically, so that they

represent com plex cultures adequately. Th e concepts of social science are not de-

rived from

a

free-floating

and ab struse mathem atics, but resonate w ith the atti-

tudes, definitions,

and

language

of the

people actually being stud ied. Journ alists

trained in qua litative research identify w ith social m eanings in their role as partic-

ipants

and as obse rvers for m ula te seminal conclusions abou t these m eanings.

Th rough disciplined abstractions (Lo fland ), ethnomethodo logy, con text-

ualization, thick description (Geertz), coherent

frames of

reference (Sc hu tz), case

studies, naturalistic observation, and other research practices, news workers can

stake out a claim to interpretive sufficiency and assume responsibility fo r their ef-

forts. Through an understanding of interpretive methodologies, reporters come to

grips with the complex ways ethnographers insert themselves into the research pro-

cess.

A rich litera ture has been developed on constructing the life histories of ordi-

nary

people.

In a

fund am ental sense, qu alitative approaches

are a

temperament

of

m ind— "the sociological imag ination," M ills (1959) called it— rathe r than m erely a

series of techniques for handling the telephone, minicam, or interview pad. Ho w-

ever, while the crea tive process always remains central, tou gh-m inded stand ards

and

valid procedures

can be

taught

and

learned.

Validity

It is

widely understood

and

accepted that research

in the

objectivist tradition

m u s t b e external ly and internal ly val id. Interpre t ive approaches need to m e e t

these criteria

a s

we ll , thoug h

in

terms consistent w ith their

ow n

assumpt ions.

Interpretive studies enforce the m axim

that

research imprisoned

within

itself,

and

the refore self-val idat ing,

is

u nacceptable.

T he

principle

of

external val id-

ity com pels natural i s t ic observers

to be

c i rcumspect

in

generalizing

to

other

s i tuat ions.

T he cases a nd il lustrations that have been selected must b e repre -

sentat ive

o f the

class, social uni t, tribe,

o r

organizat ion

to

which they prop erly

belong. Interp reta t ion arises in natu ral set t ings, no t contrived ones; there fore ,

the

more dense ly textured

the

specifics,

the

more external val idi ty

is

main-

tained. This concern is part icularly apropos in preparing case stud ies, a

favor-

i te qua l i tat iv e tool becau se

i t

al lows in-de pth

and

ho listic probing.

The

goal

is

identifying represen tat ive cases for exam ination rathe r than spectacular ones

that are anecdotal and idiosyncratic.



48 CHRISTIANS

Regarding in terna l va l id i ty , in terpre t ive accou nts m us t ref lec t ge nuin e fea-

tures

of the situation under

s tudy

and not represent the aberrations or

hurr ied

conclusions

of

observer

opinion. There

m u s t

be

sym pa the t i c imm ers ion

in the

mate r ia l

un t i l the research er or jou rna l is t es tabl ishe s , in Blu m er ' s (1954)

phrase ,

poetic resonance

wi th it.

Does

the inves t iga to r know enough to

identify the pr incipal aspects of the event be ing s tudied and to d i s t in gu i s h

these

ma in fea tu res from d igress ions and p arenth eses ? Using the body as an

analogy,

the

blood

and

bra in mus t

be

sepa ra ted

from

f ingers

a nd

s k in ,

all of

wh ic h

are

pa r t s

of the

whole organism

but of differing

s ignif icance .

If

t r ue

in-

fer ior i ty has

o c c u r r ed — t h a t

is, if the

de ta i ls accu ra te ly

ref lect the

na tu ra l c i r-

c ums ta n c e s —the n

the

da ta

a re

valid

and

re l iable even th ou gh

no t

based upon

random iza t ion , r epea ted and con t ro l l ed obse rva t ion , measurement , and s ta -

t i s tica l inference .

In terpre t ive

sufficiency

seeks

to

open

up

pub l ic

life in all its

d yn a mic d ime n -

sions. It

m eans taking ser iously l ives tha t

are

loaded w i th m ul t ip le in terpre ta -

tions

and

grounded

in

cu ltu ral complexity. Ethnog raphic acco unts have

the

"depth, detai l , emotionali ty, nuance, and

coherence

tha t permit a "cr i t ical

consciousness to be fo rmed" by readers and view ers (De nzin, 1997, p. 283) . The

thick

notion

o f

sufficiency

supp lan t s

th e

thinness

of the

te chn ical , exter ior ,

and

statistically

precise received view. Rather than reducing social issues

to the fi-

nancial and adm inis trat ive problems defined by poli t ic ians, the news med ia en-

able people to

come

to term s w ith their every day experience th em selves.

Triangulation

Effective use of

tr iangu lation

is one way to

describe interpre tive

sufficiency. The

goal

is to

build

up a fully

rounded analysis

of

some

phenomenon by

com bin ing

all

lines

o f

at tac k, each probe revealing cer ta in dim ensions

of the

hu m a n wo r ld

being investigated. The point is not to advocate eclecticism as such , but to

avoid the personal bias and su perficiality tha t stem from using only one kind o f

exam ination. T riangulation takes ser iously

the w ay

hu m ans a t t ach m ean ings

to

social reality.

The

process

of

disentangling from wi th in

is

com plica ted

by the

fact that

reporters

are

interpreting

a

world that

has been

in terpre ted a l ready.

"Objective reality

can

never

be

cap tu red .

W e can

know

a

th ing only th rough

it s

representat ions" (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, p. 5; cf. Flic k, 1998). The a s sump-

tion

is

tha t

the

dif ferent lines

of

interpretat ion each reveal

different

aspects

of

reality,

"much as a kaleidoscope . . . will reveal

dif ferent

colors and

configura-

tions

of the

object

to its

viewer" (D enzin , 1989,

p.

235 ) .

Triangulation occurs

in

se veral forms.

It may

refer,

fo r

example ,

to

method—

that

is,

combining docum ent

analysis

w i th uns t ruc tu red in terviewing wi th unob -



3 . C H A N G I N G

NEWS PARADIGM 49

trusive

observa tion, and com bining this m ixture in order to improve persp ective.

O ne can also take a social problem, prisons and incarceration, for instance, and

triangulate it by

viewing

it

historically (how does

the

contemporary situation

dif-

fer from

p revio us tim e periods), synchronically (w hat

are the

relevant

facts

about

th e prob lem today, using a variety of data sou rces), and theoretically (what ethi-

cal

or

anthropological system

is

relevant

in

gaining perspective

on

it). Theoretical

triangulation

is an obvious possibility, too, focusing several concep tual o utlook s

on a single objec t to see wh ich one explains m ore. In investigator triangu lation

different

evaluators, researchers,

and

experts

are

used.

Beyond these approaches is a kind of m ultiple triangu lation in which all the

various facets

and

insights gene rated

are

placed

in

interaction

and

cross-fertil-

ization unti l the s t ruc tura l features of a setting or event are i l lum inated. Com -

prehension of actu al context only accum ulates gradually, so the search is always

an

ongoing

one

unt i l

w e finally

reveal

th e

exact contours

of the

details

un-

earth ed . "The facts never 'speak for themselves. ' They m ust b e selected, m ar-

shaled,

linked together, and given a voice" (Barzun & Graff, 1992, p. xxii). In

this

sense, th e crystal is a better image of interpret ive design than th e

fixed,

two-dimensional

triangle. Crystals:

combine symmetry

and

substance with

a n

infinite variety

of

shapes, sub stance s, trans-

m u ta t i o ns ,

multidimensionalities,

and

angles

of

approach. Crystals grow, change,

and

alter,

but are not

amorphous. Crysta ls

are

prisms that reflect externalities an d

refract

w ithin the m selv es . . . casting off in different

directions.

(Richardson, 2000, p. 934)

Also

in

Denzin's application

of the

crystalline metaphor: "Triangulation

is

th e display of m ul t iple , refracted realities simu ltaneou sly" (Denzin & Lincoln,

2000, p. 6). The aim is

always

mu ltiple insights. The em phasis in interp retatio n

is o n

discovery rather

than

applying routinized procedures.

What w e see

when

we

v iew a crystal depends on how we

hold

it up to the light.

GENERAL MORALITY

The deficiencies in the epistemology of objective social science have be-

come t ransp arent . The en l ightenment model p lac ing facts and va lues in two

separa te

dom ains has been d iscredi ted. A p os i t ivis t ic epis tem ology tha t in-

sists

on ne ut r a l i ty regard ing def in it ions o f the good and p ut s hum an f reedom

at

odds wi th

the

m ora l o rder

is now

seen

as

f u n d a m e n t a ll y

f lawed.

O b j e c ti v -

ity

as a unidimensional f ramework of rational and moral validation accounts

for

some of the good ends w e seek , such as min ima l ha rm, but those issues

out s ide

the

objec t iv i ty ca lcu lus

a re

exc luded from

th e

dec i s ion-making pro-

cess.

The way pow er and ideology inf luence socia l and pol i t ica l ins t i tut io ns ,



50 C H R I S T I A N S

including

the

press,

is

largely ignored. Un der

a

rhetorical patina

of

rat ional

choice

for

autonomous actors,

a

means-e nds system operates

in

fundamen-

tally

its own terms.

Even more unsett l ing has been the recognit ion that neutral i ty is not plu-

ralistic but im perialistic. Re flecting on our past experience w ith it , dis inte r-

es ted

inves t iga t ion und er p resum ed condi t ions of va lue f reedom is

increasingly seen as de facto reinscribing the agenda in its ow n terms. In the

social sciences, qua nti ta t ive analysis is pro ced urally com m itted to equ al

reckoning, regard less of how rese arch subjects m ay const i tu te the sub stan-

tive ends of

life.

However, experimentalism is not a neutral ground for all

ideas; rather, it is a "fighting creed" that imposes its own ideas on others

while uncritically assuming

the

"very superiority that powers this imposi-

tion" (Taylor

et

al., 1994,

pp. 62-63). In

Foucaul t ' s (1979,

pp. 170-195)

more decisive term s, social science is a regime of power t ha t helps m ain tai n

social order by normal iz ing subjects into categories d esigned by pol i t ical au-

tho rities (cf. Roo t, 1993,

ch. 7). A

commitment

to

object ivi ty

is not

neu t ra l

but represe nts only one range of idea ls, and is itself inco m pa tible with othe r

good ends.

This

nonc ontextu al model

tha t

assumes

"a

m oral ly neu tral , object ive

ob-

server will get the facts right" ignores "the situa ted nes s of power re lation s as-

sociated wi th gender, sex ual orie ntat io n, c lass , e th nic i ty , race, and

nationality."

It is

hierarchical (scientist-subject)

and

biased toward pat r iar-

chy.

"It

glosses

the

ways

in

which

the

observer-ethnographer

is

impl icated

and embedded in the ' ru l ing apparatu s ' of the society and the cu ltu re ." Sci-

entists "carry the m antle" of universi ty-base d au tho ri ty as they ve ntu re ou t

into "local comm unities

to do research"

(Denzin, 1997,

p.

272 ) .

There

is no

sustained questioning

of

expertise itself

in

dem ocratic societies tha t belong

in principle to ci t izens who do not share this specialized knowledge (cf.

Euben, 1981,

p.

120). Such historians

of

report ing

as

Carey lam ent

an

esca-

lat ing professionalism tha t wrench es journ alism from its civic moorings and

recasts

it a s a

scientist ic-technocratic estate remote from everyday life. "The

practices

of

w ri t ing

an d

report ing

the

journ al is t th inks

o f as

cons t i tu t ing

ob-

jectivity" actually cast

the

citizen

into the

disempowered "role

o f

s tudent

to

be educated by the press rathe r

than

a pa rtic ipa nt in the process of

self-gov-

ernment . "

Under the procedures of objective report ing, "journ alists are re-

duced to brokers in the communication process ... allied s t ructura l ly if not

sympathet ica l ly

wi th the persons and inst itut ion s they report" (Carey, 2000,

pp.

139, 337).

The

genius

of

qu al i ta t ive approaches

is to

confront that

se-

questering and insider mentali ty head-on; i t enables us to work the back-

yards and sidewalks, but with savoir faire and competence.



3.

CHANGING NEWS PARADIGM 51

Interpretive Social Science

and

Public Journalism

In terpre t ive approaches do not incline us to construct an apparatus of profes-

sional

ethics. They work instead within the general morality. Rather than devel-

oping rules

for

experts, their preoccupation

is the

moral dimension

of

everyday

life.

Professionals committed to qualitative standards do not establish codes of

ethics for themselves, but

reflect

the same social and moral space as the citizens

they report. How the moral order works

itself

out in community formation is the

issue, not, first

of

all, what media practitioners

by

their

ow n

standards consider

vi r tuous . The moral domain is understood to be intrinsic to human beings, not a

system

of

rules,

norms,

and

ideals external

to

society

and

culture. Lincoln

(1995) clarified the issues in these terms: Interpretive social science

brings about the collapse of the distinctions between standards, rigor, and quality cri-

te r ia

and the formerly separate consideration of research ethics. In effect, many of the

proposed and emerging standards for quality in interpretive social science are also

standards

for

ethics.... This dissolution

of the

hard boundaries between rigor

and

eth-

ics in turn signals

that

the new research is a relational research—research grounded in

the recognition and valuing of

connectedness

between researcher and researched,

and between knowledge elites and the societies and communities in which they live

and

labor.

(p .

278)

Investigators are not constituted as

ethical

selves antecedently, but moral

discernment

unfolds

dialectically between reporter and citizen. The dualism of

m eans and ends is rejected, with the ends of interpretive sufficiency reconciled

w ith the means for achieving them. Methods vie among themselves not for ex-

perimental robustness, but for vitality and rigor in illuminating ... how we can

create

human flourishing (Lincoln & Denzin, 2000, p. 1062).

Interpretive Journalism

and

Public

Life

Rather than searching for neutral principles to which all parties can appeal, pro-

fessional

guidelines rooted in the general morality rest on a complex view

of

moral

judgments . They are seen as a composite that integrates everyday experience, be-

liefs about the good, and

feelings

of approval and shame into an organic whole.

This

is a

philosophical approach that situates

the

moral domain within

the

gen-

eral

purposes

of life

that people share contextually

in

their personal

and

social

re-

lations. Ideally, it engenders a new normative core fo r responsible reporting.

In

an

interpretive perspective, social entities

are

considered moral orders

and not merely lingual structures. Societies are not formed by language alone.

There are no selves-in-relation without moral commitments to nurture them.

O ur widely shared moral intuitions—respect for the dignity of others, for in-



52

CHRISTIANS

stance— are developed th rough discourse w ithin

a

communi ty .

A self

exists

within "webs of interlocution," and all interpreta t ion implicitly or

explicit ly

"acknowledges

the

nec essa rily social origin

of any and all of our conceptions of

the good. Moral framew orks are as f u n d a m e n t a l for orienting us in social space

as the need to establish our bearings in physical space" (Mulha l l & Swift, 1996,

pp .

112-113). Consequently,

as

journal ism deals w ith

the

m oral d imension

in

new s, editorials,

features , and

investigative reporting,

it is not in

alien territory.

In fact, according to Taylor (1989), "Developing, mai ntain ing and artic ula tin g"

our

m oral

intuitions and reactions are as

natura l

for

h u mans

as

learning

up and

down, r ight and

left

(cf. pp. 2 7 – 2 9 ) .

The sinews that hold cit izens together are moral. O ur com m un al web is not

primarily political interests

or

economic interdependence

or

information tech-

nology but a com m itme nt o f conscience tha t preconditions the ethos of exte rnal

apparatuses. This

bondedness entails an ethics situ ated in creature liness. Ra ther

than privileging an ind ividualistic, transce nde ntal rationalism , m oral comm it-

ments

are

inscribed

in our

worldviews through wh ich

we

share

a

view

of

reality

and

perspectives

on the

common good. This ontological model

is

actually closer

to the w ay the

m oral imagination operates

in

everyday

life and

refuses

to

separate

moral

agents

from

all

that m akes them uniq ue. Instead

o f

constructing

a

purely

conceptual foundat ion fo r m orality, th e m oral order is positioned fundamental ly

in the crea turely and corporeal. "In this way . . . being ethical is a prim ordial m ove -

men t

in the

beckoning force

o f

life itself" (O lthu is, 1998,

p.

141) .

From this perspec tive, pu blic

life

cannot

be

facil i tated

in

funct iona l language

only, but journal is ts ought to speak of m oral issues in approp r ia te ly m oral d is -

course . And whe n they cr i tique events tha t are vacuou s or un jus t , they m us t do

so in terms of comm on value s tha t have w ide acceptance in the co m m un ity as a

whole. In this sense m edia professionals participa te in their rea ders and view ers '

ongoing process

of

m oral ar t iculation.

In fact ,

cu l ture ' s cont inued ex is tence

de-

pends

on identifying and

defending

i ts

norm ative base . Therefore , pub l ic tex ts

m u s t enable us "to discover tr ut hs about o urselves"; reporting oug ht to "bring a

m oral compass

into

readers ' lives" by accoun ting for things tha t m atte r to them

(Denzin,

1997, p . 284) . C om m unities are woven together by narrativ es tha t in-

vigorate their comm on un ders tand ing of good and evil , happiness and rew ard,

and the meaning of

life

and

death.

R ecovering and refashionin g m oral discourse

help to orient our cit izenship. N ew s is not the transmission of

specialized

d a t a ,

bu t ,

in

style

a nd

content ,

a

catalyst

for

m oral agency.

Taylor

emphasized that m oral judgm ents

are

capable

of

rational e lucidation.

O ur m oral intuit ions often seem to be

purely

ins t inctual ,

like

taste reactions to

food (Taylor, 1989, pp. 27-36). How ever, hu m an beings are capable of

expla in-

ing w hat m erits their obligations and they typically do so in term s of the ir beliefs



3 .

CHANGING

NEWS PARADIGM

53

about the

nature

of

hum anness. A greements

and

d isputes abou t values

can b e

art iculated

and

sifted.

In

fact, moral commitments

cannot be

intuitive only;

they

m u s t be nu rture d throu gh discourse derived from and shared by a comm u-

nity.

Agreements

and

disputes about values

can be

art iculated

and sifted. In

these

terms, qualitative researchers or journalists act morally when their ac-

counts en able those studied to

specify

the character and identity of their m oral

instincts and to work them out in the pub lic arena.

Moral Literacy

If

our

pub l ic

life

is not

m erely functional ,

but

knit together

by an

adm ixture

of

social

values ,

then

m oral literacy oug ht to be privileged in the media's mission. If

societies are m oral orders, and not m erely lingual stru ctu re s, in other words,

communicat ion in the pu blic arena ought to st imulate the moral imagination.

W e

have heard this languag e in a sanitized sense. "Do these p rogram s have any

redeeming social value?" For an interp retation to be

sufficient,

it ought to en-

able

us to traverse the m oral landscape. A t that epiphanal moment when the

principial

contours

of the

taken-for-granted world

are

i l luminated, news

en-

hances th e moral dimension of social dialogu e. O ur understanding of the

self

and public life increasingly exists in m edia texts . Therefore, in m ass-med ia ted

cul tures

oriented toward normlessness and illusive textuality, reporters

find

their appro priate role

in

opening windows

on the

moral landscape.

A s

Glasser

observed,

"The har d-h itting stories, the investigative stories, lack a m orally sen-

sitive

vocabu lary"

(cf.Glasser,

1992, p.4 4; Ettema

&

Glasser,

1998).

Jou rnal ism

instead ought to appeal to listeners and readers about ordering hum an values.

They fur ther a com m unity's ongoing process of m oral evaluation b y p enetra t ing

through

the

political

and

economic surface

to the

moral dynamics und erne ath.

Rather than merely providing readers and audiences with information, the

press's aim is

m orally

literate

citizens.

Whereve r one observes reenactments of purposefu l history and jus t ice ,

there one sees the resu lts of m oral l iteracy. N ew s can be considered re de m p-

t ive wh en i t serves as an instru m ent not of accom m odation but of cri t ique and

social

change.

Docu m entaries ,

commentators,

and public broadcasting often

re sonate

wi th a redemptive accent, s t ir the human conscience, and l iberate

the i r viewers from the dominant text . W e al l know stat ions and repor te rs w ho

have refused infotain m ent and sou ght to aw aken the civic conscience. Major

league awards are still won by professionals in journalism who distinguish

themselves

for public service. Editorials have raised our consciousness of

ant i -Semit i sm, and

heightened

our

moral awareness

of

racism

and

g ender dis-

crim ination. O ver t ime and across the m edia, one observes a red em ptiv e glow



54

CHRISTIANS

on

occasion

in

w hich

the

news media

have

facil i tated moral discernment

by

their insight into hum an kin d as a d is t inct ive species and by their af f i rmat ion

of

pu rpos eful history.

CONCLUSION

In his classic study, The

Moral

Foundations of Professional

Ethics ,

Goldman

(1980)

argued

that

the general morality is the u l t imate f ramework for under-

standing professional norms. For him , "the m ost f u n d a m e n t a l ques t ion for pro-

fessional

ethics

is whether those in professional roles require special norms and

principles to guide their well-intentioned conduct" (p. 1). For

professionals

in

medicine, law, business, journ alism , gov ernm ent,

and so

for th ,

we typ ically as-

sume

that

the ir roles require un ique principles

or

specially w eighted n orms.

In

fact ,

the standard approach is to define ethical codes as

sharply

as possible a c-

cording

to the peculiar demands each field entails—aggressively defe ndin g cli-

ents in law, for insta nce , the physician's respon sibility to clie nts, jo ur na lis ts '

obligation to sources, and the comm i tmen t of business execut ives to stockhold-

ers. Obviously, "special institutional obligations exist when their recognition

has

bet ter m oral consequences than w ould

refusing

to

recognize them"

(Goldman, 1980, p . 22 ) . Y et Goldm an concluded: "The ce ntra l problem in pro-

fessional ethics as actua lly practiced is not tha t professionals of ten

fail

to live up

to

their unique official

codes and

professional principles;

nor that

they lack

the

will

to

enforce them.

It is

ra ther tha t they often assum e w itho ut ques t ion th at

they ought to l ive up to them" (p. 33). The ult im ate stand ard for

professionals

is

not role-specific ethical p rinciples, but the gen eral m orali ty .

Journalism

is an institution of power. Decisions and policies can b e self-serving,

and

practitioners

defensive when criticized.

Competition

and careerism often

cloud the application of professional codes or ethical guidelines. Jou rnalis ts m ay

have an

understanding with sources

that all

information

will be

treated confiden-

tially, for exam ple, and then change their mind when they come to believe the

public has a right to know this privileged m aterial. W hereas we agree in the gen-

eral m orality that we ought to keep our promises, in this case canons of profes-

sional practice allow self-defined exceptions for the journal is t as expert .

A

preoccupation

with privilege

and

au thority cuts journalism

loose

from

the

very public it is m eant to serve. O bje ctiv ity rooted in the p restige of science has

fueled

the

status

of

specialized expertise

in the

mainstream press.

On the other

hand, interpretive efficiency presumes that facts

and

va lues

are

intermixed

rather

than

dichotomous. Given the moral dim ension intr insic to the social or-

der,

interpreting its var ious conf igura tions

sufficiently

means e laborat ing the

m oral com ponent. In addition, to resonate in tell ige ntly w ith peoples ' va lues



3 .

C H A N G I N G

NEWS PARADIGM 55

means that journal is ts know

the

general morality, which they share with

the

public at large. Ra ther than refining p rofessional codes of ethics, the challenge

for journal is ts

is th e

moral

life

as a

whole— no harm

to

innocents, truth telling,

repara t ions

fo r

wrong actions, b eneficence, gra ti tude, honor contracts , h um an

dignity. For taking journ alism to the streets , interpretive standards und erstand

moral behavior in interactive terms—with reporters operating in the same

arena as cit izens themselves.

R E F E R E N C E S

Barzun , J., & Graff, H. F. (1992) . The mode rn

researcher

(5th ed.) . O rlando, FL: H arco urt Col-

lege

Pu bl ishers .

Blumer, H. (1948) .

What

is wrong w ith social theo ry? American Sociological Review , 19, 3–10.

Bonhoeffer, D. (1995) .

Ethics

(N. H. Smith, Trans.). New

York:

Macmillan.

Carey,

J. W.

(2000) .

The

communica t ions r evo lu t ion

and the

p ro fe ss iona l comm unica to r .

Af te r wo r d :

The c u l t u r e in q ues t ion . In E. S. M u n s on & C.A. W arren (Ed s . ) , James

Carey: A cri t ical reader (pp . 128-143, 308-339). Minneapol is , MN: Un ive r s i ty of M i n -

neso ta Press .

Commission fo r Freedom o f the Press (1947) .

A

free

and responsible

press. Chicago: Univ ersi ty

of Chicago Press.

Crawford , N. ( 1 9 2 4 ) .

The

ethics of journalism. New York: Knopf .

Cur ra n ,

J., &

Seaton,

J.

( 1997) .

Power

w i thout

responsibility:

The press a nd broadcasting in

Brit-

ain (5th ed.) . London: Routledge.

Denzin,

N. K. (1989) . The

research

act: A

theoretical

introduction to

sociological

methods (3rd

ed.) . Englewood

Cliffs, N J:

Prentice Hall.

Denzin, N. K. ( 1997) . Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographic practices

for the

21st century.

Thousa nd Oa ks ,

CA:

Sage.

Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2000) . Handbook of

qualitative

research (2nd ed.) . Thou sand

O a k s , CA: Sage.

Dicken Garcia , H. (1989) . Journalistic standards in

nineteen th-century America.

Madison, WI:

Univers i ty of

Wisconsin Press.

Emery, M .,

Emery,

E., and

Roberts ,

N .

(2000) .

The

press

a nd

America:

An

interpretive

history

of

the m ass me d i a (9th ed.) . Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Ettem a, J ., & Glasser, T . (1998). Custodians of c onscience : Investigative journalism and publ ic v ir-

tue. N ew York: Colum bia U niversi ty Press.

Eube n, P . J.

(1981 ) . Philosophy

and the

professions. Democracy, I , 112-127.

Flick, U. ( 1998) . An introduction

to

q uali tative research: Theory, method

a nd

application. Lon-

don: Sage.

Fl int ,

L . (1925) . The

conscience

of the

newspaper:

A

casebook

in the

principles

an d

problems

of

journalism. N ew

York:

Apple ton .

Fortner,

R. S. (1993) .

International comm unicat ion:

History,

conflict,

and control

of

the global me-

tropolis.

Belmont , CA: W adswor th .

Foucaul t , M. ( 1979) . Discipline

and

punish:

Th e

birth

of th e

pri son (A . Sheridan, Trans.) . New

York: Random House .

Gibbons , W. (1926) . Newspaper ethics. Ann Arbor, MI: Univ ersity of M ichigan.

Glasser, T. (19 92 ) . Squaring with the read er: A seminar on journalism. Kettering Re v i e w, Win-

ter, 42-46.

G o l d m a n ,

A. (1980) .

The

moral

foundations

of professional ethics. Totowa, N J: Roma n &

Littlefield.



56 CHRISTIANS

Henning, A. (1932). Ethics an d practices in journalism. N ew

York:

R. Long & R. R. Smith.

Lichtenberg, J. (2000). In defence of objectivity revisited. In J. Curran & M. Gurevitch

(Eds.) ,

Mass

M e d i a

and Society

(3rd ed.,

pp.

238–254). London: Arnold Hodder.

Lincoln,

Y . S.

(1995 ). Em erging criteria

fo r

qual i ty

in

qu a l i t a tive

and

interpret ive research.

Qualitative

Inquiry, I , 275-289.

Lincoln, Y . S., & Denzin, N. K. (2000). The seven th m om ent: O ut of the pa st. In N. K.

Denzin

& Y . S.

Lincoln (Ed s.), Handbook

of

q ualitative research (2nd ed. ,

pp.

1047-1065).

Thousand

Oaks,

CA: Sage.

Lippmann,

W .

(1 92 2) . Public opinion.

N ew York:

Scribner's.

MacDonald,

B ., &

Petheram,

B.

(Eds.). (1998). Keyguide to

information

sources

in

media ethics.

London: M ansell Publishing.

Mills, C. W. (1959) . The sociological imagination. New York: O xford U nivers i ty Press.

Mulha l l ,

S., &

Swift,

A .

(1996). Liberals

and

comm unitarians (2nd ed .) . O xford, England:

Blackwell.

Murphy,

L.

(1924). News values

an d

analysis. Journalism Bulletin,

2 ,

29–31.

Ol thuis ,

J. H.

(Ed .). (1998). Face-to-face: Ethica l symm etry

or the

symmetry

of

mutua l i ty?

In

J. H . Ol thuis (Ed.) , Knowing other-wise (pp. 134-164). N ew York: Fordham Universi ty

Press.

Patterson,

G. H.

(1948, March 12).

Social

responsibilities of

th e

American newspaper.

(Eigh-

teenth address, Don R.

M ellet Memorial Fu nd,

pp. 5-14.) N ew York: N ew York

Univer-

sity,

Department of Journal ism.

Pippert , W . (1989). An ethics of news: A reporter's

search

for truth. Washington, DC:

Georgetown Univ ersity Press.

Purcell ,

E. A.

(1973).

The

crisis

o f

democratic

theory:

Scientific

naturalism

and the

problem

of

value.

Lexington:

U niversity

of

Kentucky Press.

Quine, W . V.

(195 3). From

a

logical point

of

view. Nine logico-philosophical

essays.

Cam bridge ,

M A :

Harvard University Press.

Richardson, L. (2000). Writing: A method of

inquiry.

In N. K. Denzin & Y . S. Lincoln

(Eds.),

Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.,

pp.

923-948). Thousand O aks,

CA:

Sage.

Root,

M. (1993). Philosophy of

social

science: The

methods, ideals,

and politics of

social

inquiry.

O xford, England: Blackwell .

Sinclair,

U .

(1919) . The brass check: A study

of

American journalism. Pasadena,

C A:

Publ i shed

by author; reprinted University of Illinois Press, 2003.

Taylor,

C.

(1989). Sources

o f

the

s e l f :

The

making

of

the

modem

identity.

Cambridge,

MA:

Har -

vard University Press.

Taylor, C.,

A ppiah,

K. A.,

Habermas,

J. ,

Roc kefeller,

S. C., Walzer, M., &

Wolf,

S .

(1994).

Multi-

culturalism: E xamining

the politics of recognition.

Princeton,

NJ:

Princeton Un iver sity Press.



Part

II






4

Qualitative

Case

Study

Methods

in

Newsroom

Research

and Reporting:

The Case of the

Akron Beacon Journal

Tanni

Haas

Brooklyn College

INTRODUCTION

The

qua litative case study occupies

a

uniqu e position

in the

social sciences

in

tha t it is defined m ore by its object of inquiry (the case) than by the partic ular

research m ethods used to s tudy it. The case study, as Stake (1994, p. 236) noted:

"is not a methodological choice, but a choice of object to be studied." The ob-

jec t

can be an

individual,

a

group,

an

organization, even

an

entire community,

among many other things. Thus, depending

on the specific

goals

of the

s tudy

and characteristics of the object of inquiry, the qualitative case-study re-

searcher

will

often use

different

research methods simultaneously, including

participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, docu-

m ent analysis, and archival research. Some of the most w ell-know n case studie s

have been w ri t ten by journa lists , have been about jou rnalism , or both, notably

Bernstein and Woodward 's (1974) account of the Watergate cover-up and

Cantr i l

and

Herzog's (1940) description

of the

panic caused

by

Orson W elles '

1938 H alloween radio broadcast

of a

fictional invasion

of

M artians . Nev er the-

59



6O HAAS

less,

little scholarly attention has been paid to how jou rnal ists can apply princi-

ples of

quali tative case-study research

fo r

purposes

of

newsroom research

and

reporting.

This

is

both

surprising and unf ortu nate considering tha t cas e-s tud y

scholars

have

developed practical guidelines

that

journalists

can use to

plan,

ex-

ecute, and evaluate their research and reporting.

While

no

unive rsally agreed upon definition

of

case-stud y research exists,

most scholars agree th at

it s

prim ary goal

is to

obtain

an

in-de pth unders tanding

of

a com plex phen om enon, both in and of itself and in relation to its broa der

context

(see Gillham,

2000;

Merriam, 2001; Patton, 2002). Indeed,

one of the

most p rominent case -stud y scholars, Y in, defined the case study as "an empiri-

cal

inquiry that investigates

a

contemporary phenomenon within

its

real-life

contex t, especially wh en

the

boundaries between phenom enon

and

context

a re

not clearly evide nt" (Yin, 1994, p. 1 3).

This

de finition also high lights how the

case study

differs

from

other

widely used

research

strategies, notably experi-

ments

and

surveys.

In

contrast

to the

experim ent, whe re

the

inv estigator delib-

erately manipu lates the co ntext (or condition) with in wh ich certain pre-

determined variables can b e studied , the case -stud y researcher studies the phe-

nomenon

within

its

naturally occurring environm ent. Unlike

th e survey,

where

th e investigator often gathers relatively small amounts of data about a large

number

of

cases,

usually

indiv idual respondents,

th e

case -s tudy researcher

of-

ten gathers large amounts of data about one or a few cases (see Gomm,

Hammersley, & Foster, 2000, pp. 2–4 for deve lopm ent) . Moreover, where th e

ethnograph er typically aims at a holistic und erstand ing of a given phenom enon,

often

a

specific culture

or

subculture,

th e

case-study researcher

is

particularly

interested in understanding the complex interplay between a given phenome-

non and its broader context.

Althoug h m any social scient ists acknowledge the adv antag es of case-

s tudy

research, notably the abi l i ty to capt ure the c om plexi ty of a phen om e-

non within its

real-life

context, this research

strategy

has not been

w i t h o u t

its

cri t ics.

The

most frequ en tly voiced cri t icism

is

t h a t

the

s t u d y

of one or a

few

cases does not provide a basis for sc ient i fic gene ral izat ion. Seve ral re-

torts have

been

leveled

in

response

to

that charge. While some scholars

ar-

gue th at the goal of ca se -s tu dy rese arch is not to gene ralize to a large r

population

of

cases

but to

obtain

an

in-depth unders tanding

of the

par t icu-

lar case or cases (e.g., Stak e, 1994), others argu e th at case s tu di es , l ike expe r-

iments ,

are

general izable

to

theo ret ical proposi t ions

and not to

popu la t ions .

Y in

(1994, p. 10) , for example, argued that the case

s tudy,

l ike the experi-

ment, does

not

represent

a

sample ,

and

tha t

the

invest igato r ' s goal

is to

gen-

eralize

theor ies (analyt ic general izat ion)

and not to

enume ra te f requencies

(stat ist ical

genera l iza t ion) .



4. QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY

M E T H O D S

61

This chapter offers an overview of the qualitative case study as a research

strategy and its

relevance

to

contemporary journalistic practice. Following

a de-

scription of the various steps involved in preparing the case study,

different

data

collection

and

analysis techniques

and the

final development

of the

case report

are discussed.

The

chapter concludes

by

examining

an

actual journalistic case

study, th e Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal's widely acclaimed race-relations series

"A

Question of Color,

that

illustrates many of the practical challenges of doing

qual i ta t ive

case-study research.

SELECTING

THE CASE

The

first

and most important step in the qualitative case-study research process

is to

formulate

the research questions (Yin, 1994) or issues (Stake, 1994) to be

investigated. Regardless

of

whether

the

investigator aims

to

work deductively

to test theory or inductively to generate theory, case-study scholars agree that

the

study should

be

based

on one or

more research questions-issues. These

questions-issues, in turn, should guide

both

the selection of the case or cases to

be investigated

and

research methods used (see Gall, Borg,

&

Gall, 1996;

Gomm

et

al., 2000; Scholz

&

Tietje, 2002).

To

identify the

research questions-issues that

are

most significant

for a

given

investigation,

and to

gain some

precision in

formulating them, reviewing

the

lit-

era ture on the topic is useful. While a thorough review of the pertinent litera-

ture may lead to one or more research questions-issues, the investigator should

not

hesitate

to

modify,

or

even replace, them

as the

study unfolds.

Since

the

goal

of qu al i ta tive case - s tudy research is to capture the complexity of a phenomenon

with in

its

real-life context,

the

investigator

is

expected

to refine

continuously

the research questions—issues as new and previously unexpected aspects of the

phenomenon come to light, a process that Partlett and Hamilton (1976) called

progressive focusing. This process resembles that

of the

journalist

w ho

starts

out

his or her investigation of a given topic with a preliminary idea of what it entails,

but upon researching it in greater detail, comes to realize

that

it contains other,

more significant issues than originally anticipated.

When designing the study, the investigator also needs to choose between a

single

and a

multiple case-study design (see Yin, 1994),

o f

either holistic

or em-

bedded character (see Scholz & Tietje, 2002). The single case-study design is

appropr ia te when the investigator is able to identify: (a) a critical case (a case

that meets

all the

conditions

for

testing

a

theory);

(b) an

extreme case

(a

case

so

extraordinary that

it

warrants investigation

in and of

itself);

or (c) a

revelatory

case

(a case that offers the opportunity to study a phenomenon previously inac-

cessible

to

scientific investigation; Yin, 1994,

pp. 38-40). The

multiple



62

HAAS

case-study

design, in contrast, is appropriate

when

the

goal

of the

investigation

is to replicate the results obtained

from different

cases. Suc h replicatio n can ei-

ther be

aimed

at

producing similar results (literal replication)

or at

producing

contrasting resu lts for predic table reasons (theore tical rep licatio n; Y in, 1994, p.

46). Thus, w hile literal replication requ ires the investigator to select cases tha t

replicate each o ther

and

produce corroborating evidence, theoretical replica-

tion

requires the investigator to select cases that cover dif ferent theoret ica l

conditions or produce

contrasting

results for predictable, theoretica l reasons.

For exam ple, one m ay consider the proposition t ha t an incre ase in com pu ter use

in newsrooms will occur w hen such technologies are used for both adm inis tra-

tive and jou rnalist ic applications, but not for either alone. T o pu rsu e th is propo-

sition in a multiple case-study design, two or more cases may be selected in

which both types

of

applications

are

present

to

determine whether ,

in

fact, com-

pu te r

use did

increase over

a

period

of

time (i.e. , l i teral rep l ica t ion) .

Two or

more additional cases may be selected in which only adm inistrative applications

are present, the prediction being l i t t le increase in com pute r use

(i.e.,

theoretical

replication). Finally, two or more addition al cases may be selected in whic h only

journalist ic applications are presen t, with the same prediction of l i t t le increase

in

computer use ,

but for

different

reasons than

the

adminis t ra t ive-only cases

(i.e., theoretical replication). If this entire pattern of resu lts across the m ult ip le

cases is indeed fou nd , the six or more c ases, in the aggre gate, w ou ld provid e su b-

stantial support for the initial proposition.

Both single and m ultiple case-stu dy designs can be holist ic or embe dded in

character . W hereas in a holist ic case-s tud y the investigato r treats the case as a

single

u nit of analysis, in an em bedde d cas e-stu dy the investigato r focuses at-

tention

on two or

more uni ts

of

analysis w ithin

the

case (Scholz

&

Tietje, 2002,

pp. 9-10).

Units of

analysis re fer

to the

cases being inv estigated

and can be, de-

pending on the partic ular purpose of the

study,

an indiv idua l , a group, a depar t -

ment , or even an entire organization, among m any other things. Ag ain, while

the investigator may decide upon the appropriate un i t ( s ) of analysis prior to

da ta collection, he or she should rem ain open to m odif ica tions as the a c tu a l in-

vestigation unfolds.

Besides formulating relevant research questions-issues, selecting one or

more

cases

to be

investigated,

and

determining

the

appropriate u nit(s)

of

analy-

sis, case-study scholars recommend that two additional s teps be taken before

data

collection

begins: prep aring

a

ca se-stu dy protocol

and

conduct ing

one or

more pilot studies. Yin (1994, pp. 63-74) suggested that the case -s tudy proto-

col, which is inten ded to gu ide the inve stigator in carrying out the case study,

should include: (a) an overview of the c ase- stud y project (back grou nd informa-

t ion abou t project objectives, sub stantiv e issues to be inv estig ated , rele van t



4. QUALI TATIVE CASE STUDY METHODS

63

readings about the topic); (b) field procedures

(major

tasks in collecting data,

potential sources of information, procedural remind ers) ; (c) case -stud y ques-

tions (research ques tions to be investigated, table shells for the array of da ta col-

lected, potential sources

o f

information

for

each research question);

and (d) a

guide

for the

case report (outline

of the

report , format

for the

narrative , biblio-

graphical

information, and doc um enta t ion) .

While

it is alway s desirable to hav e

a ca se-stu dy protocol, i t is particularly important wh en c onducting a m ultip le

case-study,

a study comprising m ultiple investigators, or both. The case- s tudy

protoc ol m ay help stre ngth en the reliability of findings by ensu ring tha t the in-

vestigator

uses the sam e data collection proce dures for each case, m ultip le in-

vestigators

follow

the

same data collection procedures when studying

one or

m ore cases, or both. F or journalists who often investigate m ultiple cases as pa rt

of a single investigation and frequent ly wo rk in teams on large-scale, com plex

invest igat ions, i t is thu s particularly imp ortant to prepare a com prehen sive

case-s tudy protocol prior to dat a collection.

The

fina l preparatory step

is to

conduct

one or more

pilot stud ies, which

may

help

the

investigator refine data collection plans with respect

to

both

the

con-

tent

of the data to be collected (substan tive issues) and the proced ures to be fol-

lowed

in collecting the data (methodological

issues;

Yin, 1994, pp.

74-76).

W hile the pilot stud y or studies m ay be selected according to different cri ter ia ,

includ ing conve nience, access,

and

geographical proximity,

the

purpose

re-

mains the same: to help the investigator refine the overall research design and

develop relev ant l ines

of

questions. Although potentially costly,

it is useful fo r

journal ists

to conduct one or m ore p ilot studies, espec ially prior to em b a r k ing

on a

large -scale, complex investigation, because

i t may

u l t imately save

re-

sources

by

clarifying

the ov erall goal of the inve stigation and p arti cu lar dat a col-

lection pro ced ures to be followed in the field.

COLLECTING THE DATA

The qua litative case study is, as previously discussed, defined m ore by its ob jec t

of inquiry than by the particular research methods used to s tudy it. Thus , the

defining characterist ic

of the

data collection process

is not

which par t icu lar

m ethods are used, but rather h ow those m ethods are used.

While

different

case

studies call for the application of

different

research methods, including partici-

pan t observation, in-depth interviews,

focus

group discussions, docu m ent anal-

ysis,

and

archival research, there

are at

least three data collection principles

that should

be

followed

for all

case studies:

(a)

tr iangulation

of

research find-

ings;

(b) creation of a case-s tud y database; and (c) maintenance of a logical

chain of evidence.



O ne of the

most important pr inciples

of

qu a l i ta t ive case-s tudy research

is

the use of

mu l t ip le ,

as

opposed

to

single, sources

of

inform ation (see Gil lham ,

2000;

Stake, 1994; Y in, 1994). The use of m ult iple sources o f information helps

the

investigator develop wh at

Y in

(1994,

p. 34)

calls conve rgent l ines

of inquiry.

That is, any fact or conclusion per taining to the case s tudy is likely to be more

convincing

or

accura te

if it can be

corroborated

by

three

or

more

dif ferent

sources

o f

information.

It

also helps address potential problems

of

cons t ruc t

va-

lidity

( the development

of

correct operational m easure s

for the

concepts being

studied) insofar as m ult iple

sources

of information provide m ult iple m easures of

the same phenomenon. The u se of m ul t ip le sources of informat ion, or da ta

source

triangulation,

is a

common

journalistic

practice

whereby jou rnalists

at-

t empt

to

corroborate

the

view s expressed

by

cer ta in sources

of

in fo rma t ion

by

consulting other sources.

While data source tr iangulation

is

comm on jou rnalis t ic practice, other

im -

por tant k inds of tr iangulation are less comm on and more

likely

to be at odds

with mains t ream journa l is t ic assumptions and practices . Besides data source

tr iangulation, case -s tud y scholars recomm end m ethodological tr iang ula tion ,

theory t r iangula t ion ,

and

inves t iga tor t r iangula t ion (see Denzin , 1989;

Merr iam, 2001; Patton, 2002).

In

contrast

to

da ta source t r iangu la t ion , wh ich

merely requires the investigator to confirm given

findings

by con sult ing at least

tw o

other

sources of information, methodological tr iangu lation require s the in-

vestigator

to use different

research methods

to

confirm those findings.

In

prac-

tice, this implies that

the

journa l is t would need

to

corroborate

the

v iews

expressed during in-dep th interviews w ith s tud y par t icip ants thro ug h other

m eans suc h as par t icipant observation and d ocu m ent analysis . For exam ple, if

the subject of a story claim s to act in a

certain

way, the journalis t would

need

to

confirm the claim through actual observation of that person's behavior (i.e.,

participant

observation)

and by

consulting docum ents

that

verify

the

claim

(i.e. , docum ent

analysis). Theory

tr iangulation

is

possibly m ore c halleng ing

in

that it

would require

the

journalis t

to

analyze

the

data collected

from

different,

even contrast ing theoretical perspectives rathe r than set t le fo r one theore t ica l

perspective

in

advance .

This

w ould require

the

journa l i s t

to

m ove beyond

the

current practice

of fitting the

data collected into predetermined s tory

formats

and, instead, rem ain open

to

al ternative s tory form ats em anatin g

from

the

da ta

itself.

The final and possibly m ost challenging m eans of corroborating rese arch

findings, investigator tr iangulation, would require the journa l i s t t o share the

findings

with colleagues

to

remain

open to

a l te rna t ive in terpre ta t ions

of

the i r

significance.

Inves t iga tor tr iangu la t ion

is at

odds wi th m a ins t ream journa l i s t s '

self-understanding as professionals who are capable of collecting, interp reting ,

and

verifying in fo rm a t ion w i thou t ou t s ide in te r fe rence .

SS



4. QUAL ITATIVE CASE STUDY METHODS

65

Besides using various means

of

triangulation, case-study scholars recom-

mend

that

the investigator create a

formal,

presentable case-study database

(Yin,

1994) or case record (Patton, 2002)

that

organizes and documents all the

da ta collected. By separating documentation

into

two different collections, the

database and the final case report, it becomes possible fo r other investigators to

review the evidence directly and not be limited to the written report, thereby in-

creasing

the reliability of the entire study. In practical terms, this would require

the journal i s t not

only

to

keep

a

separate

log of the

data collected during

the in-

vestigation,

but also to organize it in such a way that other journalists, whether

actively involved in the investigation or not, would be able to evaluate the evi-

dence cited

in the

final

case report.

While

the

development

of a

case-study

da-

tabase would help increase the reliability of the

study,

the sharing o f its content

with

other journalists may violate the widely held norm of confidentiality.

Finally, Y in (1994) suggested that to increase the reliability of the case report,

the investigator should maintain a logical chain of evidence that makes explicit

the

links between

the

research questions asked,

the

data collected,

and the

con-

clusions drawn.

The

principle

is to

allow

an

external observer,

the

reader

of the

case

study,

to follow the derivation of any evidence

from

initial research ques-

tions

to ultimate case-study conclusions. The external observer should be able

to trace the investigator's steps in either direction, from questions to conclu-

sions or from conclusions back to questions. Thus, the final case report should

mak e sufficient citation

to the

relevant portions

of the

case-study database,

such

as by citing

specific

observations, interviews, and documents. The

case- s tudy

database, upon inspection, should reveal

the

actual evidence

and

also indicate

the

circumstances under which

the

evidence

was

collected.

These

circumstances ,

in

turn, should

be

consistent with

the

specific

procedures out-

lined

in the

case-study protocol,

and a

reading

of the

case-study protocol

should

indicate

the

links between

the content of the

protocol

and the

initial

re-

search

questions.

O ne way of

strengthening

th e

chain

of

evidence

is to

create

and

publicize

a Web site

containing

additional

information that

for

space con-

siderations could not be included in the story itself.

ANALYZING

THE

EVIDENCE

As with all qualitative research, there is no single moment at which the analysis

of the

data collected begins

and no

commonly agreed upon method

of

analysis

for qualitative case-study research. Indeed, data analysis is an iterative process

that begins when the first data is collected and continues as emergent insights

and

tentative hypotheses direct subsequent phases

of

data

collection.

Yet, while

data analysis occurs simultaneously with data collection and depends in large



66 HAAS

par t on the interpretive training and skills of the investigator , certain dat a an al-

ysis

strategies have been developed that are p a r t icu la r ly useful for qua l i ta tive

case-s tudy research , notab ly pat tern-m atchin g , exp lanat ion -bui ld in g , and

time-series analysis (see Y in, 1994).

The

first

data analysis s trategy, pattern-matching, is a deductive approach

that requires the investigator to compare an empir ica lly der ived pat tern w ith

one or more theore tically based ones. The investigator attempts to find emp ir i-

cal

evidence

in the

case that each causal link

in the

theoretical model

is

signifi-

cant and of the

expected

sign (i.e., a positive or negative correlation). In a

mult ip le cas e-s tud y design, replication c an b e claim ed if two or more cases are

shown to

support

the

same theory.

The

empirical results

may be

considered

even more robust if two or more cases sup port the same theory, but do not sup -

port one or more equally plausible, rival theories. The best rival theory is not

simply

the ab sence of the target theory o r hypothesis (i.e., the

nul l

hypo thes i s ) ,

but a theory tha t attem pts to explain the same outco m e differently. In pract ica l

terms, pat tern-m atching wou ld thus require the jou rnal is t to identify one or

more theories with w hich to com pare the em pirical resul ts of the investigation .

If, for example , the goal of the investigation is to expla in why wh i te s tuden ts o n

average receive higher grades

than

b lack s tudents in the pub lic schools of a

given city, the jo urn alis t w ould not only need to

find

em pir ica l ev idence to sub-

stantiate that claim, but also identify one or more theories that explain those

educational disparities . The results wo uld be considered e ven m ore robust if th e

journalist is able to

find

the sam e edu cational disparit ies in severa l dif ferent c i t -

ies, find emp irical supp ort

for one

partic ular theory,

or

both,

b ut not one or

more

equally plausible , r ival ones.

In contrast to

pattern-m atching, which essentially require s

the

investiga-

tor to use one or

m ore theories

as

templa tes wi th wh ich

to

com p a re

the

em p i ri -

cal results of the study, explanation-building is an induct ive approach that

requires

the

inves t igator

to use the

data collected

to

bui ld

up an

ex p lana t ion

about the case or cases.

Instead

of

starting

out

with

one or

more

theories to be

tes ted ,

the

inves t igator t ries

to

genera te theory from

the

d ata col lected .

To ex-

pla in the case is to s t ip u la te a se t of cau sal l inks abo ut i t , in which an im por tant

aspect is to en ter ta in one or more p laus ib le , r iva l exp lanat ions . The goal is to

show that these r ival exp lanat io ns cann ot b e

bu i l t ,

g iven the ac tua l da ta co l -

lec ted . Exp lana t ion-bu i ld ing can a lso be used as a sup p lem ent to pa t te rn-

matching , as when used to genera te a new, more p laus ib le model af ter p a t -

te rn-match ing

has

disconfirmed

an

in i t ia l mode l. R e tu rn in g

to the

p rev ious

e xa mp le ,

exp lana t ion-bu i ld ing wou ld requ i re the

jou rna l i s t

to a t t emp t t o

build

up an explanat ion for the observed educa t ional d ispar i t ies betw een

whi te and b lack s tudents r a ther than compare the

resul t s

w i th one o r more



4.

QUALITATIVE CASE

STUDY M E T H O D S 67

theor ies . In bui ld ing up a l ikely explan ation, the journa l is t wo uld a lso need to

consider one or more r ival explanations.

The third data analysis s trategy, tim e-series an alysis , requires the inves t iga-

tor

not only to show that the existence, sign, and magni tude of each cau sa l

link

in the

theoret ica l model

is as

expected ,

but

also

to

confirm

the

tempora l

sequence of eve nts relating to the var iab les in the m odel.

This

requires the in-

ves t iga tor to conduct observations at three or more points in t im e, not mere ly

before and af ter observations, in order to establish

that

the m agni tud e of a

g iven effect is outside the range of norm al f luctu atio ns of the t im e-series. The

essent ia l

logic of t ime -series analysis is thus to com pare a trend of data points

wi th :

(a) a theoretically based trend specified before the o nset of the inv esti-

gat ion, versus (b) some rival trend, also specified earlier , ve rsu s (c) any t rend

based on some ar t i fact or th rea t to internal validity . In contras t to p a t -

tern-m atch ing and ex planat ion-bui ld ing , t ime-ser ies analysis wo uld thus re-

quire the jou rna l i s t in the previous example to show not only

that

educa t iona l

dispari t ies

exist ,

but

also

that

those disparities

are not

based

on

certain regu-

larly occu rr ing f luctuat ion s , such as changes in the am ount of f inancia l sup -

por t offered b lack s tudents from the local board of educ at ion. Th e jou rnal i s t ,

in a word , would need to s tudy educat ional d ispar i t ies between white and

black students over a sustained period of t ime to rule out potentially

signifi-

cant factors impact ing

the

d is t r ibu t ion

of

grades.

Regardless of which specific analytic strategy is selected, th e investigator

m u s t do everything to ensure that the analysis is of the highest quality. Y in

(1994, pp.

123-124)

suggested that three principles underlie all good q ualita-

tive

ca se- stu dy analysis . First , the analysis m ust show that it relied on all the re l-

evant ev idence.

The

analytic strategies, including

the

development

of

r ival

theories, mu st be exhau stive. The analysis should show how it sought as m uch

evid enc e as was availab le, and the interp retation s should ac coun t for all of this

evidence and leave no loose ends. Second, the analysis should inc lude all major

rival explanations. If

someone

else has an

alternative

explanation for one or

m ore of the findings, this explana tion should be included as a rival explan ation.

Th ird, the analysis should address the m ost significant aspects of the case

study.

W he the r i t is a single or m ultiple case-study, the analysis m ust dem onstrate the

bes t

analy t ic

skills

if it is to be o n

target.

WRITING

THE REPORT

As with d ata analysis, there is no par t icu lar mo m ent at which the investigator

begins writ ing on the final case report and no univ ersally agreed upo n way of or-

ganizing

it .

Indeed,

as the

inv estigator collects data,

he or she is

expected

to

cre-



68 HAAS

ate a case-study database that forms the basis for the latter development o f the

case report. While there is no universally agreed upon way of organizing the fi-

nal

case report, case-study scholars agree

on the

importance

of

certain prepara-

tory

steps, notably

the

need

for the

investigator

to

share

his or her

field notes

with study participants prior to, during the writing of the case report, or both, a

procedure commonly referred to as member checking (see Gillham, 2000;

Merriam, 2001; Yin, 1994).

Since

o ne o f the

goals

of

qualitative case-study research

is to

capture

the

phe-

nomenon under investigation from the insider (or emic) perspective of study par-

ticipants themselves, it is important that the investigator have participants

examine drafts

of

writing where their

actions,

words

are

featured,

or

both, some-

times when first written up but usually when no fur ther data will be collected from

them. The goal of this procedure, Yin (1994, pp. 144-146)

noted,

is to validate

the

essential facts

and

evidence presented

in the

case report. Thus,

from a

meth-

odological perspective, the corrections made through this process

will

enhance

th e accuracy of the case

study,

hence increasing it s construct

validity.

While

clearly

important, th e procedure of member checking is likely to be at odds with

the mainstream journalistic ideal of independence, or the belief that the form and

content

of

reporting should

be

determined

by

journalists themselves rather than

their sources

of

information

or any

other nonjournalistic actors.

If

member checking is at odds with prevailing

journal i s t ic

assumptions and

practices, the

formats

commonly used fo r organizing the final case report have

parallels among contemporary reporting genres. The two most common for-

mats for organizing the final case report are what Gall et al. (1996) called the

analytic

and

reflective formats,

a

distinction that resembles

V an

Maanen's

(1988) distinction

between realist

and

confessional ethnographic tales.

The

major

characteristic

of the

analytic case report

is an

objective writing style

in

which the investigator's

voice

is silent or minimized, and

there

is a conven-

tional organization of topics: introduction, literature review, methodology, r e-

sults,

and

conclusion.

This

is

essentially

the

same style

and

organization used

to

report quantitative research.

The

reflective case report,

in

contrast,

typi-

cally

uses various narrative devices to bring t he case al ive, and the investiga-

tor's voice is clearly heard.

The

analytic-reflective distinction mirrors

the

common

journal ist ic

distinc-

tion between hard news

and fea ture

writing. While

the

hard news story

is typi-

cally

told from the vantage point of a disembodied and disembedded

writer,

the

feature

story typically describes how the writer came to know the sub jec t matter

of the story and positions the writer as a central element o f the story.

Regardless

of

whether

the

investigator uses

an

analytic

or

reflective format

fo r

the final case report, it is important that the report include what Erickson



4. QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY METHODS 69

(1986) called partic ular description, gene ral description, and interpretive com-

mentary.

Particular description consists of quotes from interviews and

field

notes and narrative vignettes. General description explains to the reader

whether those quotes and vignettes are typical of the data set as a whole. Inter-

pretive comm entary

offers

readers a framew ork for und ers tanding

both

forms of

description. While journ alists typically include m uch partic ular and general de-

scription

in

their reporting, they often

do not

include enough interpretive com -

m entary. In the scholarly l i terature on journalism , this neglect is com m only

referred

to as a lack of context. Taken together, the inclusion of particular de-

scription, general description, and interpretive com m entary w ould allow read -

ers

to engage in wha t Stake (1994) called naturalis t ic generalization, tha t is, to

reflect on whether the views expressed in the final case report resonate with

their own experiences.

A QUE STION OF COLOR

The Akron Beacon

Journal

launched in late February 1993 a 10-month-long

race-re lations series called "A Question of Color." This series, wh ich sub sequ ently

was

awarded

the

1994 Pu litzer Prize

for

public service journ alism , comprised

30 ar-

ticles that appeared in five installments.

While

the series was not originally planned

as a qualitative case

study,

it adhered to many principles of this kind of research.

It is w orth noting, first, that consonant with principles of qualitative case-

s tudy research ,

the

series

w as

based

on an

explicitly stated resea rch issue.

In the

inaugura t ing

article,

Beacon

Journal editors explained that

the

goal

of the

series

was to examine "the impact [of race] on

life

in the Akron-Canton area ...

[H]ow blacks and whites think and feel about themselves and one another"

("Race:

The

great divide," 1993,

p.

A1) . While

the

editors

did

not,

as

case-

s tudy scholars recomm end, ground

the

series

in any

pertinent l i terature

on the

subject , they

did

situate

it

within

a

broader contemporary context.

They

ex-

plained that the series was inspired by the racially m otivated assault on Rodney

King and the sub seq ue nt riots in Los Ange les a couple of yea rs earlier.

Although the research issue under ly ing the ser ies was not subsequent ly

modif ied as a res ult of the a ctua l investigations, im porta nt changes in the

scope

of the

series

did

occur, changes

that

mirror Par t le t t

and

Hamil ton 's

(1976)

ca l l

for

progressive focusing

on the

par t

of the

investigator. Disap-

pointed with the lack of publ ic

attention

to the

first

ins ta l lment , i t was de-

cided ,

as

Dale Allen,

o ne o f the

editors responsible

fo r the

series, rec ou nted ,

to

go

"beyond consciousness raising to enable re ade rs who w anted to be part of

the

solu t ion

to

come together

to set a

com m unity agenda" (quoted

in

M er r i t t,

1998,

p.

99 ) .

In

announc ing

the

series' expansion (Dotson

&

Allen, 1993,

pp.



70 HAAS

A1, A 1 1 ) , the Beac on Journal promised to help inv olve local civic groups in

the process of

improving

race

relations

(p.

A1 ) . M embers

of

local civic g roups

were encouraged to contact the new spaper i f they we re interes ted in s igning

up for "multiracial partnerships that can work toward

common

goals" (p.

A l l ) .

T h e Beaco n Journal

hired

tw o

p ar t - t im e fac i l i t a to r s ,

a

re t i red m in is te r

who was

white

and a retired school

principal

who was

b lack .

The two

became

responsible fo r m a tch ing up groups with shared inte res ts .

To

examine

the impact of racism and racial inequality, the Beacon Journal

used

what case-s tudy scholars ca l l a m ult ip le ca se- s tu dy des ign (Y in, 1994)

with embedded subuni ts of analysis (Scholz & Tietje, 20 02). Instead of t r ea t -

ing Ak ron as one o verarch ing case ,

Beacon

Journal

repor te r s exam ined each o f

the five counties of

Akron

s epara te ly and , for

each

county , focused a t ten t ion

on specif ic issues , notab ly housing , edu cat io n, em plo ym en t , and c r ime . Th e

selection of cases (e.g. , co un ties ) and su b u n i t s of

analysis

(e.g., issues) resu l ted

from

the

act ua l inves t igat ions ,

a

pract ice consis tent w ith pr inc ip les

o f

qua l i t a -

t ive c ase -s tud y research . B ased

on

census da ta

and a

la rge - sca le te lephone

survey w ith local res idents , Beacon

Journal

repor te rs docu m ented tha t the

five

count ies of

Akron

were differently

affected

by racism and racia l inequal i ty .

T he

specif ic issues un der inve s t igat ion w ere se lected thro ug h

focus

g roup d is -

cussions with local white and b lack res idents and in -dep th in te rv iews w i th

var ious

exper t s

on

racism

and

racia l inequ al i ty , no tab ly local gov ernm ent

offi-

cials

and

univers i ty professors .

While Beacon

Journal

repor ters thu s used me thodological t r iangula t ion to

plan their investigations (e.g. ,

telephone

surveys, focus g roup discussions,

a nd

in-depth interv iews) , they d id not, as case-s tudy scholars recomm end, com pare

the data collected w ith any preexisting theories of racism and racial ine qua lity

(e.g.,

pa t te rn-match ing )

or use the

d ata collected

to

genera te

a

theory

o f

racism

and racial inequality of their ow n ( i.e ., exp lanatio n-b uildin g) . Instead , they

merely summarized their

findings

with a m i n i m u m of ed i tor ia l com me ntary .

This, in turn, m ay be a t t r ibu ted to the widely held belief tha t journal is ts should

help inform, rather than

form,

public opinion.

While

Beacon

Journal

reporters did not use any formal da ta

analysis

s t r a te -

gies, they

did

report

the

findings

of

their investigations

in

conform ity w ith cer -

tain principles of

qual i ta t ive

case-s tu dy wri t ing . M ost im por ta nt , the 30 ar t ic les

that comprised the series included w hat Erickson (1986) called part icu lar de-

scription, general description,

and

interpretive commentary. Taken

as a

w hole,

the series included articles tha t: (a) quo ted at length the

views

and experiences

of local residents and ex perts ( par ticu lar desc ription); (b) reported on w he the r

those views-experiences we re i l lus trativ e of the larger sample of pa r t ic ipants



4. QUAL I T AT I V E

CASE

STUDY METHODS 71

(general description); and (c) placed the views-experiences expressed within a

broader f ramework through reference to relevant census data and the results

from the telephone survey (interpretive commentary).

Moreover,

many of the articles framed the issues examined as open-ended

ques-

tions

rather

than as closed-ended

answers, thereby encouraging readers

to

reflect

on

whether those issues resonate with their

own

experiences,

a

practice consistent

with what Stake (1994) called naturalistic generalization. For example, in an article

exploring potential discriminatory practices within the school system of Akron, the

reporters

asked

the

following rhetorical questions after having discussed

why

white

students on average receive higher grades

than

black students:

When

does

a C

reflect

racism

by the

professor

and

when does

it

simply reflect

C

work? Who

should decide?

Who

decides what role African cultures played

in the

evo-

lu t ion of

Western civilization?

I f

historians have determined the role was minimal, is it

racist

to portray it that

way?

O r is i t simply good history? H ow much does it matter if all

or

most of the historians are wh i te? (Kirksey, Jenkins, & Paynter, 1993, p . A14)

While Beacon Journal reporters quoted

at

length

the

views

and

experiences

of

both local residents and experts, they retained the emic perspectives of local

residents while mediating the perspectives of experts. A quantitative content

analysis of sourcing patterns found that not only were considerably more local

residents cited

than

government officials and university professors combined

(103

and 63,

respectively),

the

testimony

of

local residents also appeared more

in the

form

of

full

quotations

than

partial quotes-paraphrases. The ratio o f this

lat ter measure w as 3.28, 0.65, and 0.90 for local residents, government officials,

and university professors, respectively (see Haas, 2001 for development).

To

their credit, Beacon

Journal

editors decided

to

corroborate

fu r the r

the

testimony of both local

residents

and experts. Toward the end of the series, the

edi tors publ icly responded

to the

views

and

experiences expressed

by

inviting

17

of the newspaper's editors and reporters,

nine

white and eight black, to par-

ticipate in focus group discussions about the newspaper's coverage of white

and black crime. Each participant w as asked to review 2 months' worth of

newspapers ,

paying particular

attention

to the crime coverage. During one

evening

in

late December 1993, three focus group discussions were held:

one

all

white,

one all

black and, later that evening,

one

including

all the

partici-

pants.

The

article reporting

on the

results

of

those discussions (see Dyer,

1993) not only recounted the participants' views at length, but also in their

own

words, thereby retaining

the

participants' emic perspectives

and

allowing

readers

to compare the opinions

expressed

by the editors and

reporters with

those of local residents and experts.



72 HAAS

CONCLUSION

The

p rior discussion suggests

that

q ual i tat ive case-stu dy research

is not an

alien

approach

to

newsroom research

and

reporting,

but

rather represents

a

descrip-

tion of journalism done well.

Indeed,

the very purpose of case-s tudy research, to

obtain an in-depth und erstanding of a complex pheno m enon, both in and of i t-

self

and in relation to its broader context , is cent ral to some o f the best contem-

porary journalism, notably explanatory journalism w ith i ts focus on elucidating

complex issues and their relat ions to w ider societal developm ents. C ase -stu dy

scholars have developed practical guidelines

fo r

case selection, dat a collection

and

analysis,

and

report writing

that

journalists

can use to

plan, execute,

and

ev alu ate their research and reporting. Y et, as the p rior discussion and ex am ple

of

the A kron Beacon Journal's "A Q uestion of Color" series suggest, the conduct

of qualitative case -stud y research poses certain challenges

to the

practice

of

journalism, some of which are at odds wi th mainst ream jou rnalis t ic assumpt ions

and

practices. These challenges include rem aining open

to

al ter nat iv e story for-

mats emanating from the data

collected

itself, sharing research findings w ith

colleagues and study part icipants prior to p ublicat ion , and using research

find-

ings to either test preexisting theories or generate new ones.

REFERENCES

Anonymous (1993, February 28). Race: The great divide . Akron Beacon Journal , p. Al.

Bernstein,

C., & Woodward, B.

(1974).

All the

president's men.

New

York: Simon

&

Schuster.

Cantril , H., & Herzog, H . (1940). Invasion

from

Mars. Pr inceton, N J: Pr inceton Universi ty

Press.

Denzin, N. (1989). The research act: A theoretical

introduction

to sociological methods.

Thou-

sand

Oaks, CA:

Sage.

Dotson,

J ., & A llen, D. (1993, M ay 2) . You're invi ted to help prom ote rac ial harmo ny. Akron

Beacon Journal, pp. A1, A l l .

Dyer, B . (1993, December 29) . The s truggle for ba lance . Akron Beacori Journal, pp. Al,

A6–A7.

Erickson, F. (1986). Quali ta t ive methods in research on teaching. In M. Whit trock (Ed . ) ,

Handbook

of research on

teaching, (pp. 1 19–161 ).

New

York: Macmil lan.

Gall, M., Borg, W ., & G all, J. (1996). Educational research: An introduction . W hite Plain s, NY :

Longman.

Gillham, B . (2000) .

Case

study research methods. London: C o n t i n u u m .

Gomm,

R., Hammersley, M., & Foster,

P.

(2000).

Case study method: Key

issues, key texts.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Haas,

T .

(2001). Public journalism project

falls

short

of stated

goals.

N e w s p a p e r

Research Jou r-

nal, 22,

58-70.

Kirksey, R ., Jenkins, C., & Paynter, B . (1993, August 22). Public education, w in few, lose

many. Akron Beacon Journal, pp. Al, A4-A5.

Merriam, S. (2001). Qualitative research and case study app lications in education. S an Francisco:

Jossey-Bass.



4. QUALITATIVE CASE

STUDY M E T H O D S

73

Merritt,

D.

(1998).

Public journalism a nd public

l i f e :

W hy

telling

the news is not enough.

Mahwah,

N J:

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Partlett,

M., &

Hamilton,

D.

(1976). Evaluation

as

illumination:

A new

approach

to the

s t u d y

o f

innovative programs. Evaluation Studies Review

Annual,

I ,

140-157.

Patton,

M.

(2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods. Thousand Oaks,

CA:

Sage.

Scholz,

R., &

Tietje,

O .

(2002).

Embedded

case study

methods: Integrating quantitative

a nd

qual-

itative knowledge.

Thousand Oaks,

CA:

Sage.

Stake,

R.

(1994). Case studies.

In N.

Denzin

& Y .

Lincoln (Eds.),

Handbook of qualitative re -

search, (pp. 236-247).

Thousand

Oaks, CA: Sage.

Van Maanen, J. (1988).

Tales

of

th e

field:

On

writing ethnography.

Chicago:

University of Chi-

cago Press.

Yin,

R. (1994). Case

study research: Design and methods.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.






5

Focus Groups

Newsroom

Style

Susan

Willey

Florida Atlantic

University

When staffers at the Savannah

M orning

N e w s

began their 1998 election cover-

age,

they decided

to

sponsor backyard barbecues around

th e

city. Reporters

tapped the ir sources within a strong network of neighborhood associations and

asked people to hold a barbe cue for 10 to 15 of their neighbors. The new spap er

provided the food. The neighbors provided the conversation.

Th e insights gained from listening to these conversations ultim ately drov e the

newspaper's

coverage

of the

campaign

and

changed

the focus of the

coverage.

As

reporters listened to the people talk, they realized the primary area of concern

centered on the city's drainage problems. The candidates had b een talking abo ut

housing, an issue that had m uch less salience with the citizens. The bac ky ard b ar-

becu e conve rsations w ere a reality check on w hat earlier polls revealed and w ha t

cand idates we re saying, said

M orning N e w s

M anaging Editor Daniel Suwyn.

"W e

have

a

m ant ra

in our

newsroom," Suw yn said.

"W e are

only

as

good

as the

quality

of

our conversations" (personal communication, March 6, 2002).

Journa l is ts

are discovering

that

by l is tening to ci t izen conv ersations th ey

can enrich their new s reports , and th at realization is changing new sga ther ing

methods.

The

Savannah

newspaper is one of a growing num ber of news media

organizat ions

that

are tapp ing creative research m ethods in their efforts to un-

ders tand thei r communit ies

and

ci t izens ' views better. From b acky ard bar be -

cues

and

advisory panels

to town

meetings

and

newly defined focus groups,

7



76 WILLEY

the new s m edia are taking an inc reasingly active role in prom oting c i t izen par -

ticipation

and

communi ty ac t ion . Bloor , Frankland, Thomas,

and

Robson

(2001 ) called this kind of grou p methodology "a po ten tia l tool of a new

ci t izen

science (p.

98).

Y et the

decades-old

focus

g roup methodology

of the

social sciences does

not

always

fit well with newsroom needs. Instead, editors, and reporters are trans-

forming

the old models

into wha t

is becoming a new

form

of

journalism

re-

search,

a

crossbreed

of

several group methodologies

specifically

designed

fo r

newsrooms' research requirem ents . Journalis ts

are concerned less

abou t

the

sci-

ence of

research

than

about

the

information they obtain through

the

methods .

In a

speech

to the

Newspaper Associat ion

of

Am er ica Research Conference ,

Knight-Ridder executive Virginia Dodge Fielder argued that it is not the "won-

derfully

crea t ive , groundbreaking research" tha t mat ters

in

news reports . I t ' s

wh ether journa l is ts

are

able

to

move beyond

the

s t r uc ture d research pro jec t

and

connect

with their community, encourage public deliberation

on

im po r ta n t

is-

sues,

and obtain

sufficient

inform ation to inform read ers and enc ourag e

cit izen

action (Fielder,

1995).

The

newsroom venture into group conversations leads reporters onto

the

streets

and

into

the

neighborhoods. Focus group techn ique s m ade inroads into

newsrooms

during

the

early

1990s,

about

the

time journalism practitioners

and

academicians s tar ted their

ow n

conversations abo ut journalism 's purpose

and

role in a democratic society. As the journalism

reform

mo ve me n t—kn o wn as

public

or

c iv ic journa l ism—gained momentum, focus groups

and

c o mmun i ty

conversations became definit ive elem ents

in

newsgather ing (Merr i t t , 1998;

Rosen,

1999).

M ore

than a

decade

later, newsroom focus group

methods

have

been

refined

and

redefined , m oving beyond l is tening tech niqu es

and

in terviews

into

community par tnerships

and

citizen

action. The key

focus was ,

an d

still

is,

on citizen conversations, w hich not only reconnect jo urna l is ts to the ir comm u-

nities,

but

also help involve citizens

in the

democratic process. From

its

incep-

tion, civic

or

public journalism

encouraged

exper imenta t ion

and

group

methods became par t

of the

newsgather ing

efforts

(Merr i t t , 1998).

This

chap ter looks at sev eral report ing p rojects and group research methods

used by editors and reporters in their newsgathering processes.

These

inc lude:

th e

Savannah M orning New s

and its "Vision 2010" project;

The Lawrence

Jour-

nal-World

and its

Finding Common Ground

series; and

The Cincinnat i En-

quirer's massive report ing project on race relations, "Neighbor to Neighbor."

A s these exam ples i l lustrate , the term

focus

group h as m any mean ings in th e

newsroom.

The

newspapers

in the

for thcoming examples used

a

m i x t u r e

of

m ethodologies, some t ha t closely followed

focus

group procedures

and

o thers

that

deviated

from

the traditional structured form. The research purpose was to



S .

FOCUS

GROUPS

NEWSROO M STYLE 77

give journalists what they needed, insight and information to enhance their

news coverage. Previous research shows

that

journalists tend toward a combi-

nation of group interview techniques to get information. Although the groups

fall under the general

categories

of group interviews or focus groups, the designs

of

the groups themselves are often distinct, according to the newsroom's re-

search purpose (Willey, 1997). The same holds true for the newsroom methods

in the examples discussed in this chapter.

Newsroom research

follows

patterns similar

to

standard qualitative meth-

odology,

including defining the research questions, determining the best

methods by which to obtain the answers to the questions, and participating in

detailed planning

as

well

as

comprehensive data

gathering.

There

is

also some

form

of triangulation in the research process. Reporters use variants o f quali-

ta t ive methodology such a s focus groups, community conversations, and town

meetings. They also

rely

on more traditional methods such as information

gained from polls and surveys, documents, and individual interviews to verify

their

findings.

Unlike

the

social scientist, newsrooms

do not

claim

to

create

a

scientific

study. Instead, they analyze the

data gathered

in a journalistic fashion for use in

their stories.

As in

scientific research, often

the

information gleaned

at the be-

ginning

of the

project spawns more questions and,

in

some cases, changes

the

research question

itself.

To understand

the evolution in these

newsgathering

methods, it is

necessary

to

clarify

the term

focus

groups and look at its roots and uses in the social sci-

ences. Because newsrooms a re experimenting beyond group newsgathering ef-

forts into community partnerships and action, it is important to consider also

the

philosophical underpinnings

of the

qualitative methodology

of

action

re-

search, which is seeing renewed interest among several academic disciplines

(Coghlan & Brannick, 2001; Stringer, 1999).

ACADEMIC FOCUS GROUPS

Focus groups

have

been used in

marketing research

since the 1920s and utilized

for decades

in a

variety

of

social science research (Frey

&

Fontana, 1991;

Krueger ,

1988; Morgan, 1993). However, Fern (2001) wrote that, even into

the

late 1970s, there were few disciplines other than marketing using focus group

methodology.

He distinguished

between theory

and

applied focus group

re-

search. Theory-based research falls more within the academic realm and is cre-

ated for the purpose of generating o r affirming theory. Applied research is done

primarily

for

decision-making purposes. Researchers

conducting

applied

re-

search are only concerned about information relating to their specific needs.



78 WILLEY

The jou rna l is t ' s use of focus groups

falls

w i th in the app l ied a rea and has a

different purpose from tha t of academ ic s tudies or m edia ma rke t ing research.

Early

researchers

of the

focused interview

technique had

predicted

that

its use

could easi ly

be

expanded

into a

var ie ty

of

soc ia l sc ience inves t iga t ion . M er ton

(1987) suggested

in the

1950s that

the

focused in tervie w

is a

"generic research

technique" tha t could

be

"applied

in

every sphere

o f

h u m a n b e h av i o r

and ex-

per ience" (p . 562) .

Instead of

seeking response about

a

product's appeal

or

studying media m essage

reception, journ alists seek insight into citizens' attitu de s, beliefs,

and

comm uni ty

concerns—their "views of reality" (Frey & Fontana, 1991). The data obtained are

used to develop new s reports. Ho wev er, the social science de finition of

focus

group

is more precise

than

the way most journalists use the term. A focus group is a spe-

cific

type of group in terms of its "purpose, size, composition, and procedures"

(Krueger,

1988,

p.

18). Social scientists

say the

focus group

is "a

nondirective tech-

nique that results in the c ontrolled produ ction of a discussion w ithin a group of peo-

ple who do not

know

on e

another,

but who

share

similar

c haracteristics" (Flores

&

Alonso,

1995,

pp. 84–113). The

focus group

is

designed

for discovery and to

answer

the how and why questions. Focus groups not only help answer research questions

but

also

generate

new

questions (M organ, 1993).

Once

academic researchers dec ide

to use focus

g rou p methodology,

a

t a r -

get

popu la t ion

is

de t e r min e d

and a

pa r t i c i pa n t

profile

deve loped . Random

te lephone surveys he lp loca te po ten t ia l g roup m em bers ,

who a re

s o me t ime s

offered sm al l m onetary in cent iv es to par t ic ip a te . Becau se the idea is to va l i -

date

the

informat ion co l lec ted

by

com par ing

the

f indings

from one

g r o up

to

the

o the r s ,

no

l eg i t ima te

s tudy

can be

conduc ted w i th on ly

one focus

g roup .

Four

or five

groups,

each

w ith about 8–10 par t icipan ts ,

are

usua l ly

sufficient to

obta in the data necessary for the research (Flores & Alonso, 1995; Frey &

Fontana , 1993) . Focus groups w ork bes t w i th pa r t ic i pa nts from homogeneous

popula t ions . T h e s m a ll n u m b e r of peop le pa r t i c ipa t in g and the g roup s ' hom o-

genei ty

he lp crea te

a

c o mf o r t a b l e

and

n o n th r e a t e n in g a tmo s phe r e t ha t

en -

courages

discuss ion (Knodel , 1993) .

It is

impor tan t tha t

focus

group mem bers perce ive researchers

as

unbiased

to

enable

the

free

flow of conversation, wh ich strengthen s validity. The group

meets

a t a

neu tral location,

and the

modera tor

is

someone

who is not

connected

to the

research endeavor . Par t icipan ts

are

asked

to

sign

a

consent

form

t ha t

m ay

include permission to v ideotape the discussion, to al low people to observe the

interaction behind a one-w ay mirror, or to publ ish the conversations (Flores &

Alonso, 1995). Re searchers m us t decide

how to

add ress confide ntia l i ty,

an im-

por tant i s sue

in

focus group research.

Usually,

pa r t i c ipan t s

are assured

the i r

names will

not be

revealed

in the

research report.



5.

F OCUS

G RO UPS N EW S R O O M STYLE

79

The

qualitative

data

obtained

through

focus group

research may be

analyzed

manua l ly

or thro ugh com puterized tex tual analysis programs. How ever, focus

group researchers remind us that the purpose is not to quant i fy the data, rather

to un der stan d the why of w hat was said (Morgan, 1993). By cross-checking

notes and

referring

to tape recordings, research ers

identify

patterns or themes in

the conversations. To

enhance

validity, the moderator may

verify

key points

made in the discussion or ask group mem bers to make a final s ta tement . The

moderator

and research

team meet immediately after

the

foc us group session

to

discuss the findings. This debriefing is sometimes tape -recorde d for

fu ture

refer-

ence.

In

addition, focus group data

are

often used

in

tr iangulation with other

methods such

as

surve ys (K ruege r, 1993).

JOURNALISM FOCUS GROUPS

The qualitative methodology of the focus group seems particularly well suited

fo r jou rnalis m , but reporters do not necessarily follow the str ingent academic

guidelines for focus groups. Instead they use hybrid group methodology that fits

their needs. For example, the aspect of confidentiality, in journalistic endeav-

ors,

may

mean

that

repo rters decide, w ith

the

participants ' permission,

to use

quotes from gro up mem bers' discussions. Rep orters m ay decide to listen only to

the discussion, take no tes, and then contact individual participants at a la te r

date for an on-the-record interview .

Sometimes

journalists serve as moderators,

but in other instances outside moderators are used. The group conversations

may

be recorde d, bu t it is unlikely

that

devices such as a one-way m irror w ould

be used in jou rnalis t ic group m ethods.

Some newsrooms use group conversations to define the research questions

themselves

while others

use the

conv ersations

to

refine

the

question already

be-

ing

investigated.

F or

example ,

in

1998, when The

Savannah

M orning

N e w s de-

cided

to do a

series called "Aging Matters,"

that

examined various issues facing

the c ity's older popu lation , the editors and

staff

realized they had little know ledge

abou t the topic.

They

had to educate themselves

first

b efore they could even be-

gin

the

series

so

they arranged

a

series

of

group m eetings,

b y

calling together peo-

ple from var iou s social service agencies, caregiv ers,

and

senior citizens. R epo rters

asked

a

general question

then

took notes

as

they

listened

to the

conversations.

The Univers i ty of M issouri

School

of Journalism did the same thing in 1996

when students embarked on their

annual reporting

project for The M issourian ,

the unive rsity newspaper. That year the proje ct focused on religion in the com-

muni ty , but e ditors soon discovered that neither s tudents nor faculty had suffi-

cient knowledge about the topic to begin the project . They held a series of

meet ings with members of various faith groups and asked them to talk about



8O

WILLEY

their beliefs, as reporters listened. Facu lty and s tu den ts a lso convened panel dis-

cussions w ith clergy

and

academic religious experts.

These

resource panels

al-

lowed

the

student reporters

to ask questions about the com plexities of

different

faiths,

which provided them w ith n ew information and in t roduced them to new

contacts in the

community (Willey, 1997,

pp. 21-23).

These kinds of grou p listen ing p rocesses not only help educa te reporters , but

also bring heightened awareness into the kind of va lues tha t are operating

within targeted groups. Bloor

et al.

(2001) argued that

focus

groups

a re

able

to

shed

light

on

normat ive unders tandings

and

meanings.

They

provide insights

that can be used to interpret surv ey or poll ing da ta , or even to contest the q ua n -

t i tat ive findings

as

happened

in the

S avannah backyard barbecue conversa tions

wh ere group discussions honed in on drainage problems, an issue t ha t was not

high

on the

polling radar screen.

For journalists,

focus

group methodology has anothe r bene fi t in

that

it allow s

citizens to be p ar t ic ipants in the research, or the news report, itself.

This

helps

establish a better rapport between the media and their readers or v iewers

(Willey, 1997). Focus groups also provide a dive rsi ty of new sources fo r journa l -

ists to tap. A s Bloor et al. (2001) w rote: "Focus groups hav e been portray ed as a

m ediu m for dem ocratic partic ipation in scientific research" (p . 93). From the

beginning, focus groups have generated information on how the publ ic und er -

s tands or views the wor ld , tha t can serve a s a ba lance to exp ert opinion (Bloor et

al. 2001).

This

helps balance journalis ts ' reports . Yankelovich (1991) argued

that journalis ts tend to dismiss citizen insights and instead use expert sources .

In his book Coming to Public Judgmen t: M aking Democracy Work in a Complex

World, Y ankelovich (1991) w rote tha t jou rna l is ts t radi t iona l ly cover news

from

the top

down.

This

exper t focus , pa r t

of

w h a t

he

calls

the

"Cul tu re

o f

Technical

Control,

devalues c i t izen-based knowledge and un de r s t a n d in g ,

contr ibutes to the disconnect am ong c i t izens , med ia and pub l ic ins t i tu t ions ,

and

encourages c i t izen w i thd raw al from pub l ic

life

(pp. 8–10 ) .

This,

then,

af-

fects our

national conversation

on how to

address issues

of

c r i t ica l imp or tance

to our

common

life (pp.

91–98).

For journ a l is ts , tapping c i t izens ' knowledge

helps bridge this gap and , at the same t ime, encourages ta lk among par t ic i -

pants . Focus groups

can

help fac i l i ta te c i t izen par t ic ipa t ion dur ing

the

news

media 's newsgather ing process and,

as can be

seen

in the

p ro jec t examples

here, they m ay also encourage ci t izen action.

Focus group adh erents say that the

first

th ing to do is de termine the purpose

of th e group.

Once

that is defined, several other elem ents come into play to cre-

ate a

successful

group methodology. K rue ge r (1988) cited sev eral factors that

can influen ce the qu ali ty of

focus

grou p research: clar i ty of purpose, ap prop riate

environment ,

sufficient

resources , appropriate par t icipants , skillful moderator ,



5. FOCUS

GR OU P S N E W SR O O M STYLE

81

effective questions, careful data handling, systematic an d verifiable analysis, ap-

propriate presentation, and finally, honoring the participant, the client and the

m ethod " (p. 67 ). In general, newsroom s app ear to adhere to nearly all of these

criteria

in

planning

and

creating their reporting projects, except

for

journal is ts

the da ta analysis is

less

focuse d on scientific rigor to gen erate theory

than

on the

information needed for the new s stories.

There

are sev eral advan tages to using group methodology. By bringing to-

gether groups

of

people

w ho

share their views, beliefs,

and

feelings about specific

issues, participa nts begin interacting w ith

one

another. This

is

part

of the

focusing

element in focus group methodology. The objective is to encourage discussion

(Bloor,

et al., 2001). During group conversations, one person's comment may

spark

other c om m ents and participants become fully involved in the discussion. It

is this interaction that results in rich and detailed information about the specific

topic, which

is

considered

th e

primary advantage

of focus

groups.

The

insights

gained

from focus

groups also provide important information for reporters and

may

even

affect

th e framing of the story. As Morgan (1993) wrote:

Focus groups are not

j u s t

a di fferent way of

doing

things we

have been doing

all along.

They

may

also lead

us to

change

the

very

way

that

we are

thinking about

the

problems

that interest

us. (p. 10)

In

general, researchers choose focus groups when there

is a

power

gap be-

twe en decision m akers, experts ,

or

professionals,

and the

desired target group.

For

journ alists , this can translate into a diversity of voices for their rep orts . Fo -

cus

g roup s also are an excellent

tool

to use wh en inv estigating behavior or

issues

and w h en it is

difficult

for people to find ways to come together to talk.

This

w as

the

case when

The

Cincinnat i Enquirer

wanted

to

begin comm unity conversa-

tions ab ou t race. Focus group s also serve as a good sou rce of info rm ation w hen

researchers

are

seeking explanations

and

opinions (Morgan

&

Krueger , 1993).

Of ten ,

the p articipants ' interactive conversation reveals information an d is-

sues

tha t

had

nev er occurred

to the

journalist

or

researcher (Agar

&

MacDon-

ald, 1995). For the media then, focus groups can be an excellent exploratory

technique to seek citizens' opinions on issues that will be part of a proposed

news report. The information

received

from these structured groups helps re-

por ters

focus

o n the topic issues and h elps generate story ideas and sou rces, as

well as provide new perspect ives .

Because focus group data is quali tative rather than quant i ta t ive and because

group

size is usually limited to enco urage co nversation, the res ults cann ot be

general ized, o r

applied,

to

broade r populations

as

survey data are. Un like public

forums or working groups, focus groups are not convened to seek recom m end a-

tions or solutions. Instead, researchers and reporters use focus groups to listen



82 WILLEY

to opinions and concerns of

citizens

and to

gain

new

perspectives

on

problems

or

issues confronting the targeted group. The conversations are analyzed and

the

information used

to

r ecommend

new

areas

o f

s tudy

or

research,

or to

shed

light

on the

specific issue being inv estigated. Focus groups also

m ay

require

a

significant

investment of t ime and money, especial ly if numerous groups are

convened.

Repo rting projec ts using group m ethodology involve detai led plan-

ning

and a

s t rong commitment

to

allocate

sufficient staff

t ime

and

organiza-

tional

funds

to

organize

the

g roup s, select

and

tra in moderators ,

and to

analyze

the

data.

Sometimes,

focus

groups

and

conversations only w het

the

appeti te

of

part icipants for fu tu re endeavors .

They

can energize par t ic ipan ts to

form

new

groups

on

their

ow n

that

m ay

decide

to

focus

on

action.

ACTION RESEARCH

One of the

cr i t ic isms voiced about academic research

is

tha t

it

seems

too

dis-

tanced

from

people's lives.

Action

research a t tem pts

to

bridge th is gap.

I t

broad-

ens the

research agenda from crea t ing

and

shar ing knowledge

to

p u t t i n g tha t

knowledge to work wi th in com m uni t ies (Coghlan & Bran nick , 2001, p . x i ) . R e-

searchers argue that "action research can help us

bui ld

a better,

freer

society"

(Greenwood & Levin, 1998, p. 3). M any scholars credit Lew in's w ork as a social

scientist during

the

1940s

as the

origins

of

action research.

H is

innova t ive

re-

search

for the

U.S. governm ent du ring W orld

War II

used

new

methods ,

now

kn o wn

as

na tur a l exper iments , wh ich provided s tudy p ar t ic ipants w i th real-life

and familiar

se ttings. From

the

beginning, act ion rese arch

was

grounded

in

soci-

etal

concerns

w ith the purp ose of social change. Lew in saw action research as a

way to

encourage ci t izen par t icipation

in

dem ocracy

and to

change society

for

the

better (Greenwood

&

Levin, 1998).

Action

research's philosop hical roots

may be

traced

to

Dewey

and his

belief

in par t ic ipa tory democracy and pragmatic research philosophy (Greenwood &

Levin, 1998, p. 7 2 ). Pu blic jou rnalis m advoc ates a lso ci te Dew ey as the philo-

sophical foundation

fo r

their

views on

journalism 's mission

in a

dem ocratic soci-

ety

(Rosen, 1999).

In the 1980s,

social scientists Argyris, P ut na m ,

and

Smi th

(1990) examined

the

concept

of action

science," which, they

said,

"seeks

knowledge that serves

action

(p.

36).

T he

purpose

o f

such research

is to

gener-

ate practical knowledge that extends into the realm of responsible ac tion, ac-

tion that

serves societal needs (pp. 43, 75). In some cases, focus group

part icipants

decide

to act on their discussions.

This

was

seen

in a hea l th needs-

assessment pro jec t under taken in Madison County , Nor th Caro l ina in 1989

(Plaut ,

Landis , & Trevor , 1993). Researchers there s tudied how focus g roups

not

only helped

define

health care needs,

bu t

also help ed

m obilize the

c o m m u -



5. FOCUS

GROUPS

NEWSROO M STYLE 83

nity to make sure

those

needs were addressed. In this example,

focus

group

methods encouraged com mu nity involvement (p. 217) .

T he examples in this chapter show

that

media outlets often try to create a

knowledge base

v ia

their news reports

so

citizens

can be

informed when they

gather together in group discussions. Yankelovich (1991) said this shifts the

focus of news reports from the hierarchical str uc tu re of ex pe rts to citi-

zen-based knowledge. Greenwood and Levin (1998) saw action research as a

way

not

only

to

involve citizens

in

dem ocrat ic decision-making processes,

b ut

also

to

create

an

"arena

for

lively deb ate

...

that respects

and

enhances

the di-

versity of

g roups"

(p.

11).

Action

research

is

grounded

in the idea

that

new

know ledge

can be

gener-

ated

from

citizens

in

conversation with

one

another. This creates

a

sym biotic

re-

lationship among researchers, ordinary citizens, and experts so

that

a more

egalitarian approach to problem solving occurs. Scholars engaged in action re-

search s ay that , w hen this happens, the results can be liberating (Greenw ood &

Levin,

1998, p. 77) . Because action research moves beyond conv ersations into

action,

th e

entire process

is

grounded

in

participatory democracy.

A s

Green-

wood and Levin (1998) wrote: "W e argue

that

AR, in addition to generat ing

valid

knowledge and

effective

social action, embodies democratic ideals in its

core practices. This democracy is involved in both the research process and the

outco m es of the research" (p. 113).

In th e following exam ples, newsrooms borrow elements

from

both action re-

search and

focus

gro up methodologies to create hyb rids of grou p new sgath ering

techn iques . In some instances, newsroom s

foster

partnerships with other media

or

civic organizations to help with the research and, in some situations, to en-

courage

action. The newsroom

style

of qualitative methodology is clearly oper-

ating w ithin each of the examples in this chapter. Reporters and editors decide

on the

rese arch questions

or

story project; they

identify the

best methods

to use

to

obtain

the

information they

are

seeking; they

identify the

population needed

for part icipat ion;

and

they create

the

group

and

proceed w ith

the

research, data

analysis and the w riting of the news story or series. Thro ugh out the projects ,

however ,

reporters and editors maintain control of the reporting endeavor.

THE

SAVANNAH

MORNING

NEWS:

VISION

2010

Group

Conversations and Community Action

When the Savannah M orning News editors and rep orters decided to focus on the

area's school system for their Vision 2010" project, they had

difficulty

deciding

how

to approach th e series. A s Managing E ditor Daniel Suw yn said: "W e were



84

WILLEY

tired

of

w riting stories that highlighted

the

failure

o f

schools,

so we

took w hat

we

had

learned

from our

election stories

and the

'Aging Matters ' stories

and de-

cided to turn this over to our comm uni ty and make them assignment editors"

(personal communication, March 6 , 2002) .

The

staff

first defined the population needed to participate in the discussion.

This

included nonprofit and social service sources, parents, educators, and busi-

ness leaders. Five leaders from these groups were selected

and

asked

to

provide

th e

p aper with

a

list

of 10

people that

fit into

these categories.

The

editors

and re-

porters filled in the gaps and included addition al

citizens

from the city and cou nty

governments and the older population.

Eventually,

they created a diverse group

of

more

than

60

people.

This

group

w as

then

broken down into

smaller

discussion

groups.

Identifying

sources was a critical step in the reporting process.

T he newspaper staff developed what Suwyn calls " re la t ionship t rees" to

fu r the r

expand the g roups . To do th is , repor ters iden t i f ied leaders such as the

mayor,

and then asked the large group to name three people who had the

m ayor 's ear.

These

were the people w h o w e w a n t ed to ha ve th e conver sa t ions

wi th , " Suwyn sa id (pe r sona l communica t ion , March 6 , 2002 ) . Once the

smal ler groups were forme d, mo dera tors

led the

pa r t i c ipan t s

in

d i scuss ion .

R e-

porters l is tened

and

took

notes.

We

w a n t ed

to

kn o w wh a t

the

school system

looked like from the

different

perspectives , and what the ideal school system

m ight look l ike ," Suw yn sa id . "W e found what the themes were , and people

were surpr ised to see a lot of com m on thread s. People had go t ten caugh t up in

th e language , and they didn ' t see all the comm on th reads" (pe r sonal com m u-

nication, M arch

6 ,

2002 ) .

New ideas were generated, and the group members felt empowered to act .

Participants visited from 13 to 30 area schools and, w ith a gra nt from the Pew

Center

for Civic Jou rnalis m , the new spap er was able to pay the expe nses for 15

group members to visit schools in Macon, Hous ton, Char lo t te , Jacksonvi l le ,

and Washington, DC.

These

m embers then reported th eir

findings

to the group.

The Pew

Center

for Civic Jo urna lism , established by the Pew Ch ari table T rusts

to

encourage experimentation

in

news report ing

and

ci t izen par t icipation

in

public

life,

provided grant monies for these civic reporting projects.

The new spaper wrote about a l l the visits and group activities, spawning m ore

com m unity interest in the endeavor, Suw yn said. "Even the n, we had a

good

dia-

logue going" (personal communication, March 6, 2002). The early discussions,

on the other hand, were

difficult.

People disagreed and school board officials re-

sisted efforts to change. The commi tment of the group members and the newspa-

per,

however, helped turn skepticism into cooperation. Suwyn said that "Vision

2010" is now "so deep in the com m unity" tha t it has grown measurably beyond

th e

original

6 0 or so

group mem bers (personal com m unication, M arch

6,

2002) .



5.

FOCUS GROU PS

NEWSROO M

STYLE 85

The community reporting project also helped trigger citizen action. The Ju-

nior Lea gue voted to devote it s funds and energy to the "Vision 2010" project

through 2005. Business leaders

in

Savannah

started

a

venture

capital

trust fund

and

hired

a

professional fund-raiser

to

raise

$5

m illion

to

enable schools

to ex-

periment with

new

approaches that

are

outside

the

reg ular bu dg et capabilit ies.

Schools can apply for money, volunteers, and other resources for specific pro-

jects .

A p ortion of the m onies will be used to fun d progra m s such as a $10,000

annual award to the most innovative teacher. T he project 's successes brought

more sup po rt , and, eventual ly, even

the

critics became convinced that

it w as a

worthwhile

effort,

Suywn said.

Ever

since the public, or civic, journalism movement began, scholars have

struggled w i th ways to assess the success of civic journa lism projec ts (La m beth ,

Meyer,

&

Thorson, 1998). Fielder (1995) asserted th at reporting pro jects w ork

w h e n

journal i s t s

connect

with their com mu nity, encourage public deliberation

and provide sufficient inform ation to inform read ers, and encou rage citizen ac-

tion. With the Savannah Morning N e w s ' s project , there w as m easurable evi-

dence of increased civic participation, Suwyn said. The Pew Center for Civic

Journalism

agreed and awarded the News 's "Vision 2010" project the 2002

James K. Batten Aw ard for

excellence.

THE

LAWRENCE JOURNAL WORLD: LAWRENCE

IS

GROWING:

FINDING COMMON

GROUND

Neighborhood Discussions and a Town Meeting

in

a

Converged

Media

Project

When Richard Bra ck, m anaging editor o f the Lawrence

Journal-World,

looked at

his Midwestern town of Lawrence, Kansas, populat ion 80,000, he knew the

overriding issue of concern was grow th. During the pas t 10 years, the city had

expanded rapidly , and people appeared to be sharply divided into tw o

groups—for

or

against continued grow th. M any people liked

the

sm all- town

a t-

mosphere of the

area

and

w ere distressed

to see any

growth that threatened that

way

of

life. Others were equally adamant that without growth

the

city would

wither

away,

and its

best

and

brigh test stude nts w ould leave

for

be t te r

jobs

else-

where,

as had happened in other similar cities.

Lawrence is a l i t t le different

from

other Kansas farming communi t ies ,

Brack said (personal comm unicat ion, M arch 8 , 200 2) . The Univers i ty of K an-

sas

is

located there,

and the

c ity sits

in a

county

that

was one of

only

two in the

s tate that were won by Al Gore during the 2000 presidential e lect ion. Brack

knew

his

first step would

be to

challenge

the

dualistic framing that existed

in



86 WILLEY

the citizens' minds. "I wan ted to find ou t w ha t some of

those

' in - t h e - m i d d l e '

perspectives were.

Who

were

the

s takeho lde r s he re?" (per sona l com m unic a -

tion,

A u g u s t

1 7 ,

2002) .

T he goal w as s imple . T h e new spaper w an ted to t a lk wi th va r iou s segments

of

the popu la t ion and to also

find

new voices, the so-ca l led middle ground

that

repor ters knew was ou t

there

but so far had remained s i lent . In spr ing

2002,

the

newspaper ,

its

online

divis ion,

and

s is te r cable news opera t ion

launch ed w hat wou ld be a 6-m onth pro jec t , "Lawrence is Grow ing: F inding

Common Ground.

The n e ws pa pe r

chose

focus

g r o ups as an in i t ia l s tep in the

research process . The newspaper

staff

selected a cross-section of peop le from

the com m uni ty , inc luding bus iness people , unive rs i ty

faculty,

s t ude n t s ,

fa rm-

ers, and newcomers to the area. Brack descr ibed the selection process as

"bra ins torming" ra ther

than

methodologica l .

We

w eren ' t t ry ing

to be

sc ien-

tific,"

Brack said. "We

j u s t

w anted to ge t an idea of how people w ere

feeling

about growth. And i t wasn ' t

j u s t

the

focus

g roups . T he reporters were going

out and w a lk in g th e ne ighborhoods to

j u s t

t a lk w i th people to see w h a t was on

their minds. W e were in the process of ga ther ing inform at ion" (pe rsonal com-

munica t ion , Augus t

1 7 ,

2002 ) .

T w o focus

g roup mee t ings were he ld ,

each

with abou t

1 5

pa r t i c ipa n t s .

T he

un iv e r s i ty ' s counse lo r

to the

chance l lo r m od-

era ted the discussions. Reporters l is tened.

Once

the newspaper and television staffs b etter understood the concerns, they

did

a 4-week series that introduced the idea of s takeholders in the communi ty ,

provided a history of grow th in the area, and

then

offered a com parison of other

similar

comm unities

and

discussed

how

they handled growth.

The

purpose

was to

st imulate com m unity conversation.

The

articles provided

a common

knowledge

base from which to begin. Brack said, "W e w anted our readers to kno w th at we

wanted to know w hat they thought . W e created bu llet in boards and encouraged

people to e-mail us" (personal com m unication, M arch 8 , 2002) .

Although the

electronic messages

did not

cons t i tu te

v i r tua l

focus groups ,

the use of

compute r

correspondence

i l lust rates the

potentia l

of

us ing e -m a i l

communica t ion

in

newsroom newsgather ing

and

research

efforts.

Social scien-

tists, too, are exploring cyberspace m eetings as a way to generate discussion. Al-

though computer-mediated discussion groups have exis ted

in

some

form for

more

than

2 0

years ,

th e

academic

use of

these

forums

has

been lim ited (Bloor

e t

al., 2001 ).

For

the

Journal-World, the

computer conversations served

as an

addi-

tional tool to promote community discussion and i l lus t ra ted how the conver -

gence

of pr int , broadcast , and online media can contr ibute to report ing

projects. T he

paper supplemented

the

data obtained

in

this

forum

w i th onl ine

polls, as

well

as a

scientific poll

of the

popula t ion

in

Douglas County , where

Lawrence

is

s i tua ted .



5.

FOCUS GROUPS NEWSROOM STYLE 87

At the end of the 4-week reporting project, the newspaper sponsored a com-

muni ty

meeting

that

w as billed a s an interactive community

forum.

More than

200

people attended. Dozens more called

in or

e-mailed questions

or

com-

ments. The meeting also was broadcast live in the Lawrence area and replayed

several times. The initial 6-week series provided a knowledge base so citizens

could

be on the

same page

for the

ensuing discussion, Brack said (personal

communication, March

8,

2002).

The

series generated interest,

as did the on-

line conversations. By the time the town meeting w as held, citizens were able to

clarify the issues and identify the following areas of concern: schools, traffic,

open space, transportation, business

and

economic development,

and

social

capital,

a

term used

to

describe

a

system

of

strong links among citizens

and

asso-

ciations in the

community (Putnam, 2001).

The

newspaper

then

organized

a

series

of

neighborhood meetings, located

the meeting sites, and found a moderator. The goal w as to have each group of

about 30-50 people focus

on the

identified

topics and to try to

devise

a

plan

to

handle growth. At the same time, the local television station, 6News, began

broadcasting

stories

on the specific

issues

to be

addressed

at the

next meeting.

There were

companion

pieces in print, and discussion was encouraged online.

The

neighborhood meetings drew good crowds,

but

people tended

to

attend

only the meetings that were scheduled to address the particular issue in which

they were interested, Brack said.

The discussions at each meeting were then reported to the community via

the newspaper and the television station. We wanted to get as many people in-

volved as we could, Brack said. "W e wanted to hear from everyone (personal

communication, March 8, 2002). The final town meeting was held in a down-

town theater where

the

findings were presented

to

citizens

and

community

leaders. The plan, Brack said, represented the voice of the people on growth

issues.

B y taking an active role in encouraging community discussion, the news-

paper

learned that citizens saw the preservation of open space and farmland as

the most important issues, but neighbors talking with neighbors had another

benefi t—growing social capital.

"New relationships formed, Brack said. There were whole diverse groups o f

people

who were willing to come together and talk about this, and they were

surprised

at how

much common ground there

w as

among them (personal com-

munication, March 8, 2002). Six months later, Brack said he sees the changes

that

the

reporting project created

in the

community. The discourse

is a lot

more civil

n ow

that

i t was before.

People here

are

still opinionated,

but

these

discussions went a long w ay to let people know

that

other viewpoints a re valid;

and it showed that their newspaper does care about their community (personal

communication, March 8, 2002).



88

WILLEY

THE

CINCINNATI

ENQUIRER:

NEIGHBOR TO N E I G H B O R : COMMUNITY

CONVERSATIONS

ON

RA CE

Focus Groups and Community Partnerships

In April 2001, Cinc innati ,

Ohio,

was the scene o f race riots after a w hite police-

m an

shot

and kil led a black you th. The inciden t, however, was only the spa rk

that ignited a long-smolde ring anger am ong some gro ups in the city. Rosemary '

Go udre au is the m anaging editor of The Cincinnati E nquirer. W ith the su ppo rt of

her editor W ard Bushee , she and her

staff

w anted to address the p otent ia l ly ex-

plosive race issue.

They

kne w that m any people were afraid to ta lk about it, and

the newspaper s ta f fhad a lready ini t ia ted conversa t ions with com m unity leaders

on the

topic.

I n fact, on the

night

of the

r io ts , new spaper employees were m eet-

ing

with some grassroots com m unity leaders, she said.

"Before the r iots , w e had b rou gh t together leaders to put the race issue on the

agenda, bu t people backed away

from

it . It was the same o ld sources and the

same old faces, so we decided to bring real people into the conversation,"

Gou dreau sa id (personal com m unicat ion, M arch

8,

2002) .

The

paper decided

to engage the c om m unity in a conv ersation abou t the racial issues dividin g

them.

To do

this ,

the

staff began

a

series

of

facil i tated neighborhood discussions

designed to probe the un de rlyin g tensions an d explore ideas abo ut wh at

cit izens

could do. Goudreau said that, at the t ime, many people, especially African

Americans, were frus trated by w hat they saw as "lots of talk" but little action.

For

help in s t r u c tu r ing the conversa t ions , the newspaper tu rned to the

Char les F. Ket ter ing Foundat ion in nearby Day ton, Ohio. The Ke t ter ing Foun-

dation

is an inte rnatio nal research organ ization tha t s tudie s democracy. It

works with the N at ional I ssues Forums (N IF) , a nonpar t isan network of com-

m unity organizations tha t has developed a model to help cit izens

talk

and del ib-

era te about c om plex issues. The NIF researches and w ri tes del ibera t ion

gu idebooks on nu m erous comm uni ty and na t iona l issues and alread y had one

available

that

deal t wi th community race re la t ions . The NIF model crea tes

structured conversations on specific topics. Forum participants are asked to

read

an

issue

book that

provides information

on the

pa r t ic u la r topic .

The

issue

book

presents several choices that represent var ious perspect ives

on the

issue,

and a

moderator guides

the

group through

the

discussion

of

each choice.

It is

through this

choice

work that deliberation ensues, as cit izens began to grapple

w ith the com plexities involved in each choice. D eliberatio n is diffe ren t from or-

dinary

conversation or debates. It is a dialogue for weigh ing op t ions (Ma thew s

& McAfee, 1997) . The Enq uirer took the NIF model and used it as a guide , cre-



5.

FOCUS GROUPS

NEWSROO M

STYLE

89

ating their o w n methods to fit their research o r news needs, Goudreau said (per-

sonal communication, March

8,

2002).

The newspaper started by forming a citizens' steering committee. The goal

was to hold solutions-oriented meetings in every neighborhood of Greater

Cincinnati. It was an ambitious undertaking, Goudreau said. Even some com-

mittee members expressed doubts about being able

to

accomplish

the

goal.

Y et

soon other community organizations offered help.

The Cincinnati

Chapter

of

the

American Marketing Association volunteered

to

provide some

of

their

trained facilitators, and the National Conference for Community and Justice

also helped find people to serve as facilitators. Altogether, more than 100 facili-

tators

went through training

in how to

help citizens hold

a

deliberative conver-

sation,

a

process that

created trained

moderators.

The use of

trained

modera to r s correlates with standard

focus

group methodology requirements.

The newspaper's

staff

began working on organizing the neighborhood groups

in

July

2001. In August, the newspaper also conducted a community poll o f

1,112 adults living in Greater Cincinnati. Although not part o f the project

itself,

the polling data helped inform citizens about people's attitudes toward race—in

housing,

the

workplace,

in

schools,

and in

personal relationships. This resulted

in a

five-part series, Divided

By

Race (Goudreau, 2002).

In

November 2001,

the paper launched its Neighbor-to-Neighbor project, a series on the commu-

nity's

conversations about race relations.

In

all,

the

newspaper brought together approximately 2,100 people

in 148

meet ings over a period of 5 months,

from

November 2001 to March 2002. Each

of

these meetings had at least one, and more often two, trained

facilitators,

most

often

one white and one African American, Goudreau said. From the begin-

ning, Goudreau and the steering committee recognized that they needed pro-

fessional guidance in organizing this endeavor and found partners with various

civic and service organizations in the community. Ultimately, the neighborhood

project

w as endorsed by 111 community groups, corporations, and faith groups,

and more than 300 people volunteered more than 4,000 hours to host or lead

the

discussions (Thompson, 2002, p. Al).

The newspaper sponsored

four

training sessions for the facilitators w ho

learned

the NIF

deliberative model

of

discussion.

The

meeting agendas were

s t ruc tu red

to

identify

areas

o f

agreement

and

disagreement among

the

partici-

pants and also to ascertain what citizens and leaders needed to do to address the

racial issues confronting their community.

"W e

wanted them

to

discuss

the

kinds

of

action that needed

to be

taken

and

what

the

priorities were, Goudreau

said

(personal communication, March 8 , 2002).

Finding meeting locations took a great deal of time. Appeals were made in

newspaper stories and in mass mailings, but ultimately it took hours working the



9O

WILLEY

phones to get a su fficient

n u m b e r

of

host

locations.

The

places most eager

to

serve as hosts were faith organizations and schools, she said. "An

open

invi ta -

tion

ju st didn't do it. People

needed

to have personal contact . It took a

good

bit

of tim e

and

handh olding,"

she

said (personal com m unica t ion , M arch

8,

2002 ) .

These

duties were assigned

to one

editor

who was

responsible

for identifying

and contacting

civic-m inded people

or

groups

in

each neighborhood

to see who

would

agree to

host

a meet ing. T he newspaper ' s repor ters and editors spent

m any hours in ge t ting to know the key contac ts , p repar ing for the com m un i ty

conversations, f inding

an d

tra ining facilitators,

and

coordinating

the

m eet ings .

At the end of each m eet ing, the chief facil i tator s ubm i t te d a report on w ha t ha p -

pened

and any

agreed-upon courses

of

action, Goudreau said.

A s

pa r t

of the

"Neighbor- to-Neighbor" pro jec t ,

t he

newspaper pub l i shed

one of

these reports

on the front page of the M etro section every day for near ly 4 m onth s so people

could s tay informed about w ha t was being discusse d.

Al though the project focused on de l ibera t ion , Goud reau sa id tha t at its con-

clusion more

than

45 percent of the par t ic ipants decided to con t inue to m e e t to

discuss

what k ind

of

action needed

to be

taken.

In

this overall endeavor ,

the

newspaper used

a

variety

o f

me thods , inc lud ing

a

quan t i t a t ive pol l

and

s t r uc -

tured group conversations,

and the

resul ts

of the

pro jec t extende d beyond

the

original research goal

of

conversations.

The

pro jec t brought together d iverse

segments of the co m m uni ty; fos tered par tnerships among the new spaper , com-

m uni ty c iv ic organiza tions , and academic g roups ; and the pro jec t s t im ula ted

more discussions about translat ing

talk

in to cons t ruc t ive ac t ion .

For

the i r

ef-

forts

in br inging together thou sand s of people to talk abou t race , The

Enquirer

w as

named runner -up

for the

2002 Ba t ten Aw ard

for

Ex cel lence .

CONCLUSION

Journalis ts

have t ransform ed

the focus

group mod el into

a

h ybr id b lend

o f

group

methodologies

in

the i r

effort

to get

m ore ideas

and

voices into new s reports

and

to add ress real problem s facing the i r com m uni t ies . Journa l is ts use var iant forms

of group conversations to collect data th at help a dd de p th and new in fo rma t ion

to their stories. In addit ion, the conversations serve to e duc a t e the journa l is ts ,

as

well

as the par t ic ipants and som et im es have an added benef i t of encourag ing

cit izen-based action.

Al thoug h the focus group s created by

jou rna l i s ts

may not

always

meet s tr ingent scientif ic methodology requirements , the process itself

and the information obtained follow s tandard qua l i ta t iv e research cr i te r ia and

appear to

serve

the

journa l i s t i c comm uni ty w e l l.

When

journa lis ts organize neighborhood conv ersations

or

b acky ard barbe-

cues, they

f u l f i l l

some

of the

basic r e search r equ i r em ents

for

g roup me thodo l -



5. FOCUS GROUPS N E W SR O O M STYLE 91

ogy.

They

have identified the research questions and the population and placed

the groups in

familiar

settings so the discussions can take place in a

friendly

en-

vironment. As

participants

begin to talk, the group

interaction

itself has value,

and m emb ers begin to

identify

with the project and issues at

hand.

Dur ing the

conversations, reporters take a back seat to listen, take notes, and

identify

pat-

terns about

the

issues

of

concern being exp ressed.

They

also mee t

new

sources

in the communi ty to help shift news coverage

from

the expert mode to a more

egalitarian perspective, to include the middle ground of diverse voices.

Some new spap ers also are reconnec ting w ith some of the civic organizations in

their communities. These loosely formed partnerships enable reporters to draw

on

expertise that

may not be

available

to

reporters

and to use

this know ledge

to

enhance the validity of the

report.

The partnerships, along with citizen interac-

tion within the group discussions, may help form relationships among

diverse

peoples, creating and building the linkages Putm an (2001) called social capital.

Throughout the process, journa lists report on the community meetings and

discussions. They w rite stories that provide background information

on the issues

so

the

citizens

are

able

to

better understand

the

complexities involved.

In

some

instances, group participants have continued the discussions after the reporting

project ended,

and

some groups have transformed

into action-oriented

groups.

The grou p new sgathering m ethods discussed here

rarely

stand alone; rath er, the y

complement the m ore traditional m ethods of newsgathering. Reporters continu e

to tap the qu antita tive information

from

surveys or polls. They also researc h do c-

ume n t s and

con duct individual interviews

for

their stories, creating

a

triangu la-

tion

of

inform ation gathering methodologies that s treng then validity.

REFERENCES

Agar,

M., &

MacDonald,

J.

(1995) . Focus groups

and

ethnography.

Human

Organization,

54,

78–86.

Argyris,

C., P u t n a m , R., & Smith, D. M. (1990). Action sc ience: Concepts , methods ,

and

skills

for research and intervention.

San

Francisco:

Jossey-Bass.

Bloor,

M., Frankland, J.,

Thomas,

M., &

Robson,

K. (2001).

Focus

groups in social research.

London:

Sage.

Coghlan, D. J., & B rann ick , T. (2001). Doing action research in your own organization. London:

Sage.

Fern, E. F. (2001).

Advanced

focus group

research.

Thousand Oaks,

CA :

Sage.

Fielder,

V D. (1995 , March 6).

Speech

presented to the Ne wspape r

Association

of America

( N A A )

research

conference,

Orlando, FL.

Flores, J. G., &

Alonso,

C. G. (1995). Using focus groups in

education

research: Exploring

teachers ' perspect ives on educational

change.

Evaluation Re v iew,

19,

16-29.

Frey, J. H, & Fontana, A. (1993). The group

interview

in

social

research. In D. L. Morgan (Ed.),

Successful

focus

groups: Advancing the state

of

the art (pp. 20–34). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Greenwood, D. , & Levin , M.

(1998).

Introdu ction to action

research: Social research

for

social

change.

Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage.



92 WILLEY

Goudreau , R .

(Winter 2002) .

Race

conversat ions blitz Cincin nati.

The

Civic Catalyst New s-

letter, W ashington,

DC: Pew Center fo r Civic Journalism.

Knodel, J. (1993). The design and analysis of focus group studies: A prac t ical approach. In D.

L. Morgan (Ed.) , Successful focus

groups:

Advancing

the

state

of the art

(pp. 35–50).

Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Krueger,

R. A.

(1988). Focus groups: A practical guide fo r

applied

research. New bury Park ,

CA:

Sage.

Krueger, R. A. (1993). Quality control in focus group research. In D. L. Morgan (Ed.), Suc-

cessful focus groups: Advancing the state of the art (pp. 65–85). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Lambeth,

E. B.,

Meyer,

P. E., &

Thorson,

E.

(1998) . Assessing p ublic journalism. Columbia ,

MO: University of Missouri.

Mathews, D., & McAfee, N. (1997). Making choices together:

The

power of p ublic deliberation.

Dayton, OH: The C har les F. Kettering

Foundat ion .

Merr i t t ,

D.

(1998) .

Public journalism

and

public

l i f e :

Why

telling

the

news

is not

enough

(2nd ed .) .

Hillsdale, N J: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Mer ton ,

R. K.

(1987) .

The

focussed interview

and

focus groups: Continuities

and

disconti-

nuities. Public Opinion Quarterly, 51,

pp. 550-566.

Morgan,

D. L.

(Ed.) .

(1993) .

Successful

focus

groups:

Advancing

the

state

of th e

art.

N e w bury

Park , CA :

Sage.

Morgan,

D. L., &

Krueger,

R. A.

(1993). When

to use

focus groups.

In D. L.

Morgan (Ed . ) ,

Successful

focus groups: advancing th e state of the art (pp. 3– 19) . Newb ury Park, CA: Sage.

Plaut ,

T. S.,

Landis,

S ., &

Trevor,

J .

(1993). Focus groups

an d

comm unity m obil izat ion:

A

case

study

from

rura l

No r th Caro l ina . In D. L.

Morgan (Ed.) , Successful

focus

groups:

advancing

th e

state

of

the art

(pp . 202–2 17 ) . New bury Park ,

CA:

Sage.

Putnam, R. D. (2001). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New

York:

Simon

& Schuster.

Rosen, J . (1999) . What

are

journalists

for?

New Haven , CT:

Yale

University Press.

Stringer, E. T. (1999). Action

Research

(2nd ed.) .

Thousand O a k s,

CA: Sage.

Thompson, R . (2002, April 7). First, w e ta lk . T he Cincinnati Enquirer, p. Al.

Willey, S. (1997). Civic journalism in practice: Case s tudies in the art of l is tening. Newspaper

Research Journal, 19 ,

16–29.

Y ankelovich, D. (1991 ). Coming to public judgment: M aking d emocracy w ork in a comp lex world.

New Y ork: Syracuse University.



6

Oral and Life Histories

Giving Voice

to the

Voiceless

Renita Coleman

Louisiana State Universi ty

In many

ways,

social science research is an extended

form

of journal ism . Both

observe, reco rd, a naly ze, and rep ort findings. Social scientists, how ever, are

largely free of the deadline pressures that define news wo rk. N evertheless, j our -

nalists

c an

benefi t from learning about

the

more methodical ap proach

of

social

science research and adapting it w here possible to their own work . The method

of oral or

life

history, m ostly prac ticed by historian s, sociologists, and anthropol-

ogists, is one research method

that

closely mirrors wh at jou rnalis ts do. In fact,

many texts

on the

oral history method draw

on the

work

of

journal i s t s

in de-

scribing

the practices of this m ethod and recou nting its history. Jou rnalis ts are

credited with popularizing

th e

technique

of

interviewing significant people

ab ou t their l ives. Some

say Horace

G reeley

of the

N ew

York

Tribune started

th e

trend when he went to Salt L ake City to interview Morm on patriarch Brigham

Young in 1859 (Ritchie, 1995).

How ever, jo urn al ists wo rking on deadline are not doing the same thing as

oral

historians even though the techniques bear many similarities. Journalists

have no time for multiple, lengthy interviews, typically use only a few shor t

quotes, do not

always

record the interview, and rarely transcribe tapes and ar-

chive them in a library for others to examine. Interviews become oral history

only whe n these criteria

are

m et, according

to

Ritchie (1995). N everth eless,

for

longer jou rna listic pro jects the oral history m ethod can be adap ted to suit jour-

9



94

COLEMAN

nalists ' w ork

and can enhance the

cred ibil i ty

of

their reports w ith

the

m ore rig-

orous at ten tion to issues of validi ty and

reliability,

and greater focus on

interpretat ion and analysis tha t is the hallm ark of social scientific research.

ORAL HISTORY DEFINE D

What

i s oral history if not j u s t an in te rv iew ? As the nam e implies, there m ust b e

some historical component

to a

pro jec t

in

order

to

separate

it from the

social sci-

entific

method

of

in-depth in terviews . Nei ther

can the

oral his tory intervie w er

"visit

the scene being

recalled

by the

interviewee

as in ethnographic research

(Hoopes, 1979,

p. 9).

M ost oral his tory p rojects take place years

after

the

even t

be ing exam ined.

There

is no s tr ict t ime l imit and even recent events can be the

focus of

oral history proje cts,

the

Vietnam

War of the

1970s

or the

civil r ights

m o v e m e n t

of the

1960s,

fo r

exam ple . Some e lem ent

of

passing t im e

is

required

to get the

kind

of

ref lection

and

analysis

of the

e ve n t

from

those

w ho

lived

through i t .

That

is w hat m akes oral his tory un iqu e. Also, oral history is par t icu-

larly

interested in people 's interpretat ions of these events years later, not jus t

the facts of the even ts themselves . H ow even ts have changed in people 's m inds

reveals

how

people have tried

to

make sense

of

their past .

Oral

his tor ies

are

of ten organized around

an

even t

o r a

s ub j e c t— the h is-

tory

of a certain ethnic

group

or

com muni ty,

for

example . Life histories

are de-

f ined

s o m e w h a t

d i f f e r en t ly

f rom o ra l h i s to r ie s in tha t they a re au to -

biographical , recounting people 's entire l ives . Usua l ly

fewer

people are inter-

viewed

but

more t ime

is

devoted

to each

in terview. O therwise ,

the

p rocedures

of life and

oral history

are the

same. Both methods

are pa r t i cu la r ly

focused

on

the personal experiences and inner feelings of the people involved, n o t

j u s t

ex -

ternal facts .

Oral

his tory has focused o n ordinary people and those whose s to-

ries are not often told in m a in s tr e a m m e d ia and books. "Giving voice to the

voiceless"

is the

phrase most of ten used

to

descr ibe oral his tory. Inclusion

of

overlooked groups of peop le helps con struc t a more

specific

and credible his-

tory.

This

goal

o f

oral h is tory a lso ref lec ts jou rna l i s ts ' growing aw areness

of the

importance

of diversity in sourcing. Using real

people,

as wel l as officials and

exper t s ,

h as

been popu la r ized

by the

civic

o r

pub l ic j o u r n a l is m mo ve m e n t

and

mirrors

the

in teres t

of

oral his tor ians.

ADVANTAGES AND D R A W B A C K S

One of the

advantages

of the oral history

approach

is the ability to fill in gaps

left

by report ing norms

of the

t ime

or

his tory wr i t ten from

the

perspect ive

of the

dominant social groups.

The

stories

of

Af r ic a n Am e r i ca n c o m m un i t i e s t ha t



6. ORAL A ND

L I F E

HISTORIES

95

were

ignored until

th e

1960s

is one

example (Hoopes, 1979).

The

method

has

its drawbacks

as

well. M em ories fad e. People's stories are,

by

nature, quite sub-

jective. In the

interest

of

scientific validity, oral historians h ave add ressed thes e

criticisms,

but not el iminated them. The

Oral

History Association has devel-

oped stan da rds and guidelines (Ritchie, 1995), and w ith training and practice,

anyone

can

conduct

a successful

oral history projec t.

This

method

is

often

rec-

om m ended to grad ua te s tud ents doing a thesis or dissertation, and even high

school s tud ents have u nde rtaken oral history projects— the Foxfire collection

of

mountain folklore being the most notable example (Wigginton,

1972) .

ORAL

HISTORY STEP

BY

STEP

Designing

the

Project

Almost

any

person, group , event,

or subject

with

a

pas t

i s

fodder

for an

oral

o r

life

history project. Most projects

are

broadly

conceived—Ellis

Island immi-

grants , for exam ple, Am erican Indians, contemp orary rel igious, ethnic, and ra-

cial

gro up s, social and occupational groups, o r topics from th e perspective o f

women have

all

been

th e

subject

o f

oral histories.

A ny

group

of

people

who

share a comm on identity, w he the r it is location, race,

ethnic

g roup , religion, or-

ganization,

occupation,

or

families,

can be

examined through oral histories.

Some recent civic journa lism projec ts that exam ine past events in the context

of presen t problems of a neighborhood resemb le oral histories.

Probably the best know n examples of oral history as journalism are the books

of

Stud s Terkel.

The

Pulitzer Prize-winning

author

captured

the

voices

of

ordi-

nary

people

who

l ived throug h

th e

Depression

in Hard

Times (1970) ,

and

W orld

W ar II in

The

Good

W ar

(198 4). Researche rs advise selecting

a

fixed

period

to

study, as Terkel did. A historically iden tifiable period or distinct time of social

change helps set limits and focus the p roje ct (Lance, 1984).

Another

approach

is to select a topic rathe r

than

a time period, as Terkel did for his book Working

(1974) , in

which

he

recorded

how

ordinary people thoug ht

and felt

ab out their

jobs.

Groups

of

people

a re

also exce llent

for

oral histories

a s

Alex Haley showed

when he wrote about descendants of slaves in

Roots

(1976) as did lorio (1999)

w h e n she told th e story of a group of M ennonites . Even ts can also be chosen for

an

oral history proje ct ,

as Tom

W icker

did

wi th

his

story

of the

Attica prison

u p-

rising,

A Time

to Die (1975) .

When

choosing

a

topic,

th e

researcher should always

ask, "Is

this reason -

able?" It would not be reasonable, for example, to do a project that required in -

terviewing form er slaves or Civil War soldiers since no firsthand witnesses are

alive

today. Perhaps

the

m ost common problem

is

choosing

a

subject tha t

is too



96

COLEMAN

broad. Narrowing

the

topic ensures

a

thorough t rea tm ent

of

w h a t

i s

chosen.

A f-

ter the

field

of

s tudy

is

chosen,

i t

should

then be

broken down into

specific

ma in

areas

to be

examined

in

de tai l—w ork life,

family life,

social life, educa t ion ,

and

dress, for exam ple (L ance, 1984). The areas will depend on the topic chosen,

and choice of areas will be guided by an int im ate k now ledge of the sub jec t .

Sampling

O ne of the grea t s trengths of the oral his tory m ethod is t ha t it inc ludes the sto-

r ies— cal led ev idence or accounts in social scien tif ic term s— of ord inar y peo-

ple,

no t j u s t the r ich and powerfu l . While the first oral his tory projects

recorded events from the perspect ive of e l i t e s— pres iden t s , congres smen , ce-

lebrities,

and

mil l iona ires—ora l h is tory

has

grown

to be

kn o wn

as a

me tho d

that

concentra tes m ost ly on the poor , working class , and minor i t ies . Such

groups are so often the s ub j e c t o f this method that oral his tory has become

synonymous wi th w ha t one au th or calls " the und ersid e" (Thom pson, 1988, p .

7). While

these groups o f people w ho have t r ad i t iona l ly been m arg ina l ized in

mains t ream his tory are typically easier to me e t and in te rv iew than the r ich

and fam ous , tha t i s no t the pr im ary reason w hy ora l h is tories cont in ue to

focus

on them. Ins tead , the v a l u e o f adding these voices and exper iences to our

knowledge of his tory and social change remains the dr iving force behind se-

lection

of

who m

to

in terview. W hile

it is

t rad i t ion a l tha t o ra l h is tor ies focus

on

everyday people , some researche rs caut ion aga ins t

a n

a t t i t u d e

of

reverse snob-

bery

that

e xc lude s

t he

middle class from suc h pro jec ts ; they

can be j u s t a s in-

te res t ing and colorful , an d their s tor ies j u s t as va lu ab le, as those o f poor people

(Hoopes, 1979, p. 71 ).

When

choosing the people to sample , as it is called in research, designers of

an oral history projec t shou ld also be concerned w i th representa t iven ess— that

is ,

m aking sure that the people interviewed represent the e ntire range of roles or

social st rat a

in the

group be ing s tudied.

A

p ro jec t about

the

his tory

of an

occu-

pa t ion—journa l i sm,

for

ins tance—shou ld inc lude people from execu t ive edi tor

to news clerks . Consciously includ ing those typically exclud ed is im po rtant in

oral history;

in the

past these groups have included women

and

m inor i ties ,

bu t

there are other, less obvious g roup s wh o are

frequently

forgotten. In a s tudy of

journal ists ,

for exam ple, polls and s tudies typically focus on reporters and edi-

tors— the w ord people— with p hotograph ers , ar t is ts , and layout people all but

ignored. Representativeness helps

t he

project revea l

th e

variety

of

social experi-

ence that comes with

different

roles and also helps gu ard ag ains t possible bias.

Selecting only reporters

and

editors m ight result

in

bias,

fo r

example .

O f

course ,

no generalizations can be ma de on the basis of one or two in terview s , but repre-



6.

ORAL A ND L I F E HISTORIES 97

sentativeness can be high with a small number of sources if the collection is bal-

anced and the sources are knowledgeable.

It may be hard to calculate in advance how many people to interview. The

range of informants, research terminology for the people interviewed, can be

anywhere from

2 or 3 for a

term paper

to

more

than 100 as in

Terkel's Hard

Times

(Hoopes, 1979). The rule of thumb for knowing when enough interviews have

been done

is this: When no new information is being revealed, do one more in-

terview,

and if

nothing

new

results, stop.

It

is standard in oral history research to interview th e oldest and most

signifi-

cant people

first

and move on to younger and more secondary sources later. Not

only

does this strategy help guard against interviewees dying

and the

effects

of

aging, but the more important sources can also help identify and persuade oth-

ers to cooperate. Asking sources to recommend others w ho could be sources is

known as snowball sampling in research. Of course, as with any project that re-

lies

on cooperative

sub jects,

it is easiest to start with people who are most willing

to participate and work toward the more reluctant sources. For his book on

d ea th , Terkel interviewed his

friends

and physician, as well a s people he had in-

terviewed for previous books. When many people have cooperated, it seems less

threatening

for

others.

Besides

word-of-mouth

referrals, successful

oral history projects have lo-

cated participants

by

putting

ads in

newspapers, newsletters,

and locations that

are likely to be seen by those w ho could serve as sources. Researchers also rec-

ommend contacting people by whatever means is most comfortable for them.

For some, a formal letter stating the nature of the project and purpose will work

best; for others, a

phone

call or in-person request m ay be more effective. In any

case,

a fol low-up letter is recommended so the interviewees will have the re-

searcher 's contact information, and the researcher will have a record for the

files. It's also not a bad idea to call and remind sources of the interview a few days

before it is to take place.

Preparing for the Interviews

As

with all news stories or academic papers, it is necessary to do the homework.

Doing plenty

of

background research

before

th e

first interview question

is

ever

asked is important on many levels. It helps in the construction of meaningful

questions,

makes interviews more efficient (n o wasted time asking, What year

did

that happen? ), and allows researchers to recognize bad answers a nd poor

memories . Background research makes interviewers well enough informed to es-

tablish rapport with their interviewees and get the interesting stories and in-

wardly reflective thoughts that make an oral history project come alive. Unlike



98 C

OLEMAN

th e

question

of how

man y people should

b e

interviewed ,

it is

easier

to

answer

how

much background research should be

done

for an oral history project—only

when the researcher has become thoroug hly steeped in the subject m at ter should

interviews

begin.

Some scholars even suggest

10

hours

of

background work

for

every

hou r of interviewing as a general guid eline (R itchie, 1995).

Sources of background information include everything that could

possibly

have

been

publ ished about the topic , inc luding pr im ary docu m ents such as

bir th and death records and secondary documents such as old n ew spaper a rt i -

cles.

Some

possible places to search include libraries, newspapers , churches ,

mus e ums ,

cou rtho use s, city halls, schools, genealog ies, even attics and base-

ments .

Oral

history researche rs often

forget

an

obvious source— other oral his-

tories. Historical societies archive oral history projects ' tapes, transcripts,

and

w rit ten reports.

Other

sources of oral history collection s can b e

found

in

refer-

ence books such as Oral History Collect ions by Meckle r and M c M u l l i n ( 1 9 7 5 ) ,

and Oral History in the United States b y

S h u m w a y

( 1 9 7 1 ) . A useful list of

con-

tacts

of

oral history associations

can be found in

Perks

and Thomson

(1998) .

T he final s tep in using bac kg roun d rese arch to pre pare for the intervie w s is

the construction of an interview guide .

This

can be anything from a

list

of spe-

cific,

open-ended

questions

to a set of

broad topics

to be

covered. Seasoned o ral

his tor ians recommend open-ended questions such

as

"Tell

me

abou t w ha t

it wa s

like

growing

u p

th ere?" whe n seeking broader , longer ,

an d

more interpretive

an-

swers. Open-ended

questions often inclu de how and why . Some

specific

ques-

tions will be necessary; they can be used to show the in terview er ' s know ledge ,

fo r

exam ple. Interview s, how ever , should consis t mainly of open -ende d ques-

tions

that

encourage the interviewees to rem inisce and go where they please .

Short

answers

from

sources are a sign of too many

specific

questions and not

enough open-ended

ones.

Qu estions or topics should be put in an order tha t r e-

flects

th eir logical relationsh ips;

one

question should lead na tu ra l ly

to the

n e x t

and avoid abrupt changes of topic.

Life

histories can proceed chronologically

while eve nt-cen tered projects shou ld be arranged by topic. The beg inning of

the

interview should s tar t broadly rath er

than

jum ping r ight in to

the

m ain ques-

tions.

O ne

oral historian developed

a

two-sentence format

for

ques t ions

and

believes

it

works best (M orrissey, 198 7).

The first

sentence s ta tes

the

problem

and the

second

poses

the

question:

For

exam ple, "The records show

y ou

were

a

leader

in

establishing better race relations.

Why was

this

you r

objective?"

Confronta t iona l

or

controversial questions should

be

saved

for the

end.

If

bit terness over

a

question

resul ts ,

that line

of

ques t ioning sh ould

be

shifted un t i l

better rapport has

been

established. O ne technique for gett ing over this hu rdle

is to

quote

someone

else

and

then

ask the

in terviewee

to

give

his or her

side

of

the s tory. For exam ple, "At the t ime, the new spap ers w ere report ing you had a



6. ORAL AND

L I F E

HISTORIES

99

conflict of interest.

What

w as your take on that? Interviewers can always re-

tur n to controversial o r important topics later, approaching

them

from a differ-

ent angle. A wrap-up question should end the interview—asking people to

reflect

or draw conclusions, or look ahead to the

future ,

for example. Finally in-

terviewers

should ask if there is anything

that

has been

left

out; people should be

encouraged to put what they consider important

into

the record.

Recording the Interviews

It is tempting for seasoned journalists to want to

forgo

the tape recording of in-

te rv iews—do

not do it. If the

project

is

truly

to be an

oral history, albeit

one

adapted for a journalistic production,

then

recording the interviews i s impor-

tant. Like

a ny

qualitative social science method, oral history

is

defined

by the

depth

of the

project. True qualitative methods depend

for

their veracity

on the

researcher being deeply immersed in the subject. To carry the weight of a social

science methodology, oral history adapted for journalistic purposes should be

more in-depth than the typical media story, even the weekenders and enterprise

stories that

are

typically longer

and

more expansive than weekday news articles.

To

achieve

the

kind

of

credibility that social science methods have, journalistic

oral histories must be more in-depth in the research and reporting phase, some-

thing along the

line

of the

kind

of time devoted to investigative reporting. The

sheer number of interviews and their lengthy duration make tape recording a

necessity. Even journalists

w ho

have become adept

at

distilling

the

essence

of

someone's quotes in notes and recalling them nearly verbatim will be daunted

by

the size of the task posed in an oral history project. Note-taking is simply no t

up

to the

task.

The

longer

the

interviews last,

the

more

the

note-taker

will

miss.

Recording allows interviewers to focus

their

attention and listen to what is said,

think ahead to the next question, and formulate unexpected questions rapidly.

Recordings also serve

as a

form

of

self-protection.

In fact,

there

is no

reason

not

to

record

and

take

notes at the

same time, using

the recording to

pick

up

what

the notes missed and quote more accurately. Transcribing of tapes is recom-

mended because of the deteriorating quality of tapes, but not required (Ritchie,

1995). If tapes are not transcribed, an abstract or index is recommended, and

the

notes taken during

the

interviews

can

serve this function.

Taping interviews requires a good deal o f attention to technology. First, only

good quality portable tape recorders should be used. It is nice to have one that

signals

when the end of the tape is about to be reached. High quality tapes—60

to 90

minutes long—and

an

extra supply

of

batteries

are

also important. Good

microphones—never

the

built-in kind—should

be

used,

and

many interviewers

prefer

the lavaliere mikes that clip

onto

clothing. Equipment should always be



1OO COLEMAN

tes ted before every use and back -up equ ipm ent available. If the project

does

have

the

resources

for

transcribing

the

tapes, t ranscr ibing machines with foot

pedals make the task easier.

Collecting

the

Data—Also

Known

as

Interviewing

When i t

comes t im e

to sit

down

and

interv iew someone,

the specific

t echn iques

that can

ensure

the

success

of the

in terview

will vary

depend ing

on the

person

being interviewe d and the interviewer. How ever , there are some gen eral guid e-

l ines that have been shown to work

well

most of the tim e. Since ora l history re-

searchers advise using interviewing techn iques perfected by jou rnalis ts , m ost

seasoned reporters

will

already

be

aware

o f

most

of

these suggestions.

A quiet location

that

is com fortable for both interv iew er and interviewee is

preferable.

H aving a desk betw een the two is a lm ost nev er a good idea because i t

creates psychological distance. The tape recorder and microphone should be

placed where the in terviewer can see it to check its func t ion , but out of the di-

rect

line

of

sight

of the

interviewee.

It

should never

be

concealed. Beginning

wi th

small talk about some points

the

in terviewer

has in

common wi th

the in-

terviewee

w ill usually

he lp

put the

person

at

ease

and

begin

the

crucial process

of

establishing rapp ort . L is tening

carefully and

en courag ing candid responses

is

also crucia l.

Since

the point of oral history is to record another person's point o f

view, even if it

seems exaggerated

or boastful, it is

essentia l

to

encourage people

to be honest,

accura te ,

and

revealing.

O ne of the

h ardes t tasks

is to

move people

beyond the i r na tu ra l re luc tance

to

give

an

honest

and

cr i t ica l eva lua t io n

of the

past (Ritchie,

1995).

Oral

histories are also focused on ideas, emotions, and behavior (Hoopes,

1979), so questions should probe these areas , as

well

as his tor ical

facts.

Obser-

vations

and

opinions that

are not already well

documented shou ld

be col-

lected—a goal

that fits

well w ith the purposes of civic journ alism projects . So

interviewers should leave room for people to ta lk abo ut w ha t is on their m inds,

abandoning prepared questions and

following

some une xpe cted pat hs if neces-

sary.

Interviewers

will

w a n t

to

wa tch

out for

rehearsed

or

often -told s tories ,

and

try to

move

the

person beyond them . Q ues t ions should guide w i tho ut leading.

A s

polls

and

surveys

have shown,

the way a

question

is

worded

can

change

the

answer. N aturally , loaded questions— questions tha t lead

a

person

to

give

an an-

swer

the in terviewer expects—should be avoided. In terview ers should never

in te r rup t ,

but

still kee p

the

dialogue m oving.

O ne

techn ique in terviewe rs some-

times

use is to

fill

in

names, dates ,

and other

informat ion tha t

the

person being

interviewed

cannot

remember .

This

is one p lace where the background re-

search

will

come in handy. Some people m ay try to tes t the in terview er ' s know l-



6. O R A L A N D

LIFE H I S T O R I E S

1 O 1

edge o f the subject b y pretending not to know some information to see if the

in terviewer will offer the correct answer. If the answer to a fact question is un-

k now n , other sources can provide the who, what, when, and where. Keep inter-

views focused

on

getting insights into

how and

why. Only

one

question should

be

asked

at a

time,

and

follow-up questions should always

be

included.

One

technique for thinking of these questions is for interviewers to put themselves in

the position of the person being interviewed, visualize the world from his or her

perspective, and think of questions that shed light on that place and time.

It

is

natural

for

people

to be

reluctant

to

talk about difficult issues,

so

inter-

viewers

need

to be

prepared

to ask

about

painful and

embarrassing topics

in a

sensit ive

way.

If the

answers

are

less

than

forthcoming, this should

be

pointed

out respectfully. Little is gained in oral

histories

by going off the record. If the

purpose o f oral history is to make known what i s not, keeping this information

conf ident ia l

will

not

advance that goal. Instead,

it is

recommended that inter-

viewers

stop

the

tape

and

hear

the

person's problem without having those

thoughts recorded,

but not

allow

the

information

to be

off

the

record.

A

tech-

nique many jou rna l i s t s

use to

encourage people

to

expand

on

ideas

is the

preg-

nant pause—remaining silent indicates the interviewer expects more and

often

people

will

give

it.

In oral histories, unlike journalism, more than one interview is usually con-

ducted. Among

the

many benefits,

it

establishes more intimacy between inter-

viewer

and interviewee. There is no ideal number of interview sessions to have

with each person; some people have more to contribute than others. Each inter-

view session should b e limited to 1 1/2 o 2 hours to avoid tiring everyone. Inter-

views

are

best done one-on-one

to

establish

a

relationship; group interviews

can be fruitful because people will feed off each other's memories, but these

should

be considered supplements to individual interviews.

Analyzing,

Interpreting,

and

Writing

Up the

Data

Firs t - t ime oral historians will be amazed—and daunted—by the amount of

mate r ia l they have collected. Now,

the

problem

is

where

to

begin analyzing

and writing. Most researchers using any qualitative method recommend not

wait ing

until

all the

data

are

collected

to

begin analyzing.

A s

soon

as an

inter-

view i s finished, the researcher should go over the notes or tapes and fill in the

d e ta i l s—th e environment, significant body language of the interviewee, gen-

era l impressions

of th e

interviewer,

etc.

(Hoopes, 1979). This

is

also

t he

time

for the

researcher

to

begin writing

the

reflective

and

analytical interpretations

that w ill form the basis of the report. Analysis should

focus

on the larger ques-

tions and meanings in broad context,

critical thinking

about the evidence and



1O2 COLEMAN

interpretation

of it (Hoopes, 1979). Such journal-like entries make the wri t-

ing

task much easier in the end.

This

aspect

o f

interpretation

m ay be the

hardest part

fo r

t rad i t iona l ly

o b -

jective journalists to reconcile when using oral history methods. There is

con t rove rsy within

the

social sciences over whether people's stories should

be interpreted by another person—the wri ter . The consensus seems to be

that no interpretation adds little to our knowledge, and the Q&A f o r m a t

that is

left

is

unlikely

to be

interesting enough

for

many people

to

use. Thus

th e voiceless would remain so . The harshest cr i t ic i sm o f oral history sans in -

terpretation

is

that

it

represents

a

cowardly reluctance

to

think (Johnson,

1994,

p.

14).

The

minimum, says

one

expert,

is

that authors should provide

some background

fo r

their interviews

to

place

th e

interviewees

in

context

(Ri t ch ie , 1995, p. 104). This background and context can be achieved by re-

lating

the

stories

to the

broader culture

and

society, offering insights

into the

c u l t u r a l significance of an event, or relating the evidence to wider patterns

and theories (Hoopes, 1979). Said Thompson, The abi l i ty to make connec-

tions

between separated spheres of

life

is an intrinsic strength of oral history

(Thompson, 1988, p. 257).

A

more

subject ive

approach

to

interpretation taken

by

oral historians

is to

look for hidden and half-conscious meanings in people's statements, or to inter-

pret what has been said through a specific theoretical lens. For example, oral

histories

of

workers talking about their jobs could

be

interpreted using

a

Marxist

perspect ive,

o r

women's stories could

b e

examined through

the

eyes

o f feminis t

theory. Interpretations of oral history evidence should not distort people's sto-

ries

so

much that they

no

longer recognize them, however. While

the

people

w ho give their accounts for an oral history project may not interpret them the

way the interviewer does, they should at least recognize their stories and agree

that

the

interpretation

is one

that

can

t ruthful ly

be

told.

In

writing oral histories

it is

important

to

devote

no

more than half

th e

report

to interpretation with at least half or more devoted to the quotes of the inter-

viewees. This fulfills

the

requirements

of

letting people tell their

ow n

stories.

Editing and

rearranging

for

clarification

is

allowed

so

long

as the

original mean-

ing is

retained.

It is

also recommended that questions,

as

well

as

answers,

be in-

cluded

in the

write-up lest

it

appear that people were

raising

these

issues

themselves rather than being prompted by questions.

Other

Issues

Oral history

is

often criticized

on

grounds

of

validity

or

credibility because peo-

ple's accounts

are

subjective. Scholars celebrate this,

saying

that:



6.

O R A L AND

L I F E HISTORIES 1O 3

th e

credibil i ty

of

ora l sources

i s a d i f f e r e n t

credibility

... The

impor tance

of

oral testi-

mo ny may often l ie not in its adherence to facts but r ath er in its divergence from there .

(Portelli,

1998, p. 68)

They have also addressed ways to imp rove this reliabil i ty . A s w ith any re-

search method,

no

single piece

of

evidence should

be

trusted alone; every-

th ing needs to be com pared against other evidence (Ritchie, 1995). Two

corroborat ing s ta tements should

be

collected

for

every fact ,

and

oral testi-

m o n y shou ld be checked against writ ten records. Using statis t ics to set the

nar ra t ive in a con text is also he lpfu l. The gene ral rules in exam ining eviden ce

are

to

look

for

internal consistency,

to

seek confirmation

in

other sources,

and to be

aw a r e

of

pote ntial bias" (Thom pson, 1988,

p.

102).

The

real goal

should be "to reveal sources of bias, rath er th an prete nd they can be nul l i f ied"

(Thompson, 1988, p. 117) .

W hile journal is ts

do not

often

use

legal release

forms, it is

necessary

to do so

with oral histories. The law grants copyright automatically to people whose

words

a re

recorded

for 50

years after their death; there

is no

need

for

them even

to

register

it. A

deed

o r

gift

of

contract

is

usually collected

at the

t ime

of the

first

interview (see sample

in Appendix

6.1).

It is

customary

in

oral history research

to

p resen t

the

interview ees w ith

a

gift,

usually

copies

of the

tapes

o r

transcripts ,

book , or article (R itchie, 1995). Archiving of tapes and trans cripts is ano ther is-

sue tha t specifically concerns oral history,

and

some

say it is one of the

def ining

character is t ics

of this method . Placing th e tapes in a library for o thers ' u se is cus-

tomary, but new technologies are presenting other means for saving the entire

record, such as CD-ROM and W eb sites .

AN

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

In May

2000,

The Wichita Eagle's general assignment reporter and columnist

Roy W enzl w rote a series tha t serves as a good exam ple of the ada ptatio n of the

oral-life history m ethod

to

jou rna l i sm .

While

W enzl said

he did not

approach

it

with oral history in mind (personal com m unication, April 17, 2002 ), m any

cha racteris tics of his series abou t a runa w ay g ir l fit the description of this quali-

tative research method.

The eigh t-part series told the story of Karen I rene "Reenie" Countryman,

whose m othe r kil led herself w hen K aren was 13. A f ter 3 years in and out of

f o s -

ter

care

and the Wichita Children's Home,

Karen persuaded

a

judge

to

free

her

from state custody and allow her to live on her ow n— at age 16. Ev entually , Ka-

ren we nt back to the Children's Home to work and joined the ou treach program

riding arou nd se arching for troub led kids. She pestered the stree t kids, trying to

help them , and convince them to help them selves. She even saved a few lives.



1O4 COLEMAN

The series is more a melding of oral history ab out a topic (the social problem

of runa w ay teens) and

life

history (the story of Karen's short but eventful life)

than purely one or the

other.

The

choice

of

subject

m a t te r is in keeping wi th the

oral history method's concentration o n margina l ized groups of people; in m a in -

stream reporting,

it is usually officials and

exper ts

w ho

tell

us

abou t runaw ays ,

not the

runaway s themselves .

While officials and

exper ts

get

the i r

say in the se -

ries, this story does indeed give voice to the voiceless by focusing on the perspec-

t ive of the runaway children. The life history aspect of the project is that it

concentrates

on one

person's life

as an

example ,

but

rather than covering

K a-

ren's entire life history,

it

focuses

on 4 or 5

years .

T he p ro jec t

fulfills

the r equ i r ement of representa t iveness in its use of

sources from all s tra ta o f this social c ircle— stories from the judg e , cour t em -

ployees, social w orkers , Children 's Home

staffers ,

vo lun tee r s , and run aw ays

keep the s tory balanced with

other

v iew points . Dozens o f d i f ferent people ap -

pear

in the

stories,

and

Wenzl in terviewed even more

who did not

appea r

in

the series. "I didn't want to accept the story at

face

va lue f rom jus t her, so I

spent a lot of t ime ge tt ing somebody to confirm ev eryth ing," W enzl said (p er-

sonal com m unica t ion , Apr i l 17 , 20 02 ) .

This

helped the s tory be more

fully

represen tat ive of the issue, but i t a lso added to the rel iab il i ty of the repo rt by

corroborating all s ta tements .

W enzl also did plenty of back groun d research, and some of it shows up in the

articles

in the

form

of

statistics about troub led teens, su icide,

and

homelessness .

M ost of the research rem ains in the back grou nd, but was cruc ial for the s tory.

Wenzl

spent

15

months

working on the story, allowing him to become deeply

immersed in the

topic.

"1 didn't w ork on it ful l - t ime, but a lot of tim e was spent

on it. There w as a lot of

interviewing ,

her and

others,"

he

said.

"I

lost coun t

of

how m any tim es I interview ed h er, m aybe 30 or 50 tim es. Some w ere really long,

and some were

short

(personal communication, April 1 7 , 2002) .

Other

people

were also interviewed more

than

once, but not as many t imes as Karen . In the

case

of

this private

and

wary 18-year-old, Wenzl found that numerous inter-

views

were

needed to

establish

the

t rus t

and

int imacy necessary

for

Karen

to

open

up and

offer

a tru e and searching ac coun t of her life (personal com m unica-

tion,

April 17, 200 2). Sti ll , W enzl foun d her rel uc tan t to ta lk about c er ta in

d i f f i -

cult issues.

In one

story, Wenzl wrote:

Before the beating, she'd been sleeping in a shed in Hay svil le , l iving on the s tree ts w ith

her

older brother

Jeremiah.

She'd

run aw ay from the foster

family

that took her in after

her

mother 's suicide.

She

doesn't w a n t

to say

why. (W enzl , 2000,

M ay 9, p. 1A )

Karen herself acknowledged this relu ctan ce , so typical of life historie s, in a

piece

that

was

published

at the end of the

series:



6. ORAL A ND L I F E

HISTORIES 105

Deciding whether

to

share

m y

life wi th

the

world

was one of the

hardest decisions

1

have ever made. All of us are a bit afraid to share the

intimate experiences

of our lives.

( Coun t ryman ,

2000,

M ay 14, p .

11A)

A vete ran repor ter , W enzl did not use an interview guide, nor did he tape re-

cord

the

interv iews. That

is a

m ethod

he has

grown com for tab le with ,

and it was

necessary to put the main

subjec t

o f the story a t ease. "A list of questions is in-

timidating w ith somebody like her," Wenzl said. "Sometimes I w ould n't ev en

hav e the noteboo k o ut. I'd pul l i t out later and write i t down" (personal com m u-

nication, April

17,

2002).

In add ition to corroborating K aren's s tatem ents w ith others ' W enzl over-

came validity issues

by

including information

from

w ritten

records.

In

addition

to

statist ics

abo ut suicide and runaw ays , W enzl included inform ation from cour t

records, which was problem atic

since

juve nile records are sealed. "After a lot of

nego tiation we wo rked out a deal where the state and c ou rt people wou ld look

in the records and tell me if something was in there and was true or not," said

Wenzl

(personal com m unicat ion, Apr i l 17, 2002 ) . Another , more un us ua l doc-

um ent source W enzl included

in the

series

was

lengthy excerpts

from

Karen's

ow n journa l , w ith each en try dated in the series. Eac h story is mad e up mainly of

direct quotes, supplemented with details that Wenzl reconstructed to paint a

picture and m ake the series come alive:

So when R eenie pul led open the back door a t 418 N. Spruce, the sm ell wo uld float out

l ike a wa ve . And she could sm ell the floral shampoo in Mom 's hair when they hug ged.

(Wenzl, 2000a, May 7, p. 3A)

Feelings such as grief, anger, and gu ilt also figure

into

the stories, eith er in the

quo tes or in the

interview ee's self-reflections. K aren said:

It h u r t s s o m u c h . What happened to me and (my bro ther ) Je remiah, w ha t happened to

m y M o m , it h u r t s t oo much. (Wenzl, 2000b, M ay 7, p . 1 A)

Finally, the topic of analysis and in terpre tation , so ingrained in jo ur na lis ts

to avoid, was skillfully han dled in this series by allowing the people in the sto-

ries to offer the i r ow n interpreta t ion and analysis. "I didn' t try to ed i to r ia l ize . I

didn ' t try to put m y ow n spin on i t . I

j u s t

t ried to do jus t ic e to wh at w as a great

story

bec ause of w hat happe ned to her and w hat she d id ," sa id Wenzl (per-

sonal com m unica t ion , Apr i l 17 , 2002) .

This

repor ter mainta ine d h is ob je ct iv-

ity

and p rov ided background fo r b roader cu l tu ra l and social patterns, bu t

incorp orated interp reta t io n and analys is provided by others , not h im self . For

ex am p l e ,

one of the

re f lec t ions

by

Judge Bacon,

w ho

emanc ip a t ed K a r en ,

on

her

dec is ion-m aking process , sa id :



1O6 COLEMAN

This

child,

thought

the judge , was giving her facts. Not empty promises, as so many

other run away s make w hen asking

for

the i r f reedom. R ea l informat ion .

T he girl had

submitted eight full pages

o f

apar tm ent pr ice compar isons

and

weekly shopping lists,

showing how she'd care fo r herself if freed

from

custody. . . . In those pages o f lists, Ba-

con saw the threads of an unf in ished tale . It was the ta le of a Mom and a l i t t l e girl, a

story embedded in sheet after sheet of paper, typed out or w rit ten in Karen's fluid h a n d .

(Wenzl, 2000, May 12, p . 1A)

Then

there

are

ref lect ions from Karen herself :

W e all have a choice," Reenie w ould say years la ter. "W hen the bad things come, we

can

decide

to be

bad,

or w e can

decide

to be

good. (Wenzl, 2000,

May 8 , p . 1A)

Also:

I guess w ha t

I

wan t people

to

know

by me

sharing

m y

life

is

this:

There is

hope .

I

h a v e

gone through

a lot in my

life,

and I

feel

I

have turned that around

to use it

towards

my

s t rength

and

happiness.

M y

pa in

h as

helped

m e

find

m y

passion.

N o

m a t t e r

how

ha rd

your life is, you can surviv e . (Cou ntrym an, 2000, M ay 14, p . 1 1 A )

Finally,

W enzl

narrated:

Bu t for all the

mem or ies ,

for all she

sha res w i th Mom , Karen

ha s

been able

to say

some-

thing

new in the

last year. 'I'm

NOT my

M om. ' (Wenzl,

2000c, May 14, p. 1 A)

CONCLUSION

As

this

series show s, good, in-depth jou rnalism and social science methods such

as

oral history have m any sim ilarities. Oral historians have studied the practice

of journal ism

and

incorporated techniques

from it

into their method

of re-

search. Now it is t im e for jou rna l i s t s to d o the same. W ri ters who m a k e an

effort

to learn about these social science methods and work to incorporate appropri-

ate

techniques from them

into

their journalist ic practice

will

find themselves

with m ore confidence in the credib ility of their w ork because they will have ad-

hered to respected scientific

methods

for assuring validity and reliability.

R E F E R E N C E S

Countryman, K. (2000, May 14). A message

from

Ka ren . The Wichi ta Eagle , p. 11A.

Haley,

A .

(1976) . Roots: The saga of an American

family.

Garden City,

NY :

Doubleday.

Hoopes, J. ( 1979) . Oral

history:

A n introduction for s tudents . Cha pe l

Hi l l ,

NC: The Unive rs i ty

of

North Carolina Press.

lorio, S. H. (1999). Faith's harvest . Norm an, O K: Un ivers i ty o f O klahoma Press.

Johnson,

D .

(1994, April 10) .

I, the

ju ry :

W hy

this nove list can ' t resist

a

good book panel.

New York Times Book Review, p. 14.



6. ORAL A ND

L I F E

HISTORIES 1O 7

Lance, D . (1984) . Oral history project design. In D. K. Dunaway & W. K . Baum (Eds . ) , Oral

history: An interdisciplinary anthology

(pp.

116–123).

Nashville ,

TN: The American Asso-

ciation for State and Local History.

Meckler , A. M., & M c Mul l in , R . (1975) . Oral history collect ions. N ew York: R. R. Bowker.

Morrissey, C. T. (1987) . The two-sentence format as an interviewing technique in oral his-

tory f ie ldwork. Oral

History

Review,

15, 43-53.

Perks, R., &

Thomson,

A. (Eds.)

(1998). The oral history reader. London:

Routledge.

Portelli,

A.

(1998).

What

makes oral history differe nt.

In R.

Perks

& A.

Thomson (Eds . ) ,

The

oral history reader (pp. 63-74). London: Routledge .

Ritch ie, D. A. (19 95). Doing oral

history.

New Y ork: Twayne Publishers.

Shumway , G. ( 1 971 ) . Oral

history

in the

United

States: A

directory.

New Y ork: Oral History As-

sociat ion.

Terkel,

S.

(1970) .

Hard Times:

A n oral history of th e

Great Dep ress ion. New

York :

Pantheon.

Terkel, S.

( 1 974 ) .

Working:

People

talk

about what

they

do all day and how

they

feel

about what

they

d o. New York: Pantheon.

Terkel^ S. (1984) . "Th e Good W ar": An

oral history

of World War Tw o . New York: Pantheon.

Thompson ,

P.

(1988).

The voice

of

the

past: Oral

history

(2nd Ed.) . O xford, England: O xford

Univers i ty Press.

Wenzl , R . (2000a, May 7) . Reenie and mom. The Wichita Eagle, p. 3A .

Wenzl , R. (2000b, May 7). Karen lost and found. The Wichita Eagle, p. 1A.

Wenzl , R . (2000, M ay 8) . Childhood lost. A girl's life unravels af ter her mom's suicide. The

Wichita Eagle , p. 1A.

Wenzl , R .

(2000,

M ay 9). Good

girl,

b ad

girl.

A

pot-smoking

k id

f inds t rouble

on the

s tree t .

The

Wichita Eagle,

p. 1 A.

Wenzl ,

R . (2000, M ay 1 2) . Judgem ent Day. A 16-year-old asks the cour t to grant her free-

dom.

The

Wichita Eagle,

p. 1A.

Wenzl ,

R .

(2000,

M ay

14).

"I am not my

Mom."

The

Wichita Eagle,

p. 1 A.

Wicker, T.

( 19 7 5 ) .

A t ime to die . N ew

York:

Quadrangle.

Wigginton,

E .

(Ed . ) (1972) .

T he

Foxfire

book. Garden

City,

NY :

Doubleday.

APPENDIX

6.1

D E E D OF GIFT TO THE PUBLIC

DOMAIN

I,

( in terviewee) . do hereby give to (organization). the

tape

recordings and t ran-

scripts of my

interviews

conducted on

(da te) .

I

authorize

use of the

tapes

and

transcripts in such a manner as may best serve the educational and historical

objectives of this oral history program. In making this

gift,

I volu ntarily convey

ownership of the tapes and transcripts to the public

domain.

(Ag ent) (donor) (date )

(From

Senate Historical Office, Ritchie, 1995, p. 213)






7

Focused Interviews

Sharon Hartin lorio

Wichita State Universi ty

O ne

t ime-honored tradi t ion

of

journal ism

is the

street interview.

To do a

street

interview,

a reporter goes to a public place, stops people by chance, and asks

each

one a

single question abo ut

an

important issue

of the

day. This v ery simple

form

of

reporting community reaction il lustrates three pivotal features

of the

qualitative research m ethod called focus ed interviewing. First, the r epo rter

seeks

out eve ryd ay citizens, not gove rnm ent officials, high-ranking business

leaders,

or

social elites. Second,

the

reporter asks

each

person

the

same question

in the same w ay. Third, the resulting new s report com es directly

from

the words

of those interviewed. The social science method of focused interviews, how-

ever, is not m erely an extend ed form of the street interview.

T he street interview can produce no more than the brief, snapshot opinions

of those w illing

to

sh are their views. Focused interview m ethodology

is a

qual i-

tat ive research tool that

can

elicit in-de pth responses

a nd identify

commonali-

ties am ong the replies people give. The off-the-cuff comments picked up from

s t reet in terv iew s are mere ly interesting opinions of individuals. The purp ose of

the

focused interview

is not

only

to

identify

and

report,

like

the

street

interview,

but

also

to

interpret

and

show

any

shared insights fou nd among

the

individuals '

replies.

T he

focus

is to

uncover accurately

how a

group

o f

interviewees u nde r-

stand a prob lem or w ha t they believe about a certain topic. The ac tua l interview

process is persona l and cond ucted one-on-one to draw out each individ ual 's

unique viewpoint (Merton, Fiske, & Kendall,

1956/1990).

O9



11O IORIO

The

focused in te rv iew makes

a

specific con tr ibu t io n

to

social science

re-

sea rch and jou rna l i sm . I t enriches inform at ion ga thered by o ther m ethods

th rough revea l ing sub jec t ive responses— tha t is , a n s w e r i n g w h a t and how

people think

about

a

particular subject.

The

method, sometimes described

as

"guided conversa t ions" or "conversa t ions with a purpose" (Goll in , 1956/

1990, p. x), can p roduce ac cu ra te in fo rmat ion abou t the con tex t of pol i t ica l ,

social,

and

economic

life for

ind iv idua ls .

The focused

in t e r v i ew

is a

v a l u a b l e

tool

for the jou rna l is t .

IN THE B E GI NNI NG:

E ARL Y USE OF FOCUSED INTERVIEWS

In the

early 1940s,

both

academic

and

commercial investigators began

to de-

velop sophisticated me thods of conduc t ing surveys. W ork ing w i th

newly

devel-

oped quant i ta t ive , s ta t i s t i ca l des igns , t echniques to su rvey i n d i v i d u a l s

accurately were studied

and

refined.

T he

beneficial result

w as

tha t

the

surveyed

reactions supplied

by a

l imi ted num ber

o f

people could

be

genera l ized

to

t h a t

of

a larger

population

of similar ind ividuals. In

other

words,

if conducted

correctly,

the

survey

of a

sm all g roup would produce resu l ts tha t could (w ith in s ta t is t ica l

and other limitations) predict the overall responses of a mu ch larger group. As

might be expec ted, the survey method blossomed as busine ss and p olit ical in ter -

ests recognized

its

benef i ts .

Re search p riorities, how ever, shifted

as war

engulfed Europe

and

th rea tened

the

United S ta tes .

O ne

Novem ber evening

in

1941,

Paul Lazarsfeld, a professor

at Columbia U niversity,

took

t ime from his

busy,

wa r-related research agenda to

invite R obert M erton, his new colleague at the university, to dinner. Lazarsfeld

was so

engrossed

in his

challenging w ork that

before

the

first

course

was

served;

he

suggested that

he and

Mer ton

visit the

s tudio wh ere Lazarsfeld

w as

tes t ing

responses to se veral radio morale programs for the U.S.

Office

of Facts and Fig-

ures, the predecessor of the Office of War Informat ion (Mer ton et al., 1956/

1990).

When

the two arr ived at the stu dio, the re searc h was in progress. W hile

the test-groups stated what they did and did not like about the program, the

on-site researchers lacked an empirical method to explore what those inter-

viewed did or did not like and "why." Merton was enticed. He began wo rking

the next week on a repor t tha t developed tech niques for in-d ep th ques t ionin g

of interviewees and launched the first focused interv iew strategy.

Through

m u c h of W orld W ar II, M er ton and

Lazarsfeld

c ont in ued th eir col-

laboration on comm unicat ion research projects and the methods to build more

effective research designs. They were joined by another comm unication re-

search pioneer, Carl H ovlan d, who w as on leave from Yale U nivers i ty d u r ing th e



7 FOCUSED I NT E R V I E W S 111

war.

Hovland

understood the

benefits

of

qualitative interviews

as

ad juncts

to

the

exper iments tha t

he

designed (Merton

et

al. , 1956/1990). Hovland's

and

Lazarsfeld's contr ibutions led to quantitative methods, but both emphasized

the

balance

and

impor tance that

the

qua litative work

of

this period bro ug ht

to

their ground-breaking research. Lazarsfeld (1944) laid

out the

aims

of the fo-

cused

interv iew

as follows:

1. to clarify the meanings of common

concepts

and opinions;

2.

to

distinguish

the

decisive elements

of an

expressed opinion;

3.

to determine what influenced a person to form an opinion or to act in a

cer ta in way ;

4. to classify complex attitude patterns; and

5. to u nd e r s tand the interpretations that people attr ibute to their m otiva-

tions to

act .

Lazarsfeld's purposes,

first

published in 1944, remain, despite the interven-

ing years, the foundat ion of focused interviewing

(Lindlof,

1995).

Merton's projects during World

War II

included

a

s tudy

of

Arm y tra ining

films

and the

charisma

of

Kate Sm ith,

a

popular singer

of the day who

raised

more

than $39 m ill ion in pledges to buy war bonds. W orking w ith Ken dall and

Fiske, M erton published an article and a book ab ou t how to use focused inter-

views (Mer ton et al., 1956/1990; M er ton & K end all, 1946). These publications

laid

out the principles and procedures of interviewing that Merton, Fiske, and

Kendal l had developed by examining the persuasiveness of propaganda efforts

dur ing the war years

(Morgan,

1988). T he

overall criteria they developed

are

paraphrased below as:

1. Ra nge. The interv iew should enable interv iewee s to maxim ize the var i -

ety of e lements and pa t te rns in the s i tua t ion or topic the in te rv iewees

are asked to describe, as wel l as

document,

the

full

array of responses

they

m ay give.

2. Specificity. The interv iew shou ld e l ic i t h ighly precise repo r ts of the d if -

f e r en t

aspects of the si tuation or topic to which interv iewees are asked

to

r e sp ond .

3. Dep th . The interview should help interviewees to describe their emo-

tions, ev alua tions , and their reasoned analysis of the situation or topic as

well as the degree of their involvement with it.

4.

Personal Co ntext.

The

interview should bring

out the

prior experience

of

in terv iewees

and their personal attr ibutes that give the si tuation the dis-

tinctive meanings they express (Merton et al.,

1956/1990).



112 I O R I O

M erton's et al. (1956/1990) focused interview guide included inform ation

on a

related

method,

focus groups, that were

first

introduced

in the

1920s.

Soon, comm ercial researchers foun d

that

interviewing

in

groups made

for

faster

data collection

and was

less expensive than personal interviews.

The focus

group technique was quickly incorporated into commercial marketing research

that grew exponentially from the 1950s to the end of the 20th century and re-

mains an extrem ely po pula r tool for m arketing and me dia research today.

Post-World W ar II, M erton and h is colleagues continu ed their w ork, but little

research tha t used the interv iew m ethod they proposed was published by them

(Morgan, 1988), nor has it been

widely

used by sociologists in general . O ne ex-

ample

of a

published focused interview

study

in

social science research

is

Zuckerman's "Interviewing an Ultra-eli te"

(1972) ,

an article that revealed se-

quences in the careers of Nobel lau reates. An other is "Media Consum ption and

Girls W ho

Want

to Have Fun" (Peterson, 1987).

Despite

the

focused interview's lack

of

attraction

as a

social science

re-

search method, M erton, Fiske,

and

Kendall fueled

the

pop ular trend

in

focus

group research, and, over t ime, the contr ibut ion of the focused interview

method

as a

research tool

has

been

far

reaching.

The

method

has

informed

the in terview process in major branches of social science research within

both

the

public

and

p r ivate sectors .

In the

p reface

to the

second edi t ion

o f

The

Focused Interview (M erton, Fiske, & Ken dal l ) pub l ished in 1990, M erton

wrote tha t he could not :

presume to say how m u ch of the seeming discon t inui ty between the focused interview

and its modified version in the form of focus groups is act ual l y another ins tance ot

obliteration

by

incorporation

... If the

focused interview

has

experienced even occa-

sional

obliteration

by

incorporation

in the originating

field

of

sociology,

one is inclined

to suppose

that

it is all the

more

(a fortiori) likely to

have occurred

in

other

fields into

which

it had diffused. (p. x x x )

T he concepts and techniques unde r lying the focused interview process

can be foun d repea ted and ex tended in rela ted q ual i ta t iv e in terview m eth-

ods

including

the

personal

o r

in tensive in terview,

in

which in -dep th

re-

sponses are elicited but uniform interview guides are not employed (e.g. ,

Brissett

&

Edgley,

1990).

The

diffusion

Merton noted also

can be

observed

across

the

social science disciplines.

For

e x a m p l e ,

th e

p e r m e a t io n

is

seen

in

works on the sociological in terview (Fielding & Fielding, 1986; Maso &

Wester, 1996; M cC racke n, 1988) , in pu bl ic at ion on social science and ed u-

ca t ion in terv iewing (Seidman , 1998) , in governm ent s tud ie s (N ath an ,

1986), and in co m m un icat ion res earc h (Berger, 2000;

Lindlof ,

1995; Potter,

1996; Wimmer & Dom in ick , 2002 ) .



7. FOCUSED

INTERVIEWS

113

COMPARING FOCUSED

AND JOURNALISTIC SOURCE INTERVIEWS

Journalis ts

who work on deadlines and do interviews daily use many of the prin-

ciples and techniques of the focused interview, even though they may use them

in a different way or for a different purpose. Whether by infusion from the meth-

ods of social science or diffusion of sound journalism

practice,

basic tenets of the

focused

interview are also essential elements found in reporting texts and other

books specifically targeted

to those interested in

learning about

the

media inter-

view (Adams, 2001; Biagi, 1991; Gibbs

&

Warhover, 2002; Metzler,1997;

Paterno

&Stein,

2001).

In

these

publications, reporters, like focused interview-

ers,

learn how to seek specific rather than general information. Reporters are di-

rected (as Merton et al.,

1956/1990,

pointed out) to seek a range of responses

from their sources and to interview for responses that reveal deep

emotions

and

strongly held attitudes; reporters learn

to

probe. They

are

taught techniques,

such as using transitions, and ways to avoid abrupt

shifts

in the interview that

might break the source's

train

of

thought.

A journalist is educated, like the re-

searchers Merton and his colleagues trained, to look beyond limited, one-di-

mensional reports

of

'positive'

or

'negative,' 'favorable'

or

'unfavorable'

responses...

to

obtain

a

maximum

of self-revelatory

reports

of how the

situation

u n d e r

review

w as experienced (Merton et al., 1956/1990, p . 95).

Traditional

news reporting, however, differs greatly from

focused

interviewing.

First

and

foremost,

th e

news reporter almost always

has a

frame

or

lede

or

start-

in g

point

for a

story.

The

reporter

is

interested

in

finding details that

will

build

the

story or in

some cases reject

th e

story

as a

news item. Reporters

are

strategic

(Paterno & Stein, 2001). They size up the interview source and push ultimately

for the source to reveal the information sought. The

focused

interviewer will not

build

a

sequence

o f

leading questions

to

ferret

out

facts

or

test

a

possible conclu-

sion. T he focused interviewer encourages general discussion as a w ay to identify

and extrapolate newsworthy concerns that come

from

the lives people lead.

Metzler (1997) marked t he distinction between the

focused

method and the tra-

ditional interview by labeling the two types of interviewing as directive and

nondirective in his journalistic writers guide, Creative Interviewing.

Second,

the

reporter writes

a

traditional news story

o r

feature

using

a

lede

and

bui lds

the body of the story

from

direct a nd indirect quotes drawn from mul-

tiple

sources. In many instances, the comments frame the story from opposing

viewpoints . In other instances, the comments provide a variety of viewpoints.

Focused interview findings may be the starting point for traditional news or fea-

ture

story or may stand alone as a news story. In any of these cases, a story that

resul ts

from focused interviews will report

and

quote sources,

but the

reporting



114 10R10

will be based on shared perspectives that underlie multiple

opinions

collected

on a particular topic. The point is not to publish many voices on an issue or

problem but to com pare and analyze m any voices to

find

commonly held points

of

view. The identified

themes

are the point of the news story, and the writer

supports

the themes

with

quotes taken from the

interviews.

To

illustrate,

one

newspaper series

w as

launched wh en editors

and

reporters found, th rough

fo-

cused interviews, that local citizens' concerns prior to an election were not the

same campaign issues that

the

candidates em phasized (the exam ple

that

follows

later in

this

chapter describes this project in detail) .

THE

ADVANTAGES

AND

DISADVANTAGES

OF

FOCUSED INTERV IEWS

The focused interview does not replace the standard journalism interview that

has for decades served as the basis of the m ajority of new s stories th at are read or

viewed by the public

daily.

Nor does the focused interv iew sub st i tu te for the

benefits of the occasional well-timed street interv iew that was discussed at the

beginning of

this

chapter . The focused interview is an effective newsroom tool

when used to

1. identify budding political issues;

2. understand individuals ' interpretation

of

highly p ublic ized

issues; and

3. learn the

connection

between p ersonal affairs and large r social proble m s.

Researchers and journalists can use focused interviews prior to surveys to

help

identify

broad

or

untapped concerns that

can then be

translated

to

specific

questions.

Focused interviews can also be used to follow up on the limited find-

ings of quantitative studies such as public

opinion

polls. When Merton queried

soldiers after they rated training films, he was following up on quant i ta t ive r e-

search findings.

Moreover,

the

focused interview

method can

stand

on its own as the

primary

method

for a

project .

For

example ,

a

focused interview p roject

can

gather

and

analyze information from a w ide cross-section of people ( the exam ple that fol-

lows

later

in

this

chapter

used

a

large, countywide sam ple). Focused interviews

with a small number of people also can be useful (Poindexter & McCombs,

2000).

Interviews w ith small num bers of respondents are appropr ia te when the

individuals interviewed have access

to

information th at average people

do not

have. For example, a study might query the presidents of national corporations

on

their view

of

accounting consultant practices

or the

ap propriate level

for ex-

ecutives ' salaries. Focused interview pro jects w ith l imited n um be rs of respon-



7.

FOCUSED

INTERVIEWS 115

dents are also suitable when those interviewed, because of their positions, can

be obstacles

to, or

influences

on,

change.

Interviewing

community

church

lead-

ers on the subject of religious tolerance or school sup erintende nts on th eir views

of

affirmative

action

are ju s t two examples at the local level in which small num -

bers

of respond ents could provide desired inform ation.

Depending

on the sam-

ple size needed, focused interviews can be conducted by one researcher or

repor ter

or by a

team

of

reporters

or

researchers.

The advantages of the focused interview method are

that

it provides unfil-

tered information

from

first-person accounts; it offers early identification of

common concerns;

and it

identifies grassroots issues

at the

point

where

the

problems

are

located.

These

advantages come

into

play

when decid ing wh ether

to use focused interviews or

focus

groups. The

focus

g rou p provides good

feed-

back w hen the topic is not extrem ely broad; whe reas, the focused interview is

ideal for soliciting comprehensive, multilayered responses.

There

are also technical advantag es

that

the focused interview has over the

focus grou p. The success of the

focus

g roup rests on the ability of a well-trained

modera to r to draw full responses from each of the participants in a short

a m o u n t of time without allowing any one person to dom inate the group. Fu r-

thermore ,

focus

group participants generally

are

paid

for

their t im e, thu s pre-

senting

an

unanswerable ques t ion about

the

underlying validity

of the

da ta .

The aforem entioned chal lenges usually are not associated with

one-on-one

in-

terviewing.

In a focused interview, the interviewer has t im e to devote to a single indiv id-

ual.

That t ime can be used to help set

each

interviewe e at ease with the process,

repeat

o r

rephrase questions,

and

draw

out

comp lete answers. There

is no

threat

tha t one person will drown out another ' s a t tempt to contr ibute information or

tha t a gro up m entali ty can develop to stifle opposing opinion, as can ha pp en in

the focus group interview. In addition, the focu sed interview can be condu cted

wh en c ircum stances prevent br inging

a

specific gro up, such

as

decision m akers

w ho

may be in scattered locations, together at one place and t ime (Poindexter

&

McCombs, 2000). Interviewees

need not be

paid,

and

most reporters have

the basic skills required to conduct the interviews.

Disadvantages of the method, however, should be considered before enter -

ing

a

focused

interview project. Sample

sizes

should be chosen with regard to re-

searching the q uestio n(s) posed for the p roject . Sm all samp les, chosen w i th ou t

regard

to the scope of the data needed to answer the research question (s) and

merely due to tim e and cost constraints, limit the reliability of the da ta col-

lected. An additional disadvantage is that within the interview ing process some

respondents

may

conc entrate only

on

their personal relationships w ith other

in-

dividuals ; this limits

the

ability

to analyze the

info rm ation they provide ( lorio

&



6

Huxman,

1996).

For the most part, however, it is the time and

cost

involved in

conducting first-person interviews that make their frequent use difficult for

deadline-driven m edia industr ies. With effort, focus grou p data can be obtained

quickly, even overnight. Focused interview s gen erally take longer to con duc t

and analyze. Focused interviews may be bet te r su i ted for enterprise stories and

political campaign coverage.

In

summ ary ,

the

focused interview should

be

used whe n

the

project calls

fo r

methods to go beyond simply nam ing topics of interest to ind iv iduals—w hen re-

porters, pollsters, and researchers need to explore

brief,

scattered com-

ments—when

a

simple answer

may not

convey

a

complex viewpo int. Focused

interviews w ork

well

whe n a nontradit ional approach is require d to get at the

qualif ications and cavea ts people place arou nd their opinions. The focused in-

terview is ideally suited to a u g m e n t the m ore l imited findings of survey research .

The

benef i t

of the

focused interview

is its

ability

to

collect unfi l tered insights

and

unadulterated opinions people hold

in

common

but are

often overlooked

by

focus groups and surveys.

PLANNING

AND

CONDUCTING

A

FOCUSED

I NTE RV I E W

PROJECT

Purpose

of the

Research

In the

fall

of 1991, a focused interview s tudy was conduc ted in Wichita, K ansas

through a partnership between The

Wichita

Eagle and faculty at the Elliott

School

of Communication, Wichita State U niversity. What evolved became a

large-scale stud y and a long-term

Eagle

repor t ing venture . T he overa l l p roject

will

serve as

both

an exam ple of the focused inter view m ethod and a guid e to its

implem entation, even th oug h focuse d interview projects can be large or

small ,

conducted by a single interview er or a team , and developed by a newsroom on

its own or by partnerships among news organization s and academ ic research ers.

In this

example,

the

un iversity faculty

and Eagle

representatives jointly planned

the

project.

The

facu lty designed

the

research

and

supervised

the

g radua te - s tu -

dent interviewers. Then, the Eagle reporters, ed itors, and designe rs used the in-

terviews

as a

springboard

for a

special eig ht-p art series

and for

gene ral election

coverage in the y ear that followed.

T he basis of all social scientif ic rese arch holds t ru e for jou r na l i sm p r o j ec t s

in general and for the WSU/Eagle p ro jec t . That basis is the recog nition of a

core issue, topic, or problem and the will to address it (Wimmer & Dominick ,

2002) . Among

the

reasons

for the

Eagle management team's interest

in the

par tner sh ip wi th

W SU

was :



7. FOC U S E D INTERVIEWS 117

1.

to

help plan

the

newspaper 's coverage

of the

1992 elections

by

learning

citizens' concerns and

2.

to

validate questionnaire construction

for

subsequent

telephone

inter-

views

on these topics.

The

initial step

in

this

and any

focu sed interview re searc h (Hsia, 1988)

w as

to a ddress the research p roblem by formu lating a series of clear and comp elling

research questions. A fter a plenary session with

faculty

and new spaper m anage-

ment , the following inter re la ted quest ions em erged:

1.

What

are

Sedgwick County residents most worried about these

days

in

the i r communities, neighborhoods, and day - to -day lives?

2. How do those concerns relate to political concerns?

3.

W hich of the concerns are underex posed by our elected

officials

and in

media coverage?

Sample Selection

T he nex t s tep in p lann ing a p r o j ec t is to select a sample . Some focused in te r -

view

p r o j e c t s

a re

charac te r ized

by a

sample

that is

in ten t iona l ly

or

p u r p o s -

ively

chosen , in o ther words , deve loped th rough informal contac ts o r

ne twork ing (Wimmer &

Dominick,

2002) . In d if ferent c i rcumstances , the

bes t sample o f in t e r v iew ee s is a p robab i l i ty sample . A p robab i l i ty sample is

ch osen in a m anne r t h a t can be ca lcu la ted s ta t is t ica l ly to revea l the p r ob a -

bil i ty

th a t the sam ple i s r ep re sen ta t ive o f the la rger popu la t ion o f peop le th a t

the

in te rv iews hope

to

re f lec t .

The

s ta t is t ics

are

used only

to

descr ibe

the

sample

and not to

draw conclus ions about

the

data tha t wil l

be

col lected

later . For the E a g l e / W S U p r o j ec t , a randomly d rawn sample w as d e e m e d

necessary because the new spaper staff wanted to learn abo ut the concerns of

a p a r t i c u l a r

a nd

s izab le popu la t ion— m ore than 350,000 r e s id en t s

of the

cou n ty th a t encom p as se s the city of Wichita. A f te r dec id ing on a s amp l ing

m e t h o d , the ne x t s tep was to ob ta in wi l l ing pa r t ic ipan ts . One p o p u l a r way to

d raw

p rob ab i l i ty samp les designed to re f lec t la rge popu la t ions is r a n d o m -

digi t dial ing, and i t was used by Eagle employees to ident i fy 270 cou n ty r e s i -

den ts who w ere wi l l ing to pa r t ic ipa te .

Preparing for

trie

Interviews

With the sample drawn and the research problem in m ind, the research team be-

gan

to wo rk on the interview guide. The goal was to build on the basic criteria of



118

I O R I O

focused interviews— range, specificity,

depth, and

personal

context

(Merton

et

a l . ,

1956/1990).

The guide was designed to help interview ers collect detailed per-

sonal experiences and comp rehensive opinions on a m a x im u m n u m b e r of topics.

The

guide

was

based

on the

Merton

et al.

(1956/1990) procedures

and

supple-

mented by other

publications

on

interviewing (Labaw, 1980; M cC racken,

1988)

Within

the guide, the interviewers received information on how to initiate

the interview session, help put the respondent at ease, and probe for f u l l re-

sponses. Material on interperson al skills involved in conduc ting interviews w as

distributed

to the

interviewers.

Except

for

dem ographic da ta ,

a ll

ques t ions were open-ended (M er ton, 1987;

Mer ton

et

al.,

1956/1990;

Mishler, 1986).

The

guide

w as

w r i tt en

to

al low

free

discussion

and questions to be

asked

by the respondent. The

questions

on the

guide were sequenced.

The first

question asked respondents

to

identify the i r

concerns,

then

interview ers were instructed

to

probe

for how

respond ents spe-

cifically

viewed

those

concerns. Next, interviewers asked respondents

to

indi-

cate at

what level (personal,

neighborhood,

community, state, national,

and

international) their concerns exis ted.

This

w as follow ed by a question designed

to establish the locus o f responsibility of their concerns. The researchers sough t

to

know

who or

wha t institutions

respondents

believed w ere responsible

for ad-

dressing their concerns. Finally, interview ers asked respond ents how they kep t

informed.

The

guide called

for

respondents

to be

assured anonym ity

at the b e-

ginning

of the

interview,

but

each

w as

asked

at the end of the

in te rv iew w he the r

he or she

would

be

w illing

to be

interviewed

by a

reporter

for a

new spape r story.

T he interview guide w as prepared, p re tes ted , and revised prior to conduc t ing

the

first

interview.

To

assure u niform ity across

the

in terviews ,

th e

in te rv iewer s

attended

two

training sessions

and

conducted prac t ice in terviews .

The

in ter -

views were

scheduled to

last

30

m inutes.

They

were tape-recorded,

and the in-

terviewers took supplemental

notes.

Each

of the 17

in te rv iew er s conduc ted

approximate ly 12 in terviews . The use of m ul t ip le in terviewers es tabl ished one

form

of

triangulation

(o r

mu ltiple cross-checks)

for the

study.

A n

impor tant par t

of the

pre in terview process involved inform ing

the re-

spondents about

the

p ro jec t

and

assur ing tha t

the

respondents were aware

of

the kind of information they would be asked. Those who agreed to be inter-

viewed w ere mailed

a

letter

explaining

the

project.

Respondents

were

then

con-

tacted

by

telephone

by one of the

g radua te s tuden ts .

T he

call rei terated

the

purpose

of the

pro jec t .

A f ramework w as

crea ted throu gh

t he

le t te rs

an d

phone

calls to

heighten

the

conscious

awareness of the respondents so

that

they would

be ready to ta lk w hen they arr ived at the in terview s ite (Labaw, 1980). In con-

sideration

of the

responde nts ' t ravel t im e, inter view s w ere held

at one of five lo-

cations scattered across

the

county .



7. FO CUSED INTERVIEWS 119

Determining

the Project's Validity and Reliability

To ensure the validity, or accuracy, and the reliability, or consistency, procedures

for

each part of the project were stringent. Then after th e project w as completed, a ll

the procedures were reviewed and any possible limitations were

noted.

To assure an

adequate and representative sample, repeated telephone calls were made to pro-

spective subjects to schedule interviews and later to reschedule broken interview

dates. As a result, 192 people out of the sample

pool

were interviewed for a comple-

tion rate of 88 percent. Despite the high response rate, convenience appeared to

play a role in garnering participation. A substantial

representation

of

those

with dis-

cretionary

time

or

flexible

schedules, such

as

housewives, professionals,

and

shift

workers, were interviewed. The young, the elderly, the handicapped, and the poor

may have been underrepresented. To be interviewed, one needed a telephone and

transportation

to the

site.

Was the

sample

an

accurate representation

of the

county

population?

To find

out,

a

profile

of those

interviewed

was

compared

to U. S.

census

data. Comparisons based on age, gender, length of residence in the county, and

voter registration

did not

prove

the

sample

to be a

mirror image of

the

general popu-

lation neither w as it grossly misrepresentative.

1

Clea r -cu t ,

on-site interview procedures were followed. Diversity

of re-

sponses was solicited through a heterogeneous group of interviewers; both gen-

ders and a variety of ages were represented. Yet, despite the precautions, the

presence of the interviewer may have affected how some subjects responded to

questions. In a few cases, respondents apparently tailored their responses to

conform

to the

perceived personal attitudes

of

individual interviewers.

For ex-

ample , interviewers w ho were international students reported a higher rate o f

discussions centered

on

global concerns than

did the

other interviewers. Inter-

viewers who were African

American

and

Hispanic

reported more discussions

on racial and ethnic

issues

than did interviewers whose appearance did not

identify them as minorities. A few interviewers commented that some of the re-

spondents appeared

to try to

make

a

good impression

by

voicing only positive

s ta tements

or

expressing only normative ideas. These anomalies were noted

in

the final report.

Morta l i ty

rates for this kind of study are always a concern. T he long dura-

tion

of an

interview time

frame

is

often

cited

as a

threat

to a

project's validity

(Campbel l & Stanley, 1963). The

Eagle

interviews took place over a 6-week

period,

and the

time lapse

may

have

contributed to a change in

attitudes

among those interviewed earlier

and

those interviewed near

the end of the

pro jec t . Then again, no spectacularly dramatic news event occurred during

the interview period, so time w as eliminated as a mitigating factor, and all the

i n t e rv iews

were analyzed together.



12O IORIO

Coding and Analyzing the Interviews

As the

interviews were being conducted,

the

coding began. Using

a

matrix pat-

terned

after Miles' and Huberman's (1994) designs, each interviewer

coded

the

interviews that he or she conducted by putting the responses in a category for

each of the questions asked. After the initial coding, the interviewers broke down

each

category

into

subcategories based on broad themes found among the an-

swers. One

general debriefing session

was

held where preliminary findings were

discussed

and

compared

for

verification. Finally,

the

coded data

was

reduced

to

summary sheets and a comprehensive analysis w as prepared by the W SU faculty.

The researchers' analysis based on grounded theory did not impose any precon-

ceived theory

on the

data; instead,

the findings

emerged

from the

ground, that

is ,

from coding

and

summary sheets (Glaser

&

Strauss, 1967).

T he

report

w as

written directly

from the

comments that appeared

in the

categories.

The composite portrait revealed most respondents as registered voters who

looked to the mass media for their source of information, had lived in the

county for more than 5 years, and had some college education. Respondents

addressed

how the

Eagle covers issues

in an

informed manner.

In

general,

when

the

interviewees talked about their everyday

lives,

they

did not

speak

in

terms

of

legislation, governmental policy,

or

party endorsements. They told

researchers their individual hopes, expectations, and fears. What they did not

tell researchers was how their attitudes and opinions translated into political

strategies or party platforms. In short, they raised a large number of issues and

discussed

them in

disparate fashion. Personal concerns

did not

appear

to

translate directly

into

political solutions.

The exception to this was the topic of education. The respondents were

more confident in offering solutions to educational woes. Respondents' sugges-

tions included: design better teacher education, explore alternative teacher

certification,

increase teacher salaries, reduce

the

number

of s tuden ts in classes,

extend the school

year,

and adopt national tests. When respondents were

asked, [Overall] which do you think is the most important concern of all

you've

named, the concerns mentioned were crime, 3 2 ; education, 2 6; taxes,

21;

the economy, 20; abortion, 10; family life, 6; status of government and lead-

ership,

5;

health care,

5;

drugs,

4; and the

fu ture

of

children,

4.

2

These

same

concerns have appeared,

in

roughly

the

same

form, in

public opinion polls

fo r

years. A review of Gallup poll surveys shows similar concerns coded as far back

as 1975. Except for abortion, family life, and the

fu ture

of children, the items on

the Gallup list of the 21 most important problems in 1991 showed up again in

1993,

and

they were among

the 10

most often mentioned

by

respondents.

3

It is

not surprising that most of the same issues also turned up in

later

surveys



7. FOCUSED INTERVIEWS 121

(Kohut , 2002).

The

importance

of the

Eagle

research was

that

it

revealed how

those interviewed viewed the issues.

Overall, the Eagle /WSU research discovered that people's concerns related to

an

issue

were

often

not entirely the same a s government administrators o r politi-

cians view of that same issue, and, a t times, were quite

different.

Recent research

also

has

noted

the

multifaceted

and

personal-level responses people give when

asked to comment on their political concerns. In mid-September 2002, a poll

asked Americans whether they favored using U.S. military force to remove Iraq's

leader,

Saddam Hussein. The poll reported support (64%) for military interven-

tion, but looking beneath the easy thumbs-up, thumbs-down characterization, a

complex

picture

of

public opinion appeared. Kohut (2002) discovered

a

con-

flicted public that voiced many qua lifications and limitations about their vote o n

this

particular issue, jus t

as the

earlier Eagle/WSU research uncovered multifac-

eted responses when individuals spoke about

their

concerns.

It

w as clear to the interviewers and principal researchers in 1991 that a new

and d i f ferent kind of research report was needed. The team wanted to show

how stability across m a jor topics voiced by people breaks down into problems

that link issues and choices to individual's personal lives. The researchers be-

gan by

providing

the

Eagle

with

a

list

of the

most often mentioned topics

to-

gether with selected verbatim accounts that showed h ow people spoke about

their personal concerns. Attached

to the

report

w as a

list

of

news story ideas

generated by the student interviewers and faculty researchers. These were

posed as questions. T he news story ideas came directly from the words of the

i n t e rv iewees and corresponded to the eight top concerns found in the inter-

views. T he

Eagle management team

w as

surprised

by the

topics

and

noted

it

was

doub t fu l that reporters and editors could have come up the topics by just

kicking around ideas. At the time, none of the general

topics

in the local and

na t iona l news were being addressed from the particular viewpoints voiced

across

the interviews. Some of the interviewees' highly ranked topics were not

being covered at all.

How the Newsroom Used the Findings

The

eight major topics

of

concern

named

in the

interviews

are

followed

by

some

proposed news story ideas (questions) the research team found associated with

that particular concern. They are:

1.

Crime: Is crime really

higher

in the parts of the city where most people

thin k i t is higher? Do more people support gun control now that so many

fear

random a nd crime-related shootings? How can we learn to feel

safe

in



122

I O R I O

our

city? Should

we? How can we

reclaim victims' rights? What exactly

is

the

relationship between drugs

and

crime

in

Wichita?

2. Education:

See

findings discussed previously

in

this chapter.

3. Taxes: Why are taxes rising, and who is to blame?

4. The economy: How many businesses have failed in the past year? How

many surviving businesses have

had

layoffs?

H ow

many vacant business

properties are there? How does the high interest paid on credit-card debt

affect

the pocketbook of the average

family

and our nation? H ow many

homeless are there in Wichita, and what is being done to help them?

5. Abortion:

Wichita had

been

the

scene

of a

Right

to

Life protest

in the

summer

of

1991

that

lasted more

than

40

days. Media coverage

was ex-

tensive; therefore, story ideas were not suggested for this topic.

6. Family life: W hy

cannot

quality day care be

affordable?

How do strong

families get that

way?

Stay that

way? What

family values are attacked

most these days?

7. Health care: W hy will n ot some doctors take Medicare and Medicaid pa-

t ients? In what specialties is it most difficult for these patients to

find help?

W h y ? What

are the best health care plans for workers among companies

that

employ locally?

8. Future of our

children:

What

does

cultural diversity mean? How can we

regain community connectiveness? How at the community level, can we

better combat loneliness ?

After receiving the report, t he Eagle launched a majo r eight-part, page-one

series based on the interviews. Titled the People Project, the series ran as a

comprehensive package that included in-depth reports, new interviews with

citizens, further interviews with some

of the

original respondents,

photos, ex-

planatory graphics,

an

overall thematic design,

and an

identifying logo.

The

series was widely reviewed and became labeled as one of the first of many pub-

lic or civic journalism projects to emerge in the early

1990s.

The initial report

also served

as

background information

for

public opinion telephone

su rveys

conducted

by the

Eagle prior

to the

next general election, and, over

the

ensu-

ing months, the Eagle addressed many of the 26 story proposals in separate

news

stories.

As the research results were p u t into practice, t h e newspaper staff learned

that

covering many of the story suggestions required innovative strategies.

Following

up on the

suggestions involved building

new

networks

of

infor-

mants, many

of

whom

did not

qualify

as

credible sources

in the

traditional

sense of that term. One

staffer

offered that a reporter simply could not rely on

cultivating

a

single source

or

calling

an

established agency

to get the

scoop.



7 .

F O C U S E D

I N T E R V I E W S

1 2 3

Second, the

researchers

and

newspaper staff acknowledged that

the

project

was

t ime-bound.

Over

time, some

of the concerns

identified matured

then

faded

away,

others

grew

in

intensity,

and new

issues appeared.

The

research

findings and the

People Project

that

followed w ere

a freeze-framed

picture

of

one comm unity at one point in time.

CONCLUSION

When a

pro jec t calls

for an

interpreta tive tech nique— that will gather

specific

data

and at the

sam e time reflect

on the

lives, circum stances,

a nd

distinctive-

ness

of a

populace (w hether large

o r

small )— the resul ts

of

focused interviews

are

helpful .

Developed during World W ar II for use in conjunct ion w ith qu an -

t i tat ive studies, the focused interview method solicits in-depth, personal re-

marks .

Because they are conducted one-on -one, focused interview s

offer

benefits

over

focus

groups

an d

shore

up

deficiencies

of

opinion polls tha t ide n-

t i f y po pu lar issues with out checking wh at

the

issue- labels mean

to

individu-

als.

F ocused interview s involve m any of the same technique s jou rnalists use in

daily

reporting,

b ut

focused interviews

a re

cond ucted according

to a

protocol

tha t can be reviewed to discover commonalit ies among those interviewed.

Among

the

comments collected

in a

focused interview project conduc ted

by

The Wichita Eagle and W SU research ers were expressions of grat i tude from re-

spo nden ts for having an opp ortun ity to be heard out in the interview s and ap-

precia t ion for

being made

to feel

imp ortant. M any said they were surp rised

th at a nyo ne, m uc h less those in charge of the city's new spape r, w ould be inte r-

ested

in

what they

had to

say.

The

resul ts

of the

p roject show that

how

people

ta lk

ab ou t issues

can

tu rn

out to be

much more m eaningful than wha t people

identify

as the

issues.

Use of

qual i ta tive methods such

as the

focused

interview-

can

dramatica l ly

shift political coverage and open doors for a new kind of in-

teract ive

jou rna l i sm.

ENDNOTES

Of the

Sedgwick County

residents interviewed who

gave their age, there were

9

(5%)

be-

tween 18 and 24 years as

compared

to 14% of the total

population

who comprised that ag e

group ,

39 (23%) between 25 and 34 years as compared to 27% of the total population, 64

(37%)

between

35 and 44

years

as

compared

to 21% of the

total

population, 23

(13%)

be-

tween 45 and 54 years as compared to 13% of the

total population,

29 (17%) between 55

and 64 years as com pared to 10% of the total population, and 7 (4%) w ho claimed to be

more than 6 5 years old as compared to 16% of the total population (Census of Population

and Housing,

1990).

As for gender, 55% were m ale as compared to 49% of the

total

popu-

lation and 45% were female as compared to 51% of the

total

population (U.S. Census,

1990). Five said they had lived in Sedgwick County less than 5 months, 26 less than 6

years,

1 5 less

than

11 years, and 116 had lived in the county more than 11 years; 146 re-

ported they were registered voters.



124

I O R I O

Other concerns deemed most important w ere named by fewer than

four

respondents. Those

named ranged

from

culvert rep air to personal problems such as protecting one's children

from

violence at school.

Data gathered by the Amer ican Ins t i tu te on Publ ic

Opinion

show results

from

a representa-

tive sample

of the

U.S. population asked

at

regula r in te rva ls

a n

open-ended question:

What is the

most important problem facing

the

n a t ion? Recurr ing

as

major categories

a re

poli tics, economics, international re la t ions–d efense, the enviro nm ent, he alth , poverty,

race relations, crime, and morality. Most often mentioned in November 1991 were : (a)

the

economy

in

general , 32% ;

(b)

unemploymen t , 23% ;

(c)

poverty-homelessness, 16%;

(d ) drugs, 10%;

(e)

health care ,

6%; (f)

cr ime,

6%; (g)

d issa t is fac t ion wi th governm ent ,

5%; (h)

AIDS,

5%; (i)

insurance-Social Security,

5%; (j)

fede ra l -budge t

defici t ,

educa -

tion quali ty,

ethics-moral

decline, trade re lat ions–defic i t , a l l 4% (Saad, 1993) .

REFERENCES

Adams, S. (2001). Interviewing

fo r

journalists. New York: Routledge.

Berger, A. A. (2000). Media

and

communication: Research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage.

Biagi,

S. (1991).

Interviews that work.

New

York: Wadsworth.

Brissett, D., & Edgley, C. (1990).

L i f e as

theater:

A

dramaturgical sourcebook. New Y ork: Al-

dine

de Gruyter.

Campbell,

D. T., &

Stanley,

J. C.

(1963). Exp erimental and quasi -experimental designs for re-

search.

Skokie,

IL:

Rand McNally.

Census

of Population an d

Housing.

(1990).

1990 census

of populat ion and

housing. Wichita,

KS

MSA.

Washington,

DC: U.S.

Government

Printing Office.

Fielding,

N. G., &

Fielding,

J. L.

(1986). Linking data. Beverly Hills,

CA:

Sage.

Gibbs, C. K., & Warhover, T. (2002). Getting the whole story: Reporting and writing the news.

New Y ork: Guilford.

Glaser,

B. G., &

Strauss,

A. L.

(1967) .

The discovery of grounded

theory.

Chicago:

Aldine.

Gollin,

A. E. (1990).

Foreword.

In R. K. Merton, M.

Fiske,

& P. L.

K endall,

The

focused inter-

view (pp. ix–xii) .

New

York:

The

Free Press. (O riginal work publish ed 1956)

Hsia,

H. J.

(1988). Mass communications research methods:

A

step by step approach. H i l l sda le ,

N J:


lorio, S. H. , & H uxm an, S. S. (1996) . M edia coverage of poli t ica l issues and the f raming of

personal concerns. Journal of Communicat ion,

46,

9 7 – 1 1 5 .

Kohu t ,

A .

(200 2, September 29) . Simply pu t,

the

pub l ic 's view can ' t

b e put

simply. The Wash-

ington

Post, p. B05.

Labaw,

P. J.

(1980). Advanced questionnaire

design.

Cambr idge ,

MA: Abt

Books.

Lazarsfeld,

P. F. (1944) . T he controversy over deta i led interviews. Public O pinion Quarterly, 8,

38–60.

Lindlof,

T. R. (199 5). Qualitative

comm unication

research methods . Thou sand O aks, CA: Sage.

Maso, L, & W ester, F. (Ed s.) . (1996) .

The

deliberate

dialogue:

Qualitative perspectives

on the in-

terview.

Brussels , Belgium:

V U B

U niversi ty Press.

McCracken, G. (1988). The long interview. New bury Park , CA: Sage .

Mer ton , R. K . ( 1987) . The focused interview a nd focus groups .

Public

O pinion Quarterly, 51 ,

550-566.

M erto n, R. K., Fiske, M ., & K endall, P. L. (19 90). The focused interview. N ew

York:

The Free

Press.

(Original work published 1956)

Merton,

R. K., &

K endall,

P. L.

(1946).

The

focused interv iew . Am erican Journal of Sociology,

51,541-557.

Metzler ,

K. (1997) Creative

interviewing

(3rd ed.). New York: Allyn & Bacon.



7.

FOCUSED INTERVIEWS 125

Miles, M . B., & Hube rman , A. M. (1994). Q ualitative

data analysis:

An

expanded

sourcebook.

Thousand Oaks ,

CA:

Sage.

Mishler, E . G. (1986). Research

interviewing.

Cambridge, M A: Ha rvard U niversity Press.

Morgan , D. L.

(1988).

Focus groups as

q ualitative

research.

Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

N a t h a n , H . (1986). Critical choices in in terv iews . Berkeley, CA : Inst i tute of Governmental

Studies University

of

California Berkeley.

Paterno,

S. F., & Stein, M. L. (2001) . Talk straight listen carefully. Ames, IA : Iowa State Uni-

versity

Press.

Peterson, E. E. (1987) . Media consumption and girls w ho wan t to have fun . Critical S tudies in

Mass

Communication, 4,

37-50.

Poindexter,

P. M ., & McCombs, M. E. (2000). Research i n mass comm unication. Boston: Bed-

ford/St.

Mart in 's .

Potter, W . J. (1996). An analysis of thinking and

research about qualitative me thods. M a h w a h,

N J:

Lawrence Erlb aum Associates.

Saad,

L .

(1993, January). Most

important

problem. The Gallup Poll Monthly, 328,

31-32.

Seidman, I. (1998) . Interviewing as q ualitative research. New York: Teachers' College Press.

Wimmer, R. D., &

Dominick,

J. R. (2002). Mass med ia

research (7th ed.).

New York:

Wadsworth .

Zuc ke rman ,

H .

(19 72 ) . Interviewing

an

ul tra-el i te . Public Opinion Quarterly,

36 ,

159-175.






8

Ethnographic Journalism

Janet

M.

Cramer

University

of

New

Mexico

Michael McDevitt

University

of

Colorado Boulder

Ethnography is primarily concerned with uncovering meanings—in particular,

the meanings inherent to a particular group and its practices. The ethnographer

accomplishes this awareness through a process of immersion into th e

life,

rou-

tines,

and

rituals

of the

social setting under study.

W e

describe

in

this chapter

the principles and techniques of ethnographic journalism, but w e are well aware

that

the

method could

p ut

reporters

in an

awkward position

in

relationship

to

"sources." Reporting as social immersion would seem to violate the traditional

unders tanding

of

objectivity

as

detachment from sources

and

subjects. How-

ever, w e

placed quote marks around

th e

word sources

for a

reason—to

em -

phasize that

the task of grafting ethnography onto journalism requires us to

revisit th e author-subject relationship of reporting.

W e offer what w e hope is a persuasive rationale as to w hy journalists should

use

this

powerful

tool

for

observing

and

documenting

social

life.

As we

describe,

ethnography

is really not the

alien concept that some

in a

newsroom might

imagine;

it s

narrative scheme

and

observational methods

are

close

kin to

long-respected journalistic practices. However,

in

providing practical sugges-

tions for how to conduct this type of reporting, we

will

contemplate some of the

ethical

dilemmas that arise

out of

this blending

o f

social science with journal -

127



128

CRAMER A ND

McDEVITT

ism. W e conclude with a description of a case s tudy involving ethnographic re-

porting of panhandlers in a Northern California community.

PRINCIPLES

AND

TECHNIQUES

OF

ETHNOGRAPHY

Drawing on the root meanings of the words

ethno

(people) and graphy (de-

scribing), Lindlof (1995) explained that an ethnographer traditionally tries to

describe all relevant aspects of a culture's material existence, social system, and

collective beliefs and

experiences.

Thus, the more detail an ethnographer sup-

plies

and the more in-depth the encounter with a particular group, the greater

the

chances

for a

reader

to

understand that group

and its

members'

feelings,

thoughts, values, challenges, and goals.

Sociologists have used ethnography as a method in the

field

since the early

19th century (Gold, 1997; Marcus

&

Fischer, 1986/1999),

but the

best-known

early study might be Bronislaw Malinowski's visits to the Trobriand Islands in

the 1920s (Lindlof, 1995). In his research, Malinowski exhibited the value of

sustained, firsthand experience with a group's environment, language, rituals,

social customs, relationships, and experiences in the production o f a t ru th fu l ,

authentic,

and

comprehensive account

of

that culture (Berger,

2000;

Keyton,

2001; V an Maanen, 1988).

Other

examples include ethnographies of such

groups

as street gangs (Conquergood, 1994), witches' covens (Lesch, 1994),

and Vietnam veterans' meetings (Braithwaite, 1997). In each case, the ethnog-

rapher was immersed in the group's activities to provide an insider's standpoint.

Such thick description (Geertz, 1973) provides a perspective that emerges from

within a group rather than being imposed from the observer's point of view. U l-

timately, ethnography as exploration and investigation of a case in detail

resul ts

in an analysis that involves explicit interpretation of the meanings and

func-

tions

of

human actions (Atkinson

&

Hammersley, 1994).

This

explicit interpretation, however, is only achieved through close con-

tact with the group being studied. Ethnographers are cautioned against im-

posing their own views on the data they collect (in the form of observations,

conversations, and

participation

in the

group's activities). Weber (1947)

ar-

gued

that

only from a group member's perspective could an authentic account

be achieved. The observed group keeps the ethnographer in check by va l ida t -

ing or challenging the ethnographer's interpretation of events, because mem-

bers

of that group are considered the ultimate authorities regarding the

significance

of events and

practices pertaining

to the

group (Gamble, 1978;

Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Gold, 1997).

A n ethnographer m ay participate in the life of a group at various levels, ei-

ther as a complete participant, a participant as observer, an observer as partici-



8. ETHNO GRAPHIC JOU RNALISM 129

pant , or as a complete observer (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1994; Gold, 1958;

Junker,

1960). We discuss in a subsequent section the practical and ethical con-

siderations of enacting these roles in journalism. The complete participant is

fully functioning

as a

member

of the

scene,

but

others

are not

aware

of the

eth-

nographer's role (Keyton, 2001). A participant as observer acknowledges his or

her observation role to the group under study bu t participates fully in that

group's culture

or

activities.

T he

observer

as

participant

has the

primary goal

of

observation and only a secondary role in participation, usually because of a lack

of

full

access to or membership in the group, as Lesch's

(1994)

study of witch co-

vens illustrated. The complete observer blends

into

the surroundings or is hid-

den

completely

from

the

group.

There

is no

participation

in the

group's

activities by the ethnographer and no awareness of the ethnographer's presence

by

the group being studied.

In

addition to the selection of a participant-observer role, the practice of

ethnography typically entails extensive use of

field

notes and may additionally

include interviews with group members. A n extended period of immersion is

usually required, although specific time frames are dependent on the situation

u nd e r

s tudy

and other potential limiting factors, such as money or access.

Typically,

data

are

collected over

a

period

of

several

days,

but in

certain cases,

e thnographers have devoted years to collecting information. I t may take many

visits to understand fully why a group does what it does or to understand the

though ts ,

feelings,

and

attitudes

of the

members

o f a

particular subculture.

In

the case of Conquergood's (1994) study of street gangs, the author decided to

relocate to the neighborhood he was studying.

A

RATIONALE

FOR ETHNOGRAPHIC

REPORTING

Ethnograph ic reporting challenges journalists' understanding of objectivity,

neutrality, and balance, but it should appeal to professionals' commitment to

enlighten rather

than

to obscure in the portrayal of everyday life. In

fact,

serious

contemplation about

the

appropriateness

of

ethnography

in

journalism would

suggest that the telling of authentic stories requires some rethinking about the

relationships between reporters a nd sources.

To

protect their objectivity, journalists

are

urged

to

keep some social

and

emotional distance between themselves

and the

people they write about. From

an epistemological perspective, o f course, the fact-value dichotomy is problem-

atic

at best.

With respect

to

ethnography,

the

principle

of detachment

must

be

revisited if jou rnalis ts are to embrace this method as a way to know, in intimate

detail, the perspectives of groups that are otherwise invisible or stereotypically

portrayed in the

news.



13O CRAMER

A ND

M cDE VITT

While maddening

to

academic cri t ics

who

h ighl ight

its

p r ob lema t ic— if

not

de lus iona l—impl ica t ions , ob jec t iv i ty

in

j o u r n a l i s m

is no t a

s ta t ic or ien-

tation to news work; perceptions abou t it have evolved in recent

decades

as

profess iona ls

have come to apprecia te its l im i t a t ions ( E t t ema & Glasser,

1998). W i th in

the

profess ion

itself, the

norm

of

o b jec t iv i ty

has

sh if ted

to an

em phasis on m ore rea l is t ic goals suc h as ne utra l i ty , ba lan ce, acc uracy , and

fairness

( D u r h a m ,

1998). This

is ref lecte d in the pr incip les ident i f ied by re-

porting textbooks (e.g . , Fedler , Bender, Davenport , & K os tyu , 1997), and in

evidence of increa sed ref lect ion abo ut the rou t ine s of new s prod uct ion (e.g .,

Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2001).

O ne adva ntage of ethnographic reporting is how it portrays in a responsible

m anner the l ives and cu lture s of groups that are typically m arginalized throu gh

m ainstream jo urnal ism pract ices. Wh ile most journ al is ts do not refer to

in-depth fea ture re portin g as ethnog raphic, an abiding goal of the p rofession is

pluralism

in the

por trayal

of a

cultu re 's diverse groups.

The

Hutchins Commis-

sion, for exam ple, advocated the "projection of a represe ntative p ictu re of the

constituent

groups

in the

society" (1947,

p.

26). Responsible perform ance

means

that the

images repeated

and

emphasized

b e

such

as are in

total repre-

sentation of the social group as it is. The tru th a bou t any social group, tho ug h it

should not exc lude its w eaknesse s and v ices, inc lud es recognition of its values,

its

aspirations,

and its

common humanity ."

The

commission expressed faith

that

if readers were presented with the " inner t ru th of the

life

of a pa r t icu la r

group," they wo uld develop respect and unders tand ing for that group (p . 2 7 ) .

Inner tru th is a key

concept

because an understanding of a group on i ts own

terms is the very purpose of ethnography.

What is still lacking from the journalistic

ethos,

according to Durham

(1998),

is the

recognition that representations

of the

t ru th abou t

a

g roup

de-

pend on the reporter 's social location. Granted, the obligation to seek out

oppositional views alleviates professional concerns abou t the inev itabil i ty of

subjectivity.

T hus the recent em phasis on balan ce is a more realis tic goal than

the pu rsu it of objectivity as value-free reporting. In practice, how ever, this cre-

ates a kind of crippling relativism

that

enforces dom inant ideologies by def ining

the limits of accep table public discourse.

Du rham advocated "s tandpoint ep istemology" as an escape

from

"the in-

t e l l ec tua l

quic ksan d of re la t iv ism and the indefensib le ter r itory of ne utra l i ty

and detach m ent" (p . 126) . S tandp oint ep is temology requires a refo rm ulat io n

of objec tivity,

d irect ing it

away

from the unrea l i s t ic e rasu re of b ias toward the

purposeful incorporat ion of subjec t ive perspect ives . B orrowing from feminis t

theory (Harding , 1991) and sociological models of kno wle dge pro duc t ion

(M annheim , 1952), Du rham (1998) argued

that people

inside the dominant



8.

ETHNOGRAPHIC JOURNALISM 131

social order collect and interpret information about those who are either in-

side or outside it: It is my contention here that news stories are journalistic

because i t is

journalists

who

relay them

(p .

130). Geertz (1973) recognized

the same problem in the

ethnography

of

anthropological

research, arguing

that accounts of events or of people are ultimately interpretations of outsid-

ers,

casting suspicion on the realism or authenticity of such accounts. In re-

sponse to this critique, ethnographers in recent years have become more

reflexive

about their social positions as observers o f others, and now Durham

advocates

the

same

for

journalists.

This

reflexivity

requires that reporters become self-conscious about their

social

locations

in

relation

to the

individuals

and

groups they write about.

Au-

tonomous reporters would realize that to pursue ethnographic journalism,

they

must

in

some ways transcend

not

only professional conventions

and re-

porting habits but also

their

own

demographic

profiles. As a

first

step, Durham

advocated strong objectivity,

in

which journalists would approach reporting

from the vantage point of marginalized groups to counterbalance the domi-

nant perspectives

of

mainstream news media. This approach becomes prob-

l emat ic ,

to say the

least,

in

light

of the

formal education, training,

and

professional socialization

that

positions

many reporters

closer to the

insider

views

of dominant groups

than

the views of the disadvantaged or the politi-

cally disengaged.

The context in which most journalism is practiced, in highly bureaucratic

and corporate settings, fur ther restricts the realization of strong objectivity.

Glasser (1992) noted that the very purpose of professional socialization is to

obliterate diversity in journalistic values and reporting practices, so that the

only

diversity that remains is of the token variety, with the primary concern be-

in g the ethnic breakdown of the editorial

staff.

What we need, Glasser con-

tended, is diversity in the true sense of the word, so that journalists bring a

wealth

of

cultural perspectives,

not

only

to the

newsroom itself

but

also

to

their

meth od s o f newswriting. Ethnography provides what i s perhaps the most

effec-

t ive method for enacting strong objectivity.

Thus,

one

advantage

of the

ethnographic method

is

accurate portrayal

of

various groups

in

society that

may not be

realized when adhering

to

traditional

methods

or

newsmaking

criteria.

Another

advantage

is a

rethinking

of the

problematic notion of

objectivity.

However, ethnographic reporting raises some

ethical considerations that

a re in

some ways representative

of the

profession

but

also

unique in the application of ethnographic techniques. We consider next

common areas of concern, along with some divergence in thinking, in the ways

that journalism and ethnography address ethical issues involving verification,

bias, disclosure of intent to sources, a nd confidentiality.



132 CRAMER AND McDEVITT

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Objectivity as Verification

For journalists, objectivity is typically construed as detachment

from

the object

or

persons being r epo rted, along with the assuran ce of balanced perspectives.

Ethnography,

however, represents

the

antithesis

o f

this w ith

its

emphasis

on im-

mersion and its goal of telling a story as intimately as possible

from

the stand-

point of the group being studied. Imm ersion into th e life of those observed can

invite a certain measure of idealization. As Keyton (2001) observed, the re-

searcher's "value

and

belief system becomes

so

integrated w ith

th e

va lue

and

belief

systems

of those being observed th at the research er loses the ability to be-

lieve that

a

degree

of

o bjectivity

is

attainable"

(p .

275). Rather than detach-

ment, however, th e purpose of objectivity, with respect to ethnography, is

faithfulness to the real world under study. W hat is sought is the retelling of a

story

as it

a ctually occurs,

not as the

ethnographer interprets

it .

Thus, proce-

dures

are used to m aximize observational efficacy, minimize investigator bias,

and

allow

for

rep lication

or

verification

or

both

of the

e thnograp her's observa-

tions

(Gold, 1997,

p.

397). O bjectivity

is

achieved wh en

the

ethnographer's

re-

port and the participants' experiences are in agreement.

Journalists are urged to check facts for accuracy and to protect sources if

there is potential harm

that

might occur as a result of pub lication (e.g., Fedler

et

al. , 1997). How ever,

the

ve rification

of

explicit

and

unco ntes ted facts

is too

limiting

a s a

prescription

for

ethnographic journal ism .

If

journalis ts

are to

tell

stories from th e standpoint of a particular group, th e individuals observed

must participate to some ex tent in verification of how the m eaning s of their

lives

a re

p ortray ed. Allowing this wou ld require some rethin king

of

journalis-

tic habits, such as the norm that reporters should not allow a source to read a

draft prior to pub lication.

Avoiding Bias

A compatible goal of the ethnographic method and the craft of journalism is

the absence of intended bias. Both the e thnog raphe r and the jo ur nal ist strive

to

avoid applying

their own

frame

of

reference

to the events and people ob-

served. Because

the

purpose

of

ethnography

is to

portray

a

group accurately

and intimately, the imposition of the ethnog raphe r's point o f view w ould cor-

rup t

the

final product.

However, when applied to the organizational context of journalism, the

evaluation of bias must extend beyond the individual reporter to the news

produ ction process itself. Ethnography

in

journal ism ,

for

instance, req uires

an



8. ETHNO GRAPHIC JOURNALISM 133

abandonment

of

routines such

as the

reliance

on official

sources

and the

goal

of

creating balance by juxtaposing conflicting views of ideological elites

(Gans , 1980; Tuchman, 1978).

Covert or Overt Observation

Another ethical consideration

is

whether

to

inform those being studied

of the

intent

of the

ethnographer

to

observe certain practices. Although

one of the

roles

an ethnographer might assume is

that

of pure observer—in which the

presence of the ethnographer is unknown to those being observed—such prac-

tices are

prohibited when

federal

funding

is

used

to

support research (Punch,

1994). Still,

the

necessity

to

receive

the consent of

those observed might pre-

vent many

useful

projects. A s Punch (1994) observed: "a strict application of

codes will restrain and restrict a great deal of informal, innocuous research in

which ... explicitly enforcing rules concerning informed

consent

will make the

research role simply untenable (p . 90). Therefore, ethical considerations re-

garding

covert observation should be considered guidelines and not strict rules.

A

distinction

is

made, however, between informed

consent and

deception

regarding

one's

purpose. Deception seems

to be

most common when

an

ethnog-

rapher embarks on research intended to expose corrupt practices or to advocate

for reforms. Researchers disagree on where and when to draw this

line.

The ben-

efits of particular kinds of knowledge might outweigh the potential or actual

harm

of

methods used

to

obtain

that

knowledge, according

to

some researchers.

M os t scholars agree that the rights of

subjects

take precedence and should guide

one's moral calculations.

Attempts to

justify

deception in journalism typically derive from the premise

that u nu su a l reporting techniques

are

necessary

to

expose certain types

of

cor-

rupt ion

(Elliott & Culver, 1992). B y contrast, w e envision ethnographic report-

in g as a commitment to portray people and perspectives usually ignored in

mains tream media. Apart from the ethical implications, deception restricts the

capacity of the

observer

to

create

an

authentic portrait. Concerns about pri-

vacy,

along with

the

need

to

include group members

in the

story verification

process, require that a journalist openly declare her intentions.

On the

other hand,

it is

possible

to

envision

ethnography used

in

investiga-

t ive journalism with the goal of exposing corruption.

Whether

in conven-

tional

or

investigative journalism,

the

motivation

to

conceal

a

reporter's

intention stems from the assumption

that one's

identity as a reporter alters

na tu ra l ly

occurring behaviors. The immediacy and audience size associated

with publication, coupled with the public's increasing cynicism about journal-

istic motives (Cappella & Jamieson, 1997), often produces guarded or artifi-



134 CRAMER

AND

McDEVITT

cia l behavior . Awareness o f e th nog r ap h ic t e ch n iqu es , h ow ev e r , cou ld

encourage journalists

to

th ink

of

alternatives

to

concealment

or to

outr ight

stealth . Whereas social scientists are t ra ined in methods tha t address th rea ts

to inference such as the H aw th o r ne effect, jou rna l i sm edu ca t ion p rov ides l i t-

t le guidance beyond in terview te chn iques tha t m ight put a source at ease (e.g .,

Rich, 2000). If jou rna l i s ts were t ra ined in technique s th at reduc e— or a t leas t

accom m odate— the inf lue nce of their presence on others , they m ight be less

t empted to conceal their ident i t ies .

Confidentiality

A related concern is the preservation of confide ntiality. An e thnog rapher 's as-

surance

of

con fidentiality provides some safeguard against invasion

of

privacy.

According

to

Punch (1994): There

i s a

strong

feeling

among fieldworkers tha t

settings and respondents should not be identifiable in pr int and that they should

not suffer

harm

or

embarrassment

as a consequence of

research"

(p.

92) .

To ob-

serve this standard requires some sensitivity

to

wh a t migh t

be

considered

em -

barrassing

and

wha t migh t

be

considered public

as

opposed

to

p r iva te .

Journalism entails

a

larger

and

more diverse audience

in

compar ison

to

aca-

demic research, making the protection of

co nfidential ity

a l l the m ore impo r tant

for ethno graphic reporting. Publication in mains tream m edia represents a mag-

nitude of potential harm that far exceeds the dam age that m ight ar ise from pri-

vate behavior revealed in a scho larly jou rna l. A reporter should discuss w ith

group m embers— and perhaps negot ia te—the k ind of information tha t should

be revealed. W hile a reporter m ight assure tha t an ind ividu al rem ains anony-

m ous, certain actions or s tatem ents could become publ ic , w ith possible harm to

the

group's

reputation.

HOW TO CONDUCT

ETHNOGRA P HIC REP ORTING

To illustrate

the

process

of

ethnog raphic reporting,

we

include T able

8.1

that pin-

points

key differences

between in-depth feature reporting (the closest relative

in

conventional journalism to the

method

described in th is chapter ) and

ethnographic journalism on three levels: concep tualization , reporting, and writing.

Conceptualization

In traditional conceptions of new swo rthiness, jou rnalis ts focus on extraordinary

events and the actions and decisions of politicians, bu siness leaders and celebri-

ties.

By

contrast, ethnog raphic reporting aim s

for pluralism in its

coverage

of ev-

eryday

people, s tressing individual character and quotidian victories over



8. ETHNO GRAPHIC JOU RNALISM

135

TABLE 8.1

Differences Between Conventional and Ethnographic Reporting

Conventional

In-depth Features Ethnographic Portraits

Conceptualization

Newswor thiness

• Change •

Adapta tion

• The u n u s u a l •

Hidden

meanings

• Celebrities and elites • Rituals and practices

Reporting

Relation ship Au tonom ous professional Socially acceptable incompetent

with sources

O bservation Deductive Indu ctive

Interviewer

The

miner

The

traveler

Writing

Na r ra to r

Epistemology

Journal is t

Balance

Group

Authentic i ty

bureaucratic or

political achievements.

The

notion

of

change

as a

criterion

fo r

newsworthiness

helps us to make this distinction. W hile a conven tional jour nal -

is t

will

look

fo r

social erup tions

or

gradual trends that signal change,

a

reporter

pursuing

ethnography examines change in a different sense. According to the

perspective

o f

structural fu nctionalism , social systems

do

change

b ut for the

pu r -

pose of ada ptatio n and continuity. The paradox of this dynam ic becomes m anifest

in

rituals

and

practices that help

a

group

to

cope with external p ressures wh ile

preserving

identity and values. These practices can involve hidden meanings th at

must

be

understood

by a

journalist

if the

group's story

is to be

told accurately.

Reporting

A journalis t

interview ing

for an

in-depth

feature

wou ld seek

to

establish rapport

with source s wh ile m aintaining some distance as an autonomou s observer a nd

recorder. Rep orters

are

sometimes advised

to

dem onstrate knowledge abou t

a

topic while conversing w ith

a

source,

in the hope

that

the

interview ee w ill recip-

rocate and offer

valua ble insights .

In

ethnographic journalism , however,

the re-



136

CRAMER

AND

McDEVITT

por ter must

not let

professional expertise impinge

on her

effort

to

observe

and

gather information

in a

na tu ral setting. L ofland

and

Lofland recomm ended tha t

a

field

research er act as a "socially accep table in com pete nt" (1995, pp. 56 –5 7)

as

a technique for gaining access to groups w itho ut a l ter ing their behavior .

In

conventional

journ alism , reporters usual ly have in m ind the basic theme

of

their stories before most interviews

are

conducted. With space

to f i l l and a

deadline

to

m ee t,

an

editor m ight insis t tha t

a

repo rter essentia l ly have

the nut

graph (the paragraph

that

d is t il ls w hat the s tory is abo ut) w rit ten before begin-

ning research.

This

deduc t ive approach— in wh ich in terviews

are

conducted

to

confirm

the

story initially imag ined

by the

repor ter— is

not

com pat ib le w i th

the

inductive techniques

of

ethnography. O nly

after

a

process

of

discovery

does

the

wri ter

contemp la te

the

mean ing

of

w h a t

she

observed.

Kvale's

(1996) portrayal of the interview as a miner or a traveler highlights how

these contrasting approaches

are

played

out

during interviews (Babbie,

1998).

M iners assume th at their role is to dig out nugg ets of information, along with lively

quotes, because th e source is essentially used to extract information. A traveler

wanders without

a map

through unknown territory

and

asks questions

that

lead

the subjects to tell their own stories of their lived world" (Babbie, 1998, p. 5).

Some

of the

best examples

o f

in-depth

and

literary journalism

in the

United

States reflect eth nog raphic principles (e.g., Berner, 1999; Connery, 1992; Sims,

1990; Sims and K ramer, 1995), and practitioners have on occasion explicitly de-

scribed th eir work

as

ethnographic (e.g., K ram er, 199 5;Sims, 1995).

A s

explained

by

Harrington

(19 97 ), the techniques of produ cing narratives of ordinary lives are

similar to the

ethnographic method: writing

th e

story from

th e

point

of

view

of

one or several subjects; gathering details from subjects' lives; gathering real-life

dialogue; gathering interior monologue, such as what subjects are thinking,

dreaming, imagining,

or

worrying about; gathering physical details

o f

places

and

people;

and

immersing temporarily

in the

lives

of

subjects .

Immersion

and

what ethnographers would call par t icipant observation

are

the pr im ary techniques used to ga ther da ta . For ins tance , Kidder watched a de-

sign team build a comp uter to write his Puli tz er Pr ize-w inning

book, The

Soul of

a N e w Machine, and for

another

story, spent

a

yea r

in a

nurs ing home, taking

notes and listening to conversations to collect m ater ia l (Sims, 1 995). In an in-

te rview with No rm an Sims

on the

subject ,

Ted

Conover

said:

Participant observation

... is the wa y I

prefer

to

pursue journal ism.

I t

m eans

a

reliance

not on the interview so

m u c h

as on the

shared expe rience

with

somebody.

The

idea

to

me

that

journalism an d

anthropology

go

together

... was a great

enabling idea

for my

l ife—the

idea that

I

could learn ab out

different

people

and

different aspects

of the

world by

placing

myself in situations, and

thereby

see

more than

you

e ver could

just by

doing

an interview.

(Sims, 1995,

p. 13)



8. ETHNO GRAPHIC JOURNA LISM 137

Writing

The

goal

of

literary journalism, according

to

Kramer (1995),

is to

broaden

readers' scans and allow them to see other lives and contexts, thereby mov-

ing readers—and writers— toward realization, compassion, and in the best of

cases, wisdom

(p.

34). Ethnography takes this principle

a

step fu r ther

by in-

sisting

that

the

subjects written about

are the

actual narrators

of the

story.

The

wri ter

becomes

a

medium through which

the

group's story

is

told.

The

close

examination of a group ensures that it is not the ethnographer's point of view

but the actual experiences, values, and goals of the group that are communi-

cated

(Blumer,

1969).

In

this regard,

the

epistemological goal

of the

ethnographic reporter

is au-

thenticity in the portrayal of a group's perspective. By contrast, the knowledge

produced in a conventional feature originates from attempts to create balance,

whereby competing ideologies or other perspectives are juxtaposed. Kovach

and

Rosenstiel (2001) provided

evidence

that many journalists

do

realize

the

l imitations

of the concepts of

objectivity,

neutrality, and balance. The authors

reported

on a

study they described

as the

most comprehensive examination

ever

conducted

by

journalists

of

news gathering

and its

responsibilities.

"After

synthesizing

what w e learned, it became clear

that

a number of familiar and

even useful ideas—including fairness and balance—are too vague to rise to the

level

of

essential elements

of the

profession

(p.

13).

We

want

to

emphasize that

Kovach and

Rosenstiel

are

describing

a

critical perspective expressed

by jour-

nalists

themselves, rather than

a

critique originating

from

academic theory.

A CASE STUDY: SIDEWALK

STANDOFF

How the

ethnographic method might

be

applied

is

illustrated next

in the de-

scription of a case study conducted in Palo Alto, where college journalists pro-

duced stories on the homeless population.

Coverage of homeless people illustrates the potential harm of conventional

reporting, as

well

as the

value

of an

ethnographic alternative.

In the

late 1990s,

for

example,

the

City Council

in

Palo

Alto

enacted

a ban on

sitting

or

lying

on

downtown streets. Merchants had complained about homeless people hovering

outside

their storefronts and aggressive panhandlers scaring o ff customers. Lo-

cal

newspapers provided extensive coverage when about 200 citizens, in opposi-

tion

to the

ordinance, staged

a

sit-down protest outside downtown shops

on the

evening the law went

into

effect. However, in a university town

that

views itself

as a tolerant community, th e subsequent news stories seemed to enflame out-

rage

on both sides.



138

CRAMER

AN D

McDEVITT

The

case study described here outlines

how a

political communication

course at Stanford University, taught by one of the authors of this

essay,

sought

to contribute to public knowledge and constructive dialogue about panhan-

dling. In a project that became known as Sidewalk Standoff, students adopted a

three-stage model.

They

developed goals based on evaluation of prior news

coverage; generated stories using ethnographic methods;

and

assessed

the

com-

munity ' s reaction to the project. Ethnographic journalism obviously takes more

time than the typical deadline-oriented coverage, and the class took advantage

of

the 10-week academic quarter to pursue activities associated with each of the

three stages. Students eventually contributed multiple

features

and sidebars f or

the

Palo

Alto

Weekly,

an

off-campus,

locally owned paper.

Stage One: Evaluation

In content

analysis

or other

methods,

an

evaluation

of

prior news coverage, par-

ticularly

in its depictions of a particular subculture, can provide a rationale for

ethnographic approaches.

An

analysis

of

coverage

may

reveal that

the

local

press v ir tual ly ignores certain groups, or that it perpetuates stereotypes despite

the

lack

of

purposeful

bias.

This

realization

is

itself

an

important outcome

of ed-

ucational training for future journalists because it might

counteract

the com-

mon scenario in which a student's psychological need to identify with a

profession

fosters a rigid loyalty to conventional notions of detachment and au-

tonomy (McDevitt, Gassaway,

&

Perez, 2002).

For the Palo

Alto

project, students noticed that news sources

rarely

ex-

pressed outright hostility toward panhandlers, bu t reporters tended to lump

homeless people together: as a collective problem, as an embarrassment for the

community ,

as a

curiosity

for th e

upscale town,

or as

objects

o f

sympathy.

The

local press

dutifully

provided what m ay have appeared to be a balanced account

of

the debate between merchants and community activists, bu t

vir tual ly

absent

were perspectives of homeless individuals themselves. Students resolved to un -

derstand

the meanings

that

homeless

people themselves bring

to

their lives

and

to share these insights with readers. This became the overriding goal of the

class,

and the

next step

was to

choose

the

appropriate reporting techniques.

Stage Two: Ethnographic Reporting

The

class initially decided

on a

team approach

to

reporting, which seemed

to al-

leviate

the

unstated

but

obvious apprehension

of

some students about interact-

ing with homeless people on their ow n

turf.

About a dozen students arrived

together

at a

homeless shelter

one

morning

to

meet several

men and

women



8. ETHNOGRAPHIC

JOURNALISM 139

who w ere waiting for don uts and coffee. The team approach also allowed the

class to d istr ibute questionnaires

efficiently

to 33 homeless persons to produce

data th at w ould even tually supplem ent qualitative descriptions. Individual s tu -

dents

then

worked

on

their

own to

write intimate portraits

of

homeless people.

M eanw hile, a few students tried their hands at f irs t-person journalism by living

the life of pan han dle rs for 1 day and exp erim enting with passive and aggressive

approaches

to

begging.

In

interview s and in observations of panhandling, s tude nts began to appreci-

ate the

diversity

of

life

experiences and outlooks within the homeless

popula-

tion. In one news

story,

for exam ple, a s tudent explained that many homeless

people never pan hand le, consider such activity

to be

demeaning,

and

resent

the

negative image panhandling im parts to homeless people in general. Man y of the

panhandlers,

in turn,

described

themselves as long-term , stable m embers of the

community , and

they expressed resentment toward newcomers

who had en-

gaged

in aggressive begging.

In

aggregate,

the

reporting seemed

to

challenge m ost directly

the

perception

that homeless people were outsiders,

rather

than mem bers of the community.

Data

from

the survey distr ibuted at the shelter supported the various narratives

produced by the students. For example, the average number of years respon-

den ts had lived in Palo

Alto

was 15, about 55 percent of the respondents indi-

cated

that

they

had

relatives

in the San Francisco Bay Area, and 52 percent

said

they

felt

com fortable l iving in the area. Anecdotes from personality profiles por-

trayed the subjects w ith cultu ral traits , values, and parochial perspectives simi-

lar

to

other residents with monthly mortgage payments. Data from

the

questionnaires encouraged readers to come to the same conclusion.

Stage

Three: Recording Community Response

The primary goal was to

contribute

to readers' understanding of panhandlers,

not to influence policy at City Hall directly. The class did conclude the series,

however , with a roun dtable discussion held at the new spape r 's office, to which

public officials, activists,

and

merchants were invited. Most importantly from

an

ethnographic perspective, a

member

of the homeless

com munity

attended

the

discussion

to

confirm

or

challenge various portray als

in the

s tudents ' news

coverage. The hope was th at insight from the published series w ould con tribute

to a

cons tructive dialogue directed toward consensus

on how to

allev iate vari-

ous concerns about

panhandling.

The

content

of the newspaper ' s le t ters to the editor and of 110 te lephone

in terviews conducted by students with residents following the coverage of-

fered insight about the complexi ty of perspect ives in the community . Indeed ,



14O CRAMER

AND

McDEVITT

many respondents expressed ambivalence about panhandlers:

While 59

per-

cent

indicated that they had spoken with a homeless person, more than 40

percent said they would cross a road to avoid a panhandler. The class could

not

assert with certainty that

its

series contributed

to

this ambivalence,

but if

it

did, this would

be

considered

a

positive outcome

in

light

o f

prior research

showing

that

the process of coming to judgment requires a reconsideration of

assumpt ions prior to the attainment of a refined perspective (Yankelovich,

1991).

The

telephone survey

design was not intended to

produce inferences

about the influence of news exposure on readers' knowledge and attitudes,

but 55

percent

of

respondents agreed

or

strongly agreed with

the

following

statement:

The

news reports made

me

think more about possible solutions

to

the

homeless problem.

A

final

outcome of the

project concerned

the

influence

of

ethnographic

re-

porting on the students themselves. The desire of some students to join the

ranks of the panhandlers, if only for 1 day, and the nuanced manner in which

they portrayed homeless individuals suggest that these journal i s t s - in- t ra ining

were embracing

an

empathetic approach

to the

craft. They seemed

to be

experi-

encing journalism as a

form

of citizenship, in which they were coming to know,

perhaps

for the

first time,

the

true complexity

of

their community. They

h ad

cer-

tainly stepped beyond—both physically and psychologically—the privileged

setting

of the

university campus.

However,

if

ethnography directs student journalists

to a

kind

of

immersion

into

the lives of marginalized groups, it also challenges the perception that pro-

fessional autonomy is equivalent to social detachment. Students are encour-

aged to decide for themselves whether any ethnographic experiences they

might have cross

the

line into advocacy.

At the

very least,

a

reflective

response

to this question

encourages students

to

consider

the

limitations

of

what

is

typi-

cally considered objective,

value-free

reporting.

CONCLUSION

In the construction of authentic and empathetic portrayals, journalists a re

aided

by

employing ethnographic methods

in

their work. Such techniques

en-

tail immersion

in a

community

or

culture

to

reveal

as

deeply

and as

accurately

as

possible group members' feelings, thoughts, values, challenges, a nd goals.

These

journalistic accounts, then,

are

drawn from perspectives within

a

group rather than interpretations imposed

from

the outside. Such perspectives

reflect

the strong objectivity described by Durham, which is not a detached

viewpoint but a

purposeful

incorporation of subject ive perspectives. It is an ob-

jectivity based on accuracy, rich description, and an insider point of view.



8. ETHNOGRAPHIC JOURNALISM 141

The aim of some comm unity-oriented new spapers seems com patible with the

ultim ate goals of an ethnographic journalism— that is, to

have

a newspaper be of

its com m unity and let mem bers of the com m unity tell their stories through a jour-

nalist imm ersed temp orarily in their cu ltu re (e.g., Hin dm an, 1998). W hile w e

recognize the hazards of adopting wh at m ay seem to be advocacy journalism, we

contend that journalists

can

adopt ethnographic methods without sacrificing

the

essential

valu es of the profession. Indeed, through ethnography, journ alists m ight

recover

a core, but perhaps neglected, principle of their

craft.

As Harrington

(1997) sugg ested : "The stories of everyda y life— abo ut ... people as they seek

m eaning and purpose in their lives, stories that are windows on our un iversal hu-

man struggle— should be at the soul of every good n ewsp aper" (p. xiv ).

At a practical level, we also reco gnize that reporters

cannot

practice ethnog -

raphy on deadline. Like civic journalism or investigative reporting , ethno-

graphic journa lism requires

a

project approach based

on

substantial planning

and m anagem ent suppo rt . Indeed, i t m ight require a fun da m en tal change in a

newsroom's c ultu re. Civic

and

investigative journalism have become insti tu-

tionalized as reg ular practice at a relatively small percentage of newspapers in

the United States. We invite students as future professionals to consider

whether ethnography also provides a compelling reason to slow the

frenetic

pace of

daily

news coverage.

Educators and studen ts, m eanwh ile, can experiment with a three -stage cu r-

r icu lum

strategy that initially asks stude nts to e valua te conventional coverage .

Students should

then

appreciate the valu e of ethnog raphic principles as the y

begin the reporting stage. Finally,

students

reflect on how their reporting m ight

em pow er not m erely their sub jects , but themselves as storytellers now m ore

deeply

engaged in a comm unity .

Through ethnographic

journalism, students

and

professionals edge closer

to

portraying

th e

inner t ru ths

of

society 's consti tuent groups (Hutch ins Comm is-

sion,

1947 ). Spradley (1979) wrote that ethnography represents "the one sys-

tematic approach in the social sciences that leads us into those separa te reali t ies

tha t others h ave learned and used to make sense out of their w orlds" (p. iv ) .

However, if these sepa rate realities are systematically excluded in new s cover-

age,

jou rna lists m ust rethink the m ethods they use to describe the social w orld,

and they must revisit the professional values

that

legitimize these m ethods.

RE FE RE NCE S

A tkins on, P. , & H amm ersley, M . (1994) . Ethnograp hy and p art ic ipant observation. In N. K.

Denzin

& Y .

Lincoln (Eds.) , Handbook

of

quali tative research (pp.

248-261).

Thousa nd

O a k s , CA: Sage.

Babbie, E. (1998) . The practice of

social

research. Belmont, CA: Wadswor th .



142 CRAMER AN D

McDEVITT

Berger,

A. A. (2000). Media and communication research methods: An introduction to qualitative

an d quantitative approaches.

Thousand

O a ks , CA : Sage.

Berner, R. T.

(1999).

The

literature

of

journalism:

Text and

content.

State College, PA: Strata

Publishing.

Blumer,

H.

(1969).

Symbolic interactionism: perspective and method.

Englewood

Cliffs, NJ:

Prentice Hall.

Braithwaite, C. A. (1997). Were YOU

there?

A ritual of legitimacy among Vietnam

veter-

ans.

Western Journal of Comm unication, 61,

423–447.

Cappella,

J. N., & Jam ieson,

K.H.

(1997) .

Spiral

of

cynicism:

The

press

and the

public good.

New

York:

O xford U niversity Press.

Charity,

A . (1995).

Doing

public journalism. New

York: Guilford.

Connery, T. B. (Ed.) (1 992 ).

A sourcebook o f American

literary

journalism: Rep resentative writers

in an

emerging genre. N ew

York:

Greenwood

Press.

Conquergood,

D .

(1994). Homeboys

and

hoods:

Gang

comm unica t ion

and

c u l t u r a l

space. In

L. R. Frey (Ed.),

Group communication in context: Studies of natural groups (pp. 23-55).

Hillsdale,

N J:

Law rence Erlb au m Associates.

Durham, M . G. (1998 ) . O n the relevance of standpoint epistemology to the practice of j o u r -

nalism: The case fo r "strong objectivity."

Communication Theory,

82, 1 1 7–1 40 .

Elliott , D., & Culver, C . (1992) . Defining and analyzing journal is t ic decept ion . Journal of

Mass

Media Ethics,

7,

69–84.

Et tema, J. S., & Glasser, T. L. (1998) .

Custodians

of conscience: Investigative

journalism an d p u b -

lic virtue. New

Y ork: Colum bia Univ ersity Press.

Fedler, F., Bender, J. R., Da venp ort, L., & K osty u, P. E. (1 99 7). Reporting for the media

(6th

ed.) . Fort Worth,

T X :

Harc ourt Brace.

Gamble ,

D.

( 1 978 ) .

The

Berger inquiry:

A n

impact assessment process. Science,

199,

946-952.

Gans, H. J. (1980).

Deciding what's new s:

A

study of

CBS

Evening

N e w s , NBC

Nightly

N e w s

,

N e w s w e e k , and Time. N ew

York: Random House .

Geertz , C . ( 1 973 ) .

Th ick

description: Toward an interpretive theory of c u l t u r e . In The inter-

pretation of

cultures (pp. 3-30).

New York: Basic Books.

Glaser, B.G.,

&

Strauss ,

A. L.

(1967) . The

discovery o f

grounded

theory: Strategies

for

qualitative

research. N ew

York:

Aldine.

Glasser,

T . L.

(19 92 ). Professionalism

and the

derision

of

diversity:

Th e

case

of the

educat ion

of

journalists.

Journal

of

Communication,

12

(2),

131–140.

Gold, R. (1958). Roles in sociological field observations. Social Forces, 36, 2 17 – 2 2 3 .

Gold,

R. L. (1997). The

ethnographic

method in sociology. Qualitative

Inquiry,

3,

388–403.

Hard ing, S. (19 91 ). Whose science?

Whose knowledge? Thinking from women's lives.

I thaca , NY:

Cornell

University

Press.

Harr ington, W. (E d.) . (1 997 ). Intimate journalism: The art and craft of

reporting

everyday l i f e .

Thousand

Oaks, CA: Sage.

Hindman ,

E. B.

(1998 ). "Spectacles

of the poor :

Convent ions

o f

altern ative news. Journal-

ism and

Mass Communication Quarterly,

75, 177-193.

Hutch ins Commission ( 1 947 ) .

A

free

and responsible press.

Chicago: Universi ty

of

Chicago

Press.

Junker ,

B.

(1960). Field w ork.

Chicago:

University

of

Chicago Press.

Ke yton , J. (20 01 ). Com munication research: Asking questions,

finding answ ers

. Mo untain View,

C A: Mayfield Publishing Company.

Kovach, B., & Rosenstiel, T. (2001). The

elements

o f

journalism: What ne ws peop le should know

and

th e

public should expect.

New York: Crown Publishers.

Kramer ,

M . (1995) . Breakable rules for l i te rary journa l is ts . In N. Sims & M. K ram er (Eds.) ,

Literary journalism

(pp.

21-34).

N ew

York: Ballantine.



8. ETHNOGRAPHIC JO URNALISM 143

Kvale .

S. (1996). Interviews: An introduction to quali tative

research

interviewing. Thousand

Oaks , CA: Sage.

Lesch,

C. L.

(1994)

•

O bserving theory

in

practice: Sustaining consciousness

in a

coven.

In L.

R.

Frey (Ed.),

Group communicat ion

in

context: Studies

of

natural

groups

(pp. 57-84).

Hillsdale,

NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Lindlof,

T. R. (1995). Q ualitative communication

research

methods.

Thousand

O aks, CA: Sage.

Lofland,

J., & L ofland, L. H. (1995). Analyzing social settings: A

guide

to quali tative observation

an d analysis. Belmont , CA: Wadsworth.

Mannhe im , K. (1952). Essays o n the sociology of knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul .

Marcus ,

G. E., &

Fischer,

M . M. J.

(1986/1999). Anthropology

as

cultural critique:

An

experi-

mental

moment

in the

human sc iences.

Chicago: The Unive rsity of

Chicago

Press.

McDevi t t ,

M .,

Gassaway,

B., &

Perez,

F. G.

(2002).

The

making

and

unmaking

of

civic

jour-

nalists: Influences of professional socialization. Journalism and

Mass

Communicat ion

Quarterly,

79,

87-100.

Punch , M . (1 994 ). Politics and ethics in qua litative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y . S. Lincoln

(Eds.),

Handbook

o f qualitative research (pp.

83–97). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Rich,

C.

(2000).

Writing and

reporting n e w s :

A coaching

method. Belmont ,

CA:

Wadsworth .

Sims, N. (Ed.) (1990).

Literary

journalism in the twe ntieth century. New York: O xford U niver-

sity

Press.

Sims, N. (19 95). The art of l i terary journalism . In N. Sims & M . Kra m er (E ds.), Literary jour -

nalism:

A new collection

of

th e best

Am erican nonfiction (pp. 3–19).

New

York: Ballantine.

Sims, N., &

Kramer ,

M .

(Eds.) (1995).

Literary

journalism: Anew collection

of

th e best American

nonfiction.

New

York:

Ballantine.

Spradley,

J. P. (19 79).

The

ethnographic

interview.

Fort W orth, TX: Harc ourt Brace.

Tuchman, G. (1978 ). Making

news:

A study in the construction

o f

reality. New York: Free Press.

Van Maanen , J. (1988).

Tales

of

the field: On

writing e thnography. Chicago: University of Chi-

cago Press.

Weber,

M . (1947) .

T he

theory

of

social

and

economic organization (1st American

ed.).

(A. M.

Henderson & T . Parsons, Trans.). New

York:

Oxford University Press.

Yankelovich, D. (19 91 ). Coming to public judgment . Syracuse, NY : Syracuse Unive rsity Press.






9

Inventing Civic Mapping

Kathryn

B.

Campbell

University of Oregon

Some reporting assignments and research problems

simply

boggle the mind.

How can a complicated social or political issue be investigated, understood in

al l o f its complexity, and

then

comm unicated to an audience th at may— or m ay

not—be ready

to consider and act on the

information?

Part

o f the

answer

to

this question

is

straightforw ard.

To

tackle complex

re -

search and storytelling about a comm unity, a reporter can assess the qualitative

and quanti tat ive m ethods that h ave a docum ented history of successful imple-

mentation and

then

choose the method that

appears best suited

to the enter-

prise.

Consider, however, the exciting and challenging

notion

that the bes t

method

may not

have been devised yet.

N ew

research problems

often

call

fo r

the creation of new research m ethods, or for the com bination of existing m eth-

ods, to solve them.

The

emerging practice

of

civic mapping

is an

example

of

such innovative

thinking.

At its

m ost basic, civic m apping

is a way for

reporters

a nd

comm uni ty

researchers to find out who talks to

whom about what .

The

"who"

in

this case

could

be an individual , com m unity group, or government enti ty. The "whom"

includes othe r individuals, group s, and organizations, as well as them selves. To

"map"

th e

pat terns

of

com m unication, researchers system atically record

infor-

mation

on the

relationship s am ong individuals

and

g roups, paying special atten-

tion

to the

number

and

variety

of the

researchers '

ow n

sources.

This

m ap

helps

the researcher or reporter identify the gaps in

communication

channels, such as

tw o groups

w orking

on

housing issues

who do not

coordinate their

efforts o r en-

45



146

C MPBELL

tire neighborhoods whose residents are never interviewed for newspaper sto-

ries. Identifying such gaps

is the

first step toward closing them.

The

journalists

who

decide

to try

civic mapping

are

indeed innovative.

These mapping experiments, undertaken

in

about three dozen cities

to

date,

have resulted in projects ranging from the creation of expanded Rolodex da-

tabases for reporters to multipart newspaper series on complex issues. Most of-

ten, however,

the

term mapping becomes

a

metaphor

for a

list,

a

database,

or a

chart, rather than

being used

in its

more literal, traditional sense;

and

geo-

graphic maps have rarely been incorporated in the projects.

An exception is the case of civic mapping a t The

Tampa

Tribune in Tampa,

Florida.

In

1999,

tw o

reporters

a t

The

Tribune

wanted

to

find

out how

residents

felt

about

a

redevelopment plan

that

would encourage

the

restoration

of

charming

but

rundown houses

in the

Tampa Heights

neighborhood. The as-

signment sounds deceptively simple. T he reporters could have interviewed a

couple of city officials, called three or four property owners, and written a solid

news story about

the

pros

and

cons

of the

redevelopment plan.

But

they didn't.

Realizing that they knew little more about the neighborhood than its name,

they

decided to

experiment with civic mapping, immersing themselves

in the

Tampa Heights neighborhood until they developed

a

comprehensive, nuanced

understanding of the community's concerns. Even though they were among the

first to test this new research technique, what they learned has indelibly

changed their own journalistic practice.

Another

case of experimental civic mapping unfolded d ifferently. To begin

w ith, the research question w as clearly complex. Reporters at The Spokesman-

Review in Spokane, Washington, wanted to know why some children grow up to

lead happy, productive lives a nd others simply end up on the streets, drug ad-

dicted, or in jail. More than that, they wanted to help Spokane families figure

out how to help themselves raise

successful

children. Clearly, the

issue

could

not be addressed by making a few phone calls and talking to a few parents. The

Spokane journalists also decided to experiment with what they called civic

mapping, inventing as necessary the methods they needed to research and re-

port the enormously complicated story they had assigned themselves.

In Tampa and in Spokane, the experienced journalists assigned to these stories

were

familiar

with many

of the

research techniques described

in

this volume.

They were skilled, for example, in using focus groups and conducting in-depth in-

terviews; and they were acquainted with the techniques of

case

studies, oral his-

tories,

ethnography,

and

issue analysis.

They

also

had

experience

in

using

quantitative data in more traditional investigative reporting. Y et as they tackled

their projects, they pushed themselves beyond the familiar to try to create some-

thing

entirely new. In doing so, they were acting in the best tradition of the Chi-



9.

I N V E N T I N G C I V I C

MAPPING

147

cago School—reaching across disciplines

to try to

develop

ways o f

reporting

and

researching that are equal to the complexity of the problem at hand.

CONCEPTUALIZING CIVIC

MAPPING

Civic map ping

can b e

conceptualized

in at

least

tw o

ways: cognitively

and

s truc-

turally. T he

concepts

are

som ew hat similar,

but

their differences lead quite nat-

urally to

different kinds

of

civic mapping.

A

brief introduction

to

these

conceptual approaches

m ay

help explain

how two

experiments , both called

civic

mapping, differed so markedly.

Cognitive Mapping

Cognit ive m app ing is the kind of m apping previously described, wh ich can be

defined

more formally as an at tem pt to catalog the actors in a com m unity,

their positions in the

community

and their

relationships

to each

other,

and

their relat ionships

to

journal is ts .

This is the

m ethodology that

w as

developed

and d isseminated by the Pew Center for Civic Journal ism and The Harw ood

Group between 1999 and 2002.

This

m ethod of civic map ping, wh ich is de-

scribed

more fully later in this chapter, does not insist on the production of

geograph ic maps; indeed, only one such set of m aps em erged in the 3 years of

the

Pew-Harwood training seminars.

Structural Mapping

St ruc tu ra l

mapping is more complex and thus better suited to complex re-

search. Its

hal lmark

is an

a t t empt

to

capture graphically

the

social netw ork s,

layers of

civic

life, and the

spatial relationships amo ng people

and

inst i tut ions.

Put

another way, s truc tural mapping l i terally uses maps

of

communit ies—

streets and boulevards, bike paths and bridges, buildings and open spaces—to

plot

the

pa t t e rn

of

com m unity relat ionships.

The

cen tral task

of s t ruc tura l

map-

ping is to

demonstra te

the

complex

set of

interrelationships across

the

entire range

of the

mul t i -

ple levels

of

society

that

make

up the

interlocking

structure

of

public

life.

Individuals,

small

groups, larger groups

and

associations,

and

insti tut ions

all

contr ibute

to the

s t ruc ture

of

public life,

and all

mus t

be

considered

in

their interrelationships

if we are

to

ha ve

any

adequate working model

of

contemporary public life. (Friedland, Kang ,

Campbel l ,

&

Pondillo, 1999,

p. 2)

These

groups communicate with

each other in a

med iated atmosph ere—

that

is ,

they const ruct

an

imagined community (Anderson, 1991) relying

iin



148

C A M P B E L L

large pa rt on the media to circulate inform ation abou t them . Using this kind of

civic m apping, journ alists can unco ver the b ounda ries of com m unities—

whether they

are the

boundaries

of

political partitions,

the

barriers

of

socioeco-

nomic s ta tus ,

or the

limits

o f

common interes t—an d

try to

d ed u ce

how

m e m -

bers of various communities get and use information about the others. The

subse quen t geographic display of detailed and c om prehensive data o n these

patterns is cr i t ical for researchers to acquire an understanding of the whole,

ra ther than simply the sum of the parts , of comm u ni ty life.

MA PPING IN HISTORICAL SOCIAL RESEA RCH

M apping is both an ordering and an orderly a f f a i r , and it has historically been seen as

a way to reduce the am oun t of error presen t in calculations about the relationships

among places and people.

This

was precisely the reason tha t Charles Booth, in the

late 1800s, d edicated nearly two decades to m apping London. Booth's mo tives we re

clear: He wanted to dem onstrate the correlations between poverty and wages, and

between impoverished morality and organized religion, in order to provide social

reformers with accurate information about

the scope of the

problems they were try-

ing

to solve. As noted in a previous chapter, the Booth m ethod traveled

well

across

the Atlantic, where social activists were dedicating themselves to research and re-

form. Jane Addams and Florence Kelley based Hutt-House Maps and P a p e r s (Resi-

dents, 1895) on the first volumes of Booth's study, Labour and L i f e of the

P e o p l e ,

in

London (1889, 1891). Booth's m aps w ere also the model for dozens of graduate stu-

dents w hose research formed the core of the University of Chicago's versio n of soci-

ology, commonly

referred

to as the Chicago School.

Mapping was central to all the research of the period and nowhere was i t

more impor tant than

in the

Chicago School stud ies. B ulm er (1984) attr ibu tes

to one monograph's author the recollection that "i t was

difficult

as a Chicago

sociologist

in the 1920s to get a Ph.D. w itho ut doing a spot m ap" (p. 155). In-

deed , g radua te s tudents from about 1922 to 1935 produced a series of s tud ies

that were

not

only illustrated

by

maps

of

their findings

but

used mapping

as a

crucial

component of their methodology.

1

One of

these classic studies,

The

Taxi -Dance Hall (Cressey, 1925/1969),

w as

comple ted unde r the direction of

Professors

Rober t E . Park and Ernest Bu rgess.

This s tudy of the d ime-a-dance hal ls of Chicago, which Cressey supp lem ented

by

research

o n

s imilar es tab l ishme nts

in

other

big

cities

of the

1920s,

is an

excel-

lent example

of the w ay the

Chicago

School

used mapping

to

rev eal relation-

ships as

well

as to display the data in a p ubl ished repor t .

That

is, map p ing was a

w ay of learning ab out the topic being studie d, not jus t a graphic device to pres-

ent

w h a t

had

been learned.



9.

I N V E N T I N G

C I V I C MAPPING

149

The taxi-dance halls, according to Cressey's analysis, had evolved in re-

sponse to the social and economic needs of various groups: men who wanted

fe-

male company, young women

who

wanted

to

earn more than factory wages,

and

businessmen who wanted to make money. At a taxi-dance, men paid 10 cents

for

dances with the women, who split the payment with the dance hall owners.

These taxi-dance halls were considered by most conventional people to be

breeding grounds for, at the very least, indecent behavior and interracial rela-

tionships,

and, most probably,

fo r

prostitution

and

other illegal activities.

A s a

result , social workers were concerned with the morals of the young women w ho

worked as dancers, many o f whom were in their middle teens, and law enforce-

ment

agencies were

concerned

with crime

and

neighborhood

safety.

The taxi-dance hall w as not only a microcosm of the city

itself;

it w as a product

of the city. Cressey investigated the taxi-dance halls socially, geographically, psy-

chologically,

and

morally (through

th e

voices

of

social workers, among others).

H e

concluded that taxi-dance halls

filled

legitimate needs

for

companionship,

commerce, and better wages in the city and that their more unsavory aspects

m ight be controlled through th e

efforts

of social engineers, his term for a collec-

tion

of

social workers, clergy, newspaper editors, police officials,

and the

like.

In the

manner

of the

Chicago studies

of the

period, Cressey used

a

variety

of

data

from

a variety o f sources, trying to account for the structural changes

that rapid urbanization

had

brought

to

people's lives.

He

interviewed,

at

great length, the girls and the men who paid for their company on the

dance

floor. In addition, Cressey made maps. He plotted the locations of the danc-

ers' homes, the customers' homes, and the dance halls. In doing so, Cressey

learned

a

great deal about

the

relationships among them, which

he

shared

w i t h

h is

readers:

Compare, in the first place, the

distribution

of residences throughout the city. Al-

t h o u g h

th e girls come from homes in nearly all parts of the city, a large

majority

reside

on the

North

and

Northwest sides. Much more important, however,

is the

observation

that

the

taxi-dancers appear

to be

persons somewhat detached from

the

communities

in

which they have lived. This i s revealed through M ap I.... Little evidence of neigh-

borhood association

was

found,

and as a

result

one is

forced

to the

conclusion that

the

taxi -dancer ' s

girl associates

do not

come

from her own

neighborhood within

the

city.

When found in the dance hall, the taxi-dancer is already considerably detached from

her

early neighborhood ties.

These maps also suggest something concerning the nationality and ancestry of these

young girls. A

surprisingly large number

are

from

th e

Polish areas

of the

city. Hardly

any girls

come from

the

Italian areas

o r from the

Jewish Ghetto.

In the

Jewish areas

of

second settlement, however, where

the Jew

moves

first after

leaving

the

Ghetto,

one

finds

taxi-dancers.

The

striking contrast between

the

Polish group,

on the one

hand,

and the

Italian

and the

Ghetto groups,

on the

other, suggests

the distinct

cultural heri-

tage of the Slavic group as compared with that of either o f the latter tw o groups , and



150 CAMPBELL

suggests the a pp aren t ease wit h w hich the girl of Polish pare nts m ay be absorbed into

the

life

of the taxi-dance hall . (1925/1969, pp. 57-58)

In

Cressey's

The

Taxi-Danc e Hal l ,

and

throughout most

of the

monographs

produc ed in the same m anner, the spa tial dime nsion of the d ata collected was

crucial to the und ers tand ing of the w hole . As A bbot t (1997 ) pu ts i t :

T h e Chicago school thou gh t . .. th a t one cannot u nd ers tan d soc ia l life w i t h o u t u n d e r -

standin g the arrange m ents of pa rt ic ul ar socia l actors in

par t i cu la r

social times and

places

...

Chicago felt tha t

no

social

fact

ma kes

any

sense abs t rac ted from

its

con tex t

in socia l (and often geo graphic) space and socia l t im e. Socia l facts are loca ted .

This

mea ns a focus o n social relatio ns an d spat ial ecology in synchronic analysis, as it m e a n s

a similar focus on

process

in

d iachronic

analysis.

Every socia l

fact

is s i t ua t e d ,

s u r -

rounded by o the r con tex tua l facts and brought in to be ing by a process re la t ing it to

past contexts .

(p .

1 1 5 4 )

Abbott

(1997) argues, and it is t rue of most journalism as well, that "most

con tem po rary sociology does not take the location or relation shi ps of a social

fact

as

cen tra l"

(p .

11 54). People, events,

and

processes,

he

says,

are not

located

in tim e or in space. They are "un its of analysis," rathe r tha n actors in a maze of

social

relations.

"Yet,"

he

adds , " throughout

the

Chicago wri t ings

. . . w e

find

m ap after m ap after m ap, dot ted w ith brothels , sch izoph renics , res ident ia l ho-

tels,

bu sinesses, or w hatev er else w as of in te res t. Through ou t the Chicago

wr i t -

ings, w e

find

t ime and place" (p. 1156).

CIVIC M APPING

IN

CONTEM PORARY JOURNAL ISM

T he theory and pract ice of c iv ic mapp in g is deve lop ing in two m a jo r d irec-

tions that genera l ly reflect the cognitive and s t r u c t u r a l concepts d iscussed

earlier in th is chapter . Each approach is r emar k ab le for its in i t ia t ive and in-

vent iveness , and each is m oving jou rna l ism tow ard a new rep or t ing tool t h a t

m ay y et

develop into

a

sus ta inab le p rac t ice .

These tw o

approaches

will be ex-

plored next by looking at map p ing p r o j ec ts u n d e r t a k e n at

T he Tampa Tribune

and The Spokesman-Review.

A lthough nea r ly three dozen new spapers have exp er imented w ith the cogni-

t ive approac h

to

civic m apping, The Tampa

Tribune is the

only

on e

that included

a

geographic m apping component . To da te , the practice of c iv ic mapp ing h as

not been studied system atically , but some evidence sugg ests th at the practice

has not yet gained widespread acceptance in newsrooms (C am pbe ll , 2002 ). The

case

of The Tampa Tribune illustrates

th e

successful application

of the

Harwood

civ ic m apping method, as well as the challenges of

sus ta ining

it in

daily

pract ice ,

while

the s t r uc tu ra l m apping suggested by the Chicago School studies inspired

The

Spokesman-Review's c ivic m apping expe r ime nt .



9.

INVEN TING CIVIC MAPPING 151

The Harwood Method

The Pew Cente r for Civic Journalism b egan to develop its ideas about civic map -

ping

in

1996

(Schaffer,

2001,

M ay

22 ) . Davis "Buzz" M errit t , editor

of

Th e

Wich-

ita (Kansas) Eagle,

had a

hand

in it,

too;

he

recalls that

he

asked Richard

C.

Harwood

in the

m id-1990s

to

help

his

new spaper "map"

the

"dark

and

trackless

swamp

of public life" (Harwood, 1996, p. 3). The Pew

Center

provided the

funding

for the Harwood

study;

and 5 y ears later, Pew was defining civic m ap-

ping as "a

system atic search

for

alternative sources

o f

knowledge—other than

officials

and

quasi-officials" (Schaffer, 2001, Feb. 9–11).

By

then,

th e

language

of

civic m apping

officially

included "charting co m m unity ' third places, ' active ly

seeking out all stakeholders, u sing alterna tive story

frames

beyond simply con-

flict

and co ntroversy" (Schaffer, 2001, Feb. 9–11), and "building a database of

people who know what's going on." (Schaffer, 2001, May 22 ) .

To

help newsrooms test

the

potential

of

civic m apping,

the Pew

C enter con-

tracted with

T he

Harwood Ins t i tu te

for

Public Innovation

to

provide basic

t ra ining for journal is ts via a series of workshops. Founded and run by R ichard C .

Harw ood, a public policy consultant with degrees from Skidmore College and

Princeton University ,

The

Harwood Insti tute w orked closely with

the Pew

Cen-

ter to develop the civic mapping seminars, a "how-to" wo rkbook, and a boxed

set

of

four trainin g videos. Television, radio, new spaper,

and

web-based news-

rooms applied

to

attend

the

seminars; attendees were selected based

on

their

descr iptions of a planned civic m apping project . The Pew C enter distr ibuted the

videos and the workbook , now in its second edition, at little or no cost to jour -

nalists a round the country.

The

f irst Harwood civ ic mapping seminar

w as

held

in

1999, attended

by

jou rnal is t s from

five cities.

2

In 2000, two seminars were held to train jou rna l-

ists from 12 m ore newsroo m s; and in 2001,

another

12 newsroom projects

were selected for the training workshops. Including anothe r eight pro jec ts

th at w ere not d irectly t ied to the H arwood sem inars, a total of 37 newsroom s

or med ia partnerships had tried, or were intending to try, a version of civic

ma pp in g

by m id -2 0 0 2 .

The

first Pew-Harwood workbook,

Tapping

Civic Life,

was

published

in

1996

and

introduced

the

concept

of the

layers

of

civic

life,

designated

as

official,

quasi-official, third places, incidental, and private . These were the layers to be

"map ped" by finding new sources of information and using that inform ation to

build a

better

understanding of a community.

That

is, reporters were encour-

aged to expand their understanding of their communities by walking their

beats , ta lk ing with ra the r

than

interviewing people, and organizing the inform a-

tion they gleaned in a way that others in the newsroom could use. Some news-



152

CAMPBELL

papers mad e l ists ; others drew ch arts on the

walls

of the newsrooms to track the

emerging picture of the communi ty . T he Harwood notion of third p laces—lo-

cations such

as

coffee shops

and

beau ty par lors w here real people

had

real con-

versa t ions—was

quickly

assimilated. Designating such places as r ich and

legit imate new s sources gave reporters

the

t ime

to do

in-depth repor t ing,

the

permission

to

listen

for

more th an

a

quo te ,

and the luxury o f

ga ther ing

informa-

tion that didn't

have to show up in a story the next day.

The

second edition

of Tapping

Civic L i f e appeared

in

April 2000,

following

the

first

round of

workshops;

it incorporated

some

of the

experiences

of the

journal i s t s who had

part icipated, including those

from

The Tampa

Tribune and

it s project par tner , WFLA-TV.

The

second edition also

laid

out

Harwood's

new

taxonomy

of

leadership

layers,

in t roduc ing t e rm s tha t

are still

m aking the i r

way

into

newsrooms:

official

leaders, civic leaders, conne ctors (people

w ho

in terac t

with mult iple organizations, inst i tut ions, or social groups),

catalysts

(people

wh o exer t inf luence throu gh the i r ne tw orks of in terpersonal re la t ionship s) , and

experts . The idea of civic m apping th us expan ded

slightly

to add a new w ay of

visualizing

the

connections

that create a comm uni ty .

Both editions

of Tapping Civic

L i f e (1996, 2000) provide s tep -b y-s tep expla-

nations

of

journalis t ic civic m apping

and its

associated terminology;

the

2000

edition also offers

specific

ex am ples of how new sroom s hav e collected and used

this

new

kind

of

da ta .

The

workbook

is

ava i lable

on the web at

w ww .pewcenter .

org/doingcj/pubs/tapping/toc.html

The

Harwood Method

in

Practice

Executive Editor Gil

Thelen

arrived at

The Tampa Tribune

in May 1998 and

promptly applied for admission to the first Harwood civic mapping seminar to

be

held

the

following

year.

Tradit ional jou rnali s t ic practice

at the

newspaper

was

already being challenged

by the

unique par tnership

of The

Tampa

Tribune,

WFLA-TV, and Tampa B ay

Online.

T he three m edia ou t le ts share a new c a m-

pus of

s ta te-of- th e-ar t bui ld ings

and a

un ive rsal news-assignm ent desk. They

also share their rep orter s and photographers . A daily news bud get meet ing pulls

together

20 or

m ore journa l is ts , inc luding representa t ives

from

each newsroom,

w here d aily assignments and projects are "collaborated," that is, each story is

evalu ated for i ts potentia l in pr in t , broadc ast , and online.

Civic mapping w as another new idea that the Tampa jo urna l is ts were eager

to

try. After

their

Harwood

training,

editor Steve

Kaylor

and reporter Ken

Koehn decided

to

tes t w hat they

had

learned

for a

series abou t

a

neighborhood

slated

fo r

redevelopment .

What the

reporters uncovered

w as

even more com-

plex

than they

h ad

ant ic ipa ted . Fol lowing Harwood 's in ju nct io ns

to g et

beyond





154

CAMPBELL

Despite

the

philosophical commitment

of the

managem ent , despi te

the

ben-

efit

of outside training, and despite the demonstrated success of a newsroom

mapping project , c ivic mapping remains on the shelf. Sidetrack ed by the chal-

lenges of m ult im edia convergence and further foiled by technology, even in a

s ta te-of- the-ar t

new sroom w ith l i t t le staff turnov er , plans

to

ins t i tu t ion a l ize

the

information gleaned

from

the Tam pa H eights pro jec t have ye t to m ater ia l ize .

The

Structural Approach

To the Pew Center for Civic Journ alism , as w ell as to most of the Harwood semi-

nar

participants, mapping

has

remained

a

metaphor

for the

system atic recording

of

sources

and

other

information about com m unities .

Another

approach

was of-

fered by

Professor Lewis

A.

Friedland

of the

Universi ty

of

W isconsin throu gh

in -

formal

conversations, conference presentations,

and

workshops

in

1999

and

2000. Friedland envisioned a civic map th at w as geog raphically based, w ith

mult i-

ple overlays revealing the pa ttern of com m un ity activities, liabilities, assets, and

the

networks

of

people

and

organizations that an im ate comm unity

life. H e

pro-

posed

that

citizens could help gathe r d ata

for

such civic m aps

and

tha t

the

maps

could

then

be

m ade available

to the

publ ic

as a

resource

to

fur ther

encourage

and

inform

comm unity dialogue.

In

effect, Friedland

w as

proposing

a way to map and

make public

the

interlocking networks

of

individua ls

and

inst i tut ions that pro-

duce the social capital required for a vigorous and produ ctive civic life.

The c iv ic mapping exper iment u nde r taken by

The Sp okesman-Review

w as

grounded in Friedland's vision of civic m app ing and reflected the h is tor ical per-

spective

of the Chicago School's

research methods . Du r ing

the 2-year

span

o f

the p roject , led by then -ed itor Chris Peck , a new sroom tea m w restled philo-

sophically with ways to repor t an im por tant and extraordina r i ly com plex s tory

about their community.

They

also w restled with

how to

tell that story

in a way

that

could

be

publ ished.

In the

end ,

the

c iv ic m appin g com ponent

of the

pro jec t

had

produc ed some provocative discussion

but did not

produce new spaper copy

in the w ay it had

been

envisioned.

Mapping

Key

Moments

Peck and his top editors had nearly a

decade

of experience in civic jou rnalism

when they decided

to try to

locate

the

holes

that

youngs ters fall th rough

on

their

way to growing

up—the holes

tha t drop them directly

into

prison. It

quickly

became clear

that the

project 's w orkin g title, "Fixing Failing Fam ilies,"

was too negative in

tone,

and as the backgroun d repor t ing began, the idea o f key

m oments emerged. In terac t ive edi tor Doug Floyd

w as

i n s t r u m e n t a l

in

br inging



9. I N V E N T I N G C I V I C MAPPING 155

together a nu mb er of professionals who work with children and adolescents to

try

to

tease

out the

most common turning points

in

young lives. Working

throu gh a num ber of meetings w ith various groups, Floyd and his colleagues at

the

pap er disti lled w hat they fou nd

and

agreed

on 10 key

m oments that could

be

crucial

in

peo ple's lives.

They

soon re alized , too,

that not all of the key

mom ents

were age- re la ted , so they divided them

into

two groups: chronological and de-

velopmental. The chronological series included five key m omen ts: conception

to

bir th , bonding

in

infancy,

age 10

(fourth

g rade) ,

th e

first

d ay of

seventh grade,

and rites of passage such as

experimenting

w ith

alcohol

and learning to drive.

The

d evelopm ental mom ents were collapsed into fr iendships,

family

moves ,

di-

vorces

and

deaths,

first

failures

and

successes,

and

values developm ent. Floyd,

Peck, and others on the project team interviewed abou t 75 teenagers— from top

stud en ts to juv en ile delinquents— to test the f i t of their key m om ents to act ua l

exper ience

and to try to

identify

the

resources th at w ere available

to the

young-

sters

as

they w ere mak ing l ife-changing decisions.

5

Peck

and Friedland hoped

that

the reporters would be able to plot the distr i-

bution of resources across the city and com pare

that

m ap to a similar plotting of

neighborhoods or elementary schools where successful l ives were launched or

t roubled

teens s tumbled out and

into

jail

(C. Peck, personal communication,

Janua ry 6, 1999). Peck and Friedland were also interested in finding out how

kids w ere socially connected

to

each other

and how

well

the

ne twork

of

related

social resources in the com m unity was functioning.

Plans for the civic m apping componen t of the K ey M om ents projec t also in-

c luded what Peck called maps

of

"civic assets, social assets, community

re-

sources, and reporters ' beats." Recognizing that collecting this enormous

a m o u n t of information wou ld be labor intensive, Peck and Friedland antici-

pated that com m unity volunteers from civic, church, and school organizations

might help ; in retu rn, the com m unity wou ld have access to the da ta (C. Peck,

personal communication, April 29, 1999).

Dur ing these early discussions

of the

p roje ct, Peck's voracious ap petite

fo r in-

format ion and inte llectua l s t imulation allowed him to acquire a relatively quick

yet

sophisticated und erstanding of social netwo rk theory; in addition, he looked

to the

early

sociological stud ies at the U niversity of Chicago for inspiration and

und erstan ding of the v alue of in-dep th case studies. By June 1999, ho weve r, the

pragmat ic questions of w hat w ould be reported, w hat s tories wou ld be w rit ten ,

and w hat photos would be taken had become pa ramount . As photo editor Jo hn

Sale

put it

toward

the end of an intense discussion on the

project

on

June

22,

1999, "Let's

not let the

mapp ing

get in the

w ay."

During the following sum m er, the K ey M oments team refined i ts plans and

the repor t ing got u nder way. Repor ter Jeane t te White and photographer Colin



156 CAMPBELL

Mulvaney

found subjects

for a

yearlon g story

on a new

seventh-grader

and for

an

in-dep th article

on a

homeless teen m other. W hite

was

also w orking

on

other

key moments stories, including

one

about

an adopted

child struggling with

the

effects of fetal alcohol syndrome a nd ano ther a bou t adolescent best friends w ho

had sub sequ ently chosen com pletely dif ferent lifestyles. M eanw hile , one of the

new spaper 's editors , Rebecca N app i,

was

work ing wi th four th-graders

w ho

were

w riting and drawing about their ow n experiences; she was also repo rting a story

about the

effects

of d ivorce on one fa the r and ch i ld . The Key M om ents team

hoped to have the series in print by the

following

spring.

As the project moved closer and closer to its deadline, however, it moved fur-

ther

and

fur ther

away from

a

definable civic m appin g com ponent. Friedland

and Peck still held on to the vision they had of the project , an d Friedland visited

Spokane

to

ta lk with

the K ey

M omen t s t e am,

a s well a s

other repo rters

and

edi-

tors, on November 5, 1999.

6

In three separate meetings, Peck and Friedland

ta lked abou t ways to add some of the tools of social science resea rch to the

jour-

nalists ' reporting skills. Peck de scribed

the Key

Mom ents p ro jec t

a s a

laboratory

where the idea of civic m apping was being tested in the hope that w h a t was

learned could be applied more gene rally in the n ewsroom . Friedland review ed

the

principles

of

social netw ork m apping,

pointing

out

that

the

imm ediate

re-

ward

w as a

deeper unde rs tanding

of the

comp lex relationships involved

in a

sin-

gle

story. The story can reflect that deeper un de rstan din g, Friedland said, but i ts

full potent ia l is not rea l ized un t i l it is, in effect , gene ra l ized:

Y ou can tell the story and the

reader

can ident i fy wi th the problem, but it doesn't allow

us to move it up to the next level of context. The goal is to try to develop a way to find

th e

more general knowledge.

B y

us ing [ th i s par t i cu la r ] knowledge

w e can

c on s t ruc t

a

generalized community knowledge that can be

used again

and again.

Maybe

there's a

w ay

to

make sense

out of it—to f igure out a set of

pa t t e rns .

The

genera l knowledge

can

be appl ied to

other

key m om e n ts as a

follow

up. O f t e nt im e s you move on w i t h o u t ex-

tracting the more

general lesson that would al low

you to

take your knowledge

and use

it

in the newsroom, and in you r own report ing and to share wi th fel low reporters . So it

becomes a learning

tool

in the newsroom.

You

can pass on the knowledge of the beat.

Friedland framed this kind of civic m apping not only as a w ay of creat ing in-

s t i tu t iona l

mem ory

b ut

also

as a w ay of

reduc ing error. Error,

in

th is context ,

he

said,

is not the e rror of a misspelled nam e or an incorrect da te, but the error of

omiss ion—an incomplete p ic ture of the complexi ty of any give n story:

It's not whe the r there's error— there 's a lways error . The question is w h e t h er you deal

wi th

the

possibility

of error

system at ically

or

whe the r

you

deal w i th

it

simply

as a

kind

of

random, noisy intermix

into

your judgm ent .

And

right now, more often than not,

error

in

reporting

in

com muni t i es

is a

mat t e r

of

random

noise. Here

you're trying

to

reduce

the

random noise in the

communi ty informat ion system

so

tha t

you can do a l i t t le bit

better



9. I N V E N T I N G C I V I C

MAPPING

157

jo b of

reducing error.

I t doesn't

mean there

isn't

error—it

just

means you're controlling

for

error more

systematically than yo u

would

be if you

were

just

starting anew every time.

[ I f ] Jeanette does this for

five

years, she'll pretty much have this picture in her head .. .

But

then somebody else comes

in and

they literally have

to

recreate this picture

from

scra tch. They're introducing

a

whole

new set of

random errors into

the

knowledge sys-

te m about

the

community that then gets filtered through this newspaper.

Peck w as comfortable with the experimental nature of the mapping enter-

prise

as

infused with Friedland's social science:

What we're trying to d o is use his social science background to se e if there's actually a

way

you could institutionalize this in a newsroom. Maybe you can, maybe you can't.

I'm

not

going

to say we can do it. I'm

sold

on the

idea though,

on the

possibility

of it. I

really think it is something you could build into a newsroom. It's bringing more

focus,

s t ruc ture ,

attention, discipline

to

something

w e

already

d o

intuitively

... I

think

it

would

move

the

whole level

o f

reporting

up a

notch. Ultimately

it

comes back

to re-

port ing.

It

comes back

to

saying, This would help

us be

even better

at our

reporting.

In the

final

meeting of the day (November 5 , 1999) th e members of the Key

Moments team were still struggling to find ways to apply what they were learn-

in g about civic mapping

and

social networks—and

to get

their stories pub-

l ished. Friedland suggested that one or two reporters could attempt a small

experiment to determine the structure o f juvenile peer networks. A t first, even

that limited task seemed overwhelming. Peck and Floyd recalled the prototype

interview

they conducted with a man named Rodney. The two editors had

spent about

2

hours with Rodney, using

an

interview protocol they

had

devel-

oped to try to get him to pinpoint the key moments in his

life

where a decision or

an event cleared his path to prison. The specter of conducting similar long in-

terviews

with various cliques

o f

teenagers

w ho

might

not be so

self-reflective

was at first quite daunting to Peck.

There's

a lot there .. . that's a lot of inter-

viewing,"

he

said. You

do five

skinheads, five cowboys, five jocks, five

nerds—that's ridiculous. But the paper's top editor w as not

easily

dissuaded

from

an idea to which he had been committed for more than a year: Well,

if

you

did two hours a kid times 20 kids—that's 40 hours a week—that's doable. After

a moment's thought, he turned to his colleague and added: Right, Doug?

The Key

Moments series

w as

published

in

June

and

July

of

2000. White

and

M u l v a n e y

had

spent that year immersed

in

seventh grade when they weren't

t r ack ing

the

homeless teen mother

at the

downtown

bus

station

or

living

th rough the trials of a family raising an adopted child with fe tal alcohol syn-

drome. T he project was huge, stretching across 2 months in 10 installments of

4 to 6 full

pages

each.

Compelling journalism,

the

stories eschewed blatant

at-

t r ibu t ions such as experts say or psychologists believe ; the series w as

wr i t -

ten from a position of authority, one earned by the in-depth research that



158

CAMPBELL

preceded, as well as infused the repo rt ing. Seve ral of the in stal lm ents fe atu red

sidebars on where to find out more information about part icular issues. Fol-

lowing the series, Floyd hosted a pu blic forum for paren ts and others w ho were

interested

in

fol lowing

up o n the

in format ion ;

the

newsp aper p r in ted

a

small

broch ure outl ining avai lable resourc es. Bu t the civic map ping pieces, suc h as

geographic plots

of

neighborhoods

and

social ne tw ork analysis th at could

have helped reveal

t he

holes

in

social

a nd

family suppor t systems, were s imply

too m u c h to be accom pl ished .

The Spokane case reveals qu ite clearly the challenges of dev ising a model of

civic m apping

that

can produce new sroom knowledge as

well

as journal i sm . A

strong tradition

of

innovative civic journ al ism

was not

enough;

as the Key M o-

m ents team and other thoughtful journal ists at the new spaper found, the social

science

research methods they were trying to adapt were fraught w ith complex-

ity and distressingly plagued b y unans w ered qu est ions. M anag ing edi tor Peggy

Kuhr worried that they were t rying to

figure

out too m u c h of the story

before

they started

the

reporting;

that is, she was

concerned that

the

theory would

drive too m u c h of the pract ice. Reporter

Kelly

M cBride raised a set of insightful

quest ions about how journal i s t s wo uld be rewarded for par t ic ipat ing in a civic

mapping project , about w ho would own and control the data collected, and

about how the mere existence of such data in a collected form m ight render i t

invalid.

The Key

M oments projec t , a lthough

it did not

mater ia l ize

in the w ay

Peck and Friedland had envisioned, nevertheless produced re m ark able , aut ho r-

i tative, m eaningfu l , and top-cal iber journ al ism . The lessons learned will he lp

shape the practice of civic mapping as it continues to develop.

THE

FUTURE

OF CIVIC

MAPPING

Refining the Practice

Researchers

are

continuing

to

test

the

potent ial

of

civic map ping

as the

me th-

ods to operationalize it are evalu ated and revised. For exa m ple, a long-term pro-

jec t

in civic m app ing began in the fall of 2002 in Ma dison , W isconsin, th at used

the combined resources of the Center for Com munica tion and Democracy at

th e

University

of

W isconsin,

th e

Center

for

Dem ocracy

in

Action

at

Edgewood

College, WISC-TV, and Dane County United Way. The planne rs developed a

method in wh ich the research wo uld be conducted by the co m m uni ty par tners ,

and the re sulting da ta w ou ld be held in com mo n for all to use.

The goals of the M adison project are to develop a pictu re of the com m unity

that reveals

how

people

and

organizat ions interact

and to

make that p ic ture

available

to researchers, journal ists, and ci t izens. To ga the r the basic

informa-



9. I N V E N T I N G C I V I C MAPPING 159

t ion, 125 Edgew ood College stud ents we re schedu led to interview abou t 1,000

com m unity lead ers abou t variou s civic associations and institutions w ith which

they

a re affiliated. The

interviewers planned

to ask the

leaders about

each

orga-

nization's mission

an d

struc ture , which issues

are th e

m ost impo rtant

to it and to

its

w ork, and w ith whom i t has worked on those issues during the past year.

At the end of the pro ject, all of the da ta will be fed into a web-based software

that can create a social network database from wh ich g raphic displays of the

connections

among people

and

organizations

can be

generated.

This

accom-

plished, the

software

w ill display the d ata using conventional CIS m app ing

techniques, enabling citizens to locate organizations and

other

comm uni ty re-

sources.

The

television partner, WISC-TV, planned

to use the

information

to

m ap the comm uni ty in a way that reve als sectors not only w here their ow n cov-

erage

is thin or nonexistent but also w here it can be deepened or imp roved .

Enriching

the Theory

T he Spokane and Madison projec ts are the sole examples of s t ru c tur al c iv ic

mapping. All of the other civic mapping projects to date were bui l t on the

cognitively

based Harwood mod el , and journal i s t s and educators say they

have found it to be ins t rum enta l i n changing the way they see the ir com mu ni-

ties

and in reframing

their stories

as a

resul t (Hetrick, 2001; Spurlock, 2001).

Others

have commented

that

dialogue in the communi ty h as been broad-

ened, that new voices are be ing hea rd , that nontradi t ional sources have been

found in third places, that catalysts a nd connectors are being identified, and

tha t stories

are now

wri t ten wi th

a

more au tho ri tat iv e voice (Ford, 2000; H ar-

wood, 1996, 2000).

The Harw ood-inspired p rojects themselves have not been systematically ex-

amined, however. It is a daunt ing task . For example, many of the stated goals of

the mapping seminar part ic ipants morph after they re turn to the newsroom.

Their "maps" are often in their heads, perhaps on Rolodexes o r in a mod ified da-

tabase, occasionally brought together

in a

short document

or wall

chart .

To

date ,

no

research

has

examined whether

or how any of the

self-reported

ac-

counts

o f the

e ffectiveness

in

m apping correlate

to

m easurable changes

in

news

con tent, read er or view er satisfaction, pub lic opinion, cognition, civic partici-

pat ion, newsroom m orale,

o r any of a

host

of

other variables that have been used

as

t radi t ional measu res of m edia effects and journalistic practice.

The

Pew-Harwood technique

of

civic m apping

in the

cognitive model

has

m u c h

to recomm end it . N everth eless, i t m ight be improved if i t incorp orated

mo re of the stru ctu ral approach, that is, if i t placed more emp hasis on m apping

itself

and on the investigation of the na tur e of social netw orks at the levels of in-



16O CAMPBELL

terpersonal, associational,

and

institutional life. Civic mapping models would

be

further enhanced

if

they specified

a

method,

or a

range

of

methods,

to

cap-

ture another critical

dimension of the

project: ensuring that

the

information

so

painstakingly gathered

i s

collected, examined, updated,

and inst i tut ional ized in

a

manner

that increases the knowledge base in the newsroom and community

as

a

whole.

A

richer, more complex model

of

civic mapping

may be

needed

to

unpack

the

relationships among various

layers

of civic

life.

This network of networks, as

Friedland and McLeod (1999) contend, is the site o f community revealed and

understood in its most complex form. A nd community is not devoid of a geo-

graphic element;

it can

transcend environmental barriers,

but it can be

circum-

scribed by them as well. Illuminating the relationship of social networks to the

geography

that they inhabit o r eclipse is a crucial piece of the community

puzzle.

The final piece is the critical role of the mass media. This single institution

bridges the layers o f civic life in ways that were not possible before cities with a

single daily newspaper became

t he

norm, before television invaded every home,

and before the media became the primary creators of

imagined

community. The

media

are, in the end, the only place where members of a large and diverse pub-

lic can

go

to see

each

other. Mapping

the

public space that they inhabit could

become an invaluable tool f or

journal ists

t o refine and improve their

skill

in un-

derstanding community life.

ENDNOTES

It is

worth borrowing a footnote here from Robert

E. L.

Paris, whose 1967 book, Chicago Soci-

ology 1920–1932, rarely strays into

the

personal information

he

undoubtedly possessed

as

the son of one of the

school's

leading members.

But in

recounting

the

early attempts

at

preparing maps for display, Faris says: Trial and error plays it s part i n most rapid develop-

ments of graphic devices.

Some

of the

first

spot maps were made by moistening and stick-

ing onto the map little

colored

glue-backed dots. In addition to making an attractive

display, the various colors provided highly visible distinctions which fac i l i ta ted general-

izations. But when a large map marked this way was taken out of a rack and unrolled, a

cascade

of

colored dots broke

loose and fell to the

floor. Because there

was no way of

knowing where they had once

been

pasted, the whole map became worthless.

This

acci-

dent led to the use of ink for the spot maps—more work and less beauty, but they were du-

rable (p. 52, Footnote 2).

This

summary

and

analysis

is

based

on

materials drawn from

the Pew

Center

tor

Civic Jour-

nalism's Web site, retrieved from www.pccj.org; and from its publications, including each

edition of

Civic

Catalyst from Summer 1999 to Winter 2002. It also draws

from

two edi-

tions

of Tapping Civic

Life

(Harwood, 1996, 2000), as wel l as the author's many years of

participation, observation,

and

scholarship

in the

field

of

civic journalism.

Unless otherwise noted,

all

quotes

and

information attr ibuted

to

Steve Kaylor

are

from per-

sonal interviews conducted by the author, November 15–16, 2001, Tampa, Florida.

For a

critical analysis

of the

Tampa Heights project

and

in-depth interviews with Kaylor,

Koehn,

and

their editors,

see

Campbell, 2002.



9.

I N V E N T I N G C I V I C

MAPPING 161

5

This summary and analysis is drawn

from

the author 's extensive research at

T he

S p o k e s -

man-Review

from

1999–2001.

6

Unless otherwise c i ted, m ater ial in this section is based on the author 's notes and transcrip-

tions

o f

tape recording s

of the

newsroom meetings held November

5,

1999,

at

The

S p o k e s -

man-Review offices, Spokane,

Washington.

REFERENCES

Abbot t ,

A.

( 1 997 ) .

Of

t ime

and

space:

The

contemporary re levance

of the Chicago

School.

Social Forces, 75(4) , 1149-1182.

Anderson ,

B.

(1991) .

Imagined

communit ies: Reflections on the origin an d spread of nationalism.

London: Verso Books.

Booth, C. A. (1889). Labour and l i f e of th e

people:

Volume I, East London (2nd ed., Vol. I) . Lon-

don: Williams

&

Norga te .

Booth, C .A . (1891).

Labour

a nd l i f e

of

th e people:

Volume

II ,

London cont inued

(Vol. II ). Lon-

don: Williams & Norgate .

Bulmer, M. (1984). The Chicago

School

of Sociology. Chicago: U niversity of Chicago Press.

Campbe l l ,

K. B.

(2002) .

More

than a

metaphor:

The

challenge

of

civic mapping.

Unpublished dis-

ser tat ion, Universi ty

o f

Wisconsin, Madison.

Cressey,

R G.

(1969) .

The

taxi-dance hall . Montclair ,

N J:

Patterson Smith. (Original work

pub l i shed

in 1925)

Davis ,

A. F.

(1 96 7). Spearheads

for

reform:

The

social set t lements

and the Progressive

M ovement,

1 8 9 0 – 1 9 1 4 .

N ew

Y ork: O xford U niversi ty Press .

Paris,

R. E. L. (1967). Chicago Sociology 1920–1932. San Francisco:

Chandler.

Ford, P. (2000, Fall) . Map ping pay off: Better stories. Civic C atalyst,

22-23.

Friedland,

L. A., K ang, N., Cam pbell, K. B., & Pondillo, B. (1999). Public l i f e ,

comm unity inte-

gration

and the mass med ia: The empirical turn. Paper presented at the Association for Jo ur-

nalism and Mass Comm unica tion , New Orleans, LA.

Friedland,

L . A ., & McLeod, J . M . (1999) . Com munity in tegrat ion and mass media: A recon-

sideration . In D. P. Dem ers & K. Viswanath (Ed s.) , Mass media ,

social

control , and

social

change: A macrosocial

perspective

(pp. 197 –2 26) . Am es, IA : Iowa State U niversity Press.

Harw ood, R. C. (1996) . Tapping civic l i f e . Washington, DC: Pew

Center

for Civic Jou rnalism .

Harw ood, R. C. (2000) .

Tapping

civic

l i f e .

Washington, DC: Pew

Center

for Civic Jou rnalism .

H etr ick , J. (2001, Fa ll) . Stu den ts see value in civic mapping. Civic Catalyst.

Pew Cen te r

for

Civ ic Journa l i sm. (Sum mer

1999–Winter

20 02). Civic Catalyst. Washington,

DC.

Residents of Hu ll House . (1895) . Hull-House maps and p ap ers . Boston: C rowell & Co.

Schaffer,

J. (2001, Feb. 9-11). Civic journalism

c y c le s - 19 9 0 – 2 0 0 0 .

Paper presented at the

Civic innovations

in

newsrooms

and

classrooms workshop/seminar, Eugene,

OR.

Schaffer, J.

(2001,

M ay

22 ) . Civic

mapping.

Paper presented

at the

Morr is Co mm unicat ions

Workshop , Augus ta ,

G A .

Spur l oc k , K. (2001, Summer) . Community mapping reveals dire needs. Civic Catalyst .






1O

Textual Analysis

in Journalism

John L. Jack Morris

Loyola

Universi ty,

New

Orleans,

LA

Te xtual analysis is sometimes called carefu l reading, and it is as im portan t to a

journalis t as good listening. Textual analysis is a

method that

communication

researchers use to describe, interpret, and evaluate th e characteristics of a re-

corded message

(Frey,

Botan, Friedman,

&

Kreps, 1991).

This

type

of

qual i ta-

t ive research

and

analysis focuses

on a

particular text

to

determine

its

characteristics and place it in a category shared by

other

similar texts for com-

parison

and

contrast purposes. Qualitative textual analysis

can

lead

to

quant i -

tative research methods such

as

content analysis

(Krippendorff,

1980)

or Q

methodology (Brown, 1993; McKeown

& Thomas, 1988),

which

can be

used

to

analyze

publications or

opinions

about

texts.

For example, researchers might categorize

th e

types

of

m essage strategies

that

po liticians

use in

public campaign speeches

as

fear-appeals

and

rew ard -ap -

peals b y studying individual texts, and then

conduct

a quantitative study. This

research project might s tudy how the

N ew

York

Times

and the Los

Angeles Times

covered cam paign speeches over

th e

period

of a

year

by

focusing

on the

tex tua l

a t t r ibu tes of

each paper's campaign coverage. Reporters

w ho

write

the

news

stories also u se some level o f textu al analysis to com pare and contrast oral and

written language. Reporters at the Washington

Post

use personal computers to

search

for key

words

in

bills

and

legislation

that

indicate stakeholders— winners

and

losers—in

th e

docum ents (see following exam ples) .



164

M O R R I S

Mass media textual analysis

is

closely related

to

l i terary cr i t ic ism, which,

broadly used today, encompasses any discourse on any l i te ratu re, including

three dis t inguishable but overlapping areas: history, theory, and eva lua t ion .

Many scholars view l i terature

as

par t

of an

historical process,

a

phenomenon

that

can be

described

by

internal pr inciples such

a s

types, tech nique s,

and

func-

tions,

o r as

objects

to be

s tudied, ana lyzed,

and

judged . Severa l methods

and ap-

proaches to criticism fiercely compete for atten tion in the

field.

W el lek (1995)

commented on this new age of criticism :

The variety of voices today is so great that th e si tuat ion has been compared to the

Tower of Babel, wi th it s mutua l ly incompa tible languages. N ev e r before has there been

such

a

f e rmen t

in criticism, a nd

crit ics hav e never

before

a t t rac ted

so

m u ch a t t en t i o n

and fervent

loyalty

.. . Indeed some scholars argue tha t

this

is the age of

crit icism,

since

literary

critics now often function not only as specialists in l i tera ture , but also as gen-

eral critics of society and civilization.

This chapter focuses on only the mos t common te rms of t ex tu a l ana lys is

that are used b y jou rna lis ts . I t addresses how jou rna l i s t s read, analyze , ca tego-

rize, descr ibe , and ev a lu a te the i r ow n w r i t ing as wel l as the w r i t ing and ora l

language of others .

PURPOSES AND TYPES OF

TEXTUAL

ANALYSIS

There are tw o basic uses of tex tu al analysis for practicin g jou rna lis ts . The first

is

to

s tudy

the

language

of

their sources

for

specific stories;

the

second

is to

s tudy the

language

of

journa l i sm

to

ref ine their

art of

wr i t ing.

This

broad

ap-

proach

to

criticism

i s

r e la t ive ly new;

it has

been advanced

in

recen t decades

by

cri t iques of English composition and rhetor ical analyses of speech com m uni -

cation.

In their 1991 book, Investigating Co m m unica tion, Frey and co l leagues

explained

that

textu a l ana lys is s tems

from

a s y s te ma t i c a t t e m p t to un de r s t a n d

how

meaning moves f rom author

to

audience

and how the

t ex t

is

re la ted

to

other

var iables tha t precede

it.

Ul t im a te ly , t ex tua l ana lysi s

is a

sc ient i f ic

at-

tempt to eva lua te a text based on a set of es tabl ished s tand ards o r cr i ter ia . Sev-

eral organizations and publ ica t ions have begun cr i t ic iz ing the con ten t of the

news media on a reg ular basis for the genera l pub l ic . They i n c lude News Watch,

MediaChannel ,

Brill's

Content ,

Fairness

& Accuracy in Report ing, CounterSpin,

M e d i a ne w s ,

and

Media Watch

.

1

Textual analysis can be applied to any communica t ions medium because

photos,

illustrations, graphics, and video images can be reduced to textua l sum -

m aries before analysis. Some languag e theorists claim th at h istory in general

consists of tex ts to be ana lyze d (Iser, 1986). Scripts of radio and television news



10.

TEXTUAL

ANALYSIS

IN JOURNALISM 165

and enter ta inment are m ore readily available

than

ever, and they often can be

secured over the Internet for textual analysis.

Five

types

of

media cri t icism

use

textu al analysis: A ristotelian, genre, his-

tor ical ,

dram atic , and fantasy them e

(Frey

et al. , 1991). Th e first is a re t urn to

Aris to t le ' s

ju dic ial , logical, and form al analysis

centered

on the w ork i tself

r a th e r

than

its historical , m oral or religious

context. Genre

cri tics grou p texts

th a t are similar in func t ion , pu rpose , and form, and then eva lua te

each

tex t

based

on the es tab li shed a t t ribu te s of the genre. An example of genre cri t icism

is C awelti 's

Adventure,

Mystery,

and

Rom ance: Formula Stories

as Art and Popu-

la r

Culture,

p ublishe d by the U niversity of Chicago Press in 1976.

2

H is to r ica l

criticism

consists o f oral histories, case studies, bibliographical s tud ies and so-

cial movement s tud ies . The historical cr i t ic attempts to eva lua te the

influ-

ence of ev en t s on the creation of the te xt. Dram atic cr it ics s tu dy princip les

d r a w n

from the ater— act , pu rpos e, agent , agency , and scene—to ev a lu a t e

t ex t s . Finally, fantasy theme crit ics

focus

on stories with characters that sym-

bolize

c u l tu ra l m oral princip les or phi losophies . Exam ples of this typ e o f cri t i-

cism inc lude

Chance's T he

Lord

of the Rings: The

Mythology of

Power,

pub l i shed

by Twayne Pub l isher s of New York in 1992.

3

Each of these cri tical approaches used to study journ alism and m edia share a

common list of tex tual a t t r ibu tes that can be identified and then described, ana-

lyzed,

a nd

eva lua ted

by a

comm uni ty

of

readers. Care ful

an d

comparative read-

ing and analysis by knowledgeable cr i tics help to create a richer un de rstand ing

of the fun ctio n and v alue of any single text, and such case studies contr ibu te to

the general knowledge in the field.

While

some media cri t icism attempts to

measure the influe nce of the m ass m edia on society, in general, tex tua l analy sis

a t tempts

to c ategorize, analyze, and evalu ate one particu lar text. Visual

forms

suc h as the inve rted p yram id (see Fig. 10.1) are tools of text ua l analysis tha t crit-

ic s

use to

classify

one piece of w riting as a report , another as a story, and

still

an-

other as an

essay.

Careless use of these forms contr ibu te to confusion and

imprecision in the profession.

Th us, te xt ua l analysis is an activity that reporters, editors, pub lishers, new s

directors ,

p rod uc ers, m edia critics, and research ers use on a daily basis. For ex-

ample, a repo r ter wr i tes a 25-inch news story o n A fghanis tan, but how good i s

i t.? How can wo rking jou rna lists ev alua te the quality of the texts the y receive

and

create

on a

daily basis? Tex tual analysis

can

help. Attr ibutes

of

non fic t ion

prose, including journalism, can be used to categorize, analyze, and evaluate

any

news report or fea tur e story. M any of

these

textual attr ibutes can be applied

to texts of sources, too, but some

other

specialization, including terminology

from a field o ther

than

journal ism , may be required for such an analysis .

4



66

M O R R I S

FIG. 10.1.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF NEWS WRITING

Evan M ahoney, a reporter for the Fund for Invest igat ive R eport ing an d a profes-

sor

at

University

of North

Carolina

at

Asheville, uses

t he

fol lowing terms wh en

teaching, analyzing,

and

evaluat ing news wri t ing (personal communicat ion,

February 21, 2002): abstraction, attrib utio n, connotation, denotation, con-

trast, lead, nu t graph, narrat ion, exposit ion, form, indu ction, de duc tion, tone,



10. TEXTUA L ANALY SIS IN JOURNALISM 167

voice,

m ood, style, thesis, quo tation , and m etaphor. C onsistently

careful

use of

such a t t r ibu tes of language can enrich the experience of reading in addit ion to

simply

inform ing the public .

For

exam ple, smell and fragrance have the same denotative (literal) m eaning,

but

on e has a positive conno tative (suggestive) m eaning w hile the

other

is nega-

t ive.

A

qu ick reading, witho ut textu al analysis,

can

miss connotations. Exp osition

is logical explanation,

and

form

is the

overall structure

of an

article. Induction

is

reasoning

that moves

from

specific details

to a

generalization, while deduction

moves from

a

generalization

to

specifics. Tone

and

mood

refer

to

word

choices

th at in dicate seriousne ss, hum or, glee or depression, to nam e only a few em otions.

Paying

careful

attention

to

these attributes

of

language

can

lead

to an

enriched

understanding of a text. Mahoney urged writers to

check

for these attributes

wh en revising their texts to enrich their writing and make it more engaging.

Diana

F ishlock, diversity reporter

for the

Harrison (Penn.)

Patriot-News,

con-

sidered

brainstorm ing, amb iguity, cliches, character, clo se-u ps (concrete, sensory

details ) , and editorializing wh en evalua ting her own w riting and the writing of

othe rs (personal com m unication, February 21, 2002). Brainstorming is a m ethod

for analyzing topics or ideas for a new s story. It ranges from making simple lists of

ideas

and

ranking them

in

importance

to

semantic webbing,

in

which

the

writer

begins

w ith a key word and diagramm atically

connects

it to another w ord, w hat-

ever comes to m ind , and so on, through lines and circles. N ew connections are

m ade in this playful act of discovery, and the process helps the w riter see new pos-

sibilities

for the

article. Fishlock explains:

Brains torming

o f t e n is ex t remely

useful.

B rainstorming and s imply having t im e to let a

concept percolate

in my

mind help

me to

explore more facets

of the

idea.

Is

there

a

his-

tor ica l

con tex t?

What

abo ut re l igion? Given

the

t ime

(or

brainstorming input

from

othe r people ) th e s tory becomes m uch m ore complete .. . Often character makes o r

b re aks

a story.

If

the ch arac ter is com pelling and the w riter is able to show th at, I ' l l read

a b o u t some one doing almost anyth ing— even som ething I m ay have no in teres t in .

M ed i a criticism is growing as a classroom and newsroom practice, so news

writers m us t become more sophist icated about their use of language. Tex tual

analysis

i s a

qua l i ta t ive method that

can be

used

to

create , defend ,

and

improve

writ ing

skills.

"M aking meaning clear does

not

mean making

the

copy tedious,"

Peter Jacob i exp lained du ring the Association for Ed ucation in Journ alism and

Mass C omm unication 's

Gannett

Teaching Fellows W orkshop at Indiana Uni-

versity (personal comm unication, July 22-28,

1990).

Exposition [information

del ivery]

m u s t

g o

beyond

a

dictionary definition

and be as

br ight

and

in t r iguing

as na rrat ion [s tory tel l ing] ."



168

M ORRI S

TEXTUAL

ANAL YSIS

OF DOCUMENTS

In addition to enriching

their

own

news w riting, journalists

can use

textu al anal-

ysis to

und erstand complex legal , cou rt ,

and

corpora te documents more com-

pletely as

sources

of

news .

Washington

Post reporters Helen Dewar

and Bill

Mil le r regularly analyze

the

texts of legislation, cou rt opinions, and briefs. They have developed a method

for

f inding

the

s takeholders

of any

gov ernm ent action based

on the

l anguage

of

the

official

documents .

While

analyzing

the

2002 Energy Bill

and

Corporate

Accou ntabili ty Act,

Dewar (personal com m unica t ion , A ugu s t

5 ,

2002)

w as

forced

to

"read between

the lines" of lawyers '

code

language" to discover indications of perm issive or

m andatory requirements . Permiss ive requ irem ents m ean tha t

the

provis ions

o f

the

bill allow lots

of

la t i tude

in fulfilling

them, w hereas m anda to ry r equ i r ements

are s tr ict s tandards w rit ten into

the

bill that provide little

or no

wiggle-room .

W ords suc h as shall, m ay, or

will

are

flags

of inten t th at she

carefully

noted. She

explained that

reading

between

the lines meant talking to the lawyers who

wrote the bill, as wel l as the critics w ho s tudy the policies involved. She said

some politicians

and

political critics

use a

form

of

textual analysis, too.

They

conduct com puter searches

o f all new bills for key

terms tha t s ignal their

own in-

terests to m ake sure an im portan t issue is not bu ried in the w ording of a seem-

ingly unre la ted bill. Dewar said

she

also looks

for

l i tigable language , wh ich

i s

language tha t w ould

likely

lead

to

lawsui ts .

H er

reports exp lained

the

possibility

and

types

of

lawsu its th at w ou ld likely arise

if the

bills w ere

to

become law.

While

analyzing

the

2002 Hom eland Secur i ty A ct , Mil le r (personal com m u-

nication,

Augus t

5,

2002) said

he looked for

words

that

indicated authority

to

spend money

or

appoint

staffs.

More money

and

larger

staffs usual ly

appea l

to

bureaucra ts regardless of the amount of publ ic service they provide . A

cost-benefit analysis can prod uce a va lua ble new s s tory from a text tha t ob-

scures its

h idden purposes

and

powers .

The

boilerplate legal language

of bills

tends

to

cloud

th e

political intentions

of

those

w ho

drafted them , M iller said,

so

he interviews the authors and critics about such issues. He also s tudied other

analyses of the act, and he

conducted

computer searches for terms such as "Na-

tional Guard," "budget ,"

and

"Civil Service."

The

search term s we re based

on

hunches, hypotheses ,

or

questions. C ivil Service,

for

example , turned

u p all

ref-

erences to how the bil l w ould regard o r treat government employees. The

refer-

ences

were scattered, but this method enabled Miller to ga the r and analyze

them

to

produce

an

informat ive

and

engaging news story.

Bo th Mi l l e r

and

Dew ar sa id they

pay

close a t te nt io n

to the

beg inn ing

and

end of a

complex governm ent docum ent ,

and

they under l ine

or

s tar highlights



10.

TEXTUAL

ANALYSIS

IN JOURNALISM

169

and

m ean ing ful passages. Every line,

and

even between

the

lines (what

is not

in the text) , must be sc rutinized because of the political nature of such docu-

ments . The following accou nt is anothe r example of how personal computers

can be

used

to

conduct

key

word searches tha t w ould

b e

extremely tedious

to

do othe rw ise (Brooks et al., 1999):

Kathleen Kerr and Russ Bue t tne r o f

Newsday

faced [this] sort o f problem. Their goal:

to discover

w h e t h e r

N ew York

City 's

cr iminal just ice system discr iminated against the

poor. Their method: to

acquire

com puter da tabases o f city and state

records

on 27 ,810

prisoners, then to use their own

compute r

to

sort

those

cases

by race and

other

criteria

[ including income level, jail

time,

bail, and verdicts.] Their findings: The poor, espe-

cial ly minori t ies, often w ere denied bail and forced to wait in jail for trials

that

often

found

them

no t

gui l ty , (pp . 410–411)

Two obstacles

to

textual analysis

are

lack

of

t im e

and

money (Brooks

et

al. ,

1999) . Repor ters must

carefully

analyze all of the pertinent records or a

scientif ically

selected sample. They also m ust

ask the

r ight questions

and re-

cord data

in a way tha t

will answer

t he m .

Textual analysis

is an

invaluable

qua l i t a t ive method for unders tanding and evaluat ing pol ice and cour t re-

cord s, leg isla tion , co urt opinions, an d legal

briefs,

but i t is more t ime -con-

suming

and

costly

t han the

more t radi t ional

method of

in terviewing

and

quot ing sources .

TEXTUAL

ANALYSIS OF CIVIC

JOURNALISM

Rep orters conducted textual analysis of com mu nity conversations that were

conducted with a wide range of citizens in Columbia, Missouri. The project

began with University of Missouri

School

of Journalism Professor Edmund

Lambeth

w ho

studied

and

tau ght civic journa lism ,

a

movem ent d ebated

in re-

search

and

trade journals throughout

the

1990s (Colem an, 199 7). La m beth

established the

Civic Journalism Interest Group

of the

Association

for

Educa-

tion in Journalism a nd Mass Communication and guided the u niversity 's Co-

lumbia

Missourian newspaper staff through a civic journalism project that

became known

as

"Faith

in Our

Com mu nity" (Morris , 2002,

pp. 61-70) .

La m be th (1998) said public journalism could

be

viewed

as a

form

of journal-

ism

that seeks to:

1 .

Listen systematically to the stories and ideas of citizens even while pro-

tecting

its

freedom

to

choose what

to

cover.

2. Exam ine alternative

ways

to

frame

stories

on

important com munity issues.

3. Choose

frames

that stand the best chance to stimulate citizen delibera-

tion and build public understanding of issues.



17O M ORRI S

4. Take the initiative to report on m ajor pub l ic problems in a way tha t ad-

vances

public knowledge

of possible solutions and the

value s served

by al-

ternative courses

of

action.

5. Pay continuing and systematic

attention

to how

well

and how credibly i t is

communica t ing wi th

the

publ ic .

(p. 17)

To test the

effects

of one of civic journ alism 's report ing tools , com m un ity

conversations, a group of radio, TV, and new spap er

jou rna l i s ts

worked together

to conduct a

civic journ alism project

and

pub l i sh

a

series

o f

new s s tor ies du ring

the week of M ay 26, 1996.

With

the suppor t of their ed itors and s ta t ion m anag -

ers,

the

group

planned

a

w eek-long

collaborative

strategy

that

included

all

three

media because Lambeth ' s ear l ie r research indica ted tha t

cit izens

learn more

from

mul t imedia presenta t ions

(Thorson &

Lambeth , 1995) .

Missourian

Managing Edi tor George Kennedy (personal communica t ion ,

April 30, 1996) said the m edia managers selected the topic du r ing a discussion

session.

They

settled

on

religion because

it had

h igh re levance

to the

c o m m u -

nity

and

inadequate coverage.

H e

said

the

goal

w as to

raise

the

level

o f

pub l ic

aw areness concerning

the

relat ionship between rel igion

a nd

pub l ic

life.

Research began in

Fall

1995 when

five

resource panels were conducted.

Each reso urce panel consis ted

of

abou t

five

exper t s

who

were knowledgeab le

in

some aspect of religion and public

life.

M edia manager s m odera ted the pane l s ,

and the

audience consisted

of

reporters

a nd

editors.

These

panels were used

for

background inform at ion only .

Eight

com m unity conversations w ere planned.

These,

too, w ere used on ly for

background

information (Morris, 2002). Participants were

told in

advance

that

they would

not be

quoted

in the

newspaper

o r

recorded

fo r

radio

or TV,

a l though

minutes o f the m eetings were recorded and reported to pro jec t mem bers.

Confidentia l i ty

enabled par t ic ipants

to

speak more openly

and

freely,

said

a

reporter (personal communication, April 20–21, 1996)

w ho

conduc ted

the

public policy conversation. Otherwise,

the

c i t i zen-pa r t i c ipan t s m igh t have

been

r e luc tan t to be

honest

and for thr ight about controversial issues, he said,

adding

that

the conversations were good for gene ra t ing sources and story ideas.

O ne

reservation

w as

expressed

by a

reporter (personal communication, April

20–21, 1996)

w ho

said

the

t ime

and

effort

required

to

organize , cond uct ,

and

analyze

com m uni ty conv ersa tions could be cos t ly in day- to-d ay repor t ing. T he

advantage

of

using them

on a

collaborative p roject ,

h e

said,

was

tha t severa l

re-

porters could at tend

and

benef i t

from one

communi ty conversa t ion .

Throughout

th e

c iv ic journ a l ism pro jec t previo us ly descr ibed, L am beth

met

wi th graduate jou rna l ism s tudents

to

s tudy

and

ana lyze

the

significance

of

these prac t ices to work ing journa l i s t s . O ne of h is classes discussed a list o f

charac ter is t ics

of

c iv ic jou rna l i sm , w hich co u ld

be

u s e d

to identify the

I a n -



10.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

IN

JO URNALISM

171

guage

of c iv ic journ al ism . These c haracter is t ic a t t r ibu tes of c iv ic jou rna l ism

we re identified

as

coverage

of citizen viewpoints,

invitations

to

action

in

news

stories, repo rte r-re ad er interaction , identif ication of personal and social val-

ues, ident i f ica t ion of conse quenc es associated w ith the events-issues cov-

e red ,

and ide nt i f ica t ion of the stakeholders involved in the coverage. This list

of a t t r ibu tes com plem ented the a t t r ib u te s of t rad i tional n ew s s tor ies that re-

searchers have previously identif ied as characterist ics of news (Brooks et al,

1999): impact, proximity, t imeliness, prominence, novelty , and conflict .

Two hypotheses emerged from this exercise: (a) Textual analysis o f a civic

journa l i sm news story should produce attr ibutes significantly different

from

those of a tradit ional new s story; and (b) At least most of the a t t r ibu tes of civic

journal i sm

identif ied

by

Lambeth

and his

students should

be

found

in

civic jou r -

nalism te xts. The original list was modified according to suggestions in a m em o

from new spap er editor Davis M errit t (personal com m unication, Se ptem ber 2 ,

1996),

one of the fou nde rs of the pu blic journalism m ovem ent:

T he objec t ive

isn' t

to

quant i fy th ings

and

ma k e

a j u d g m e n t

a b o u t w h e t h e r

or how

m uc h a newspap er i s succeeding,

though tha t migh t

be a sm all

side effect.

Rather ,

the objec t ive is to p rov ide a list o f

t ra i t s

t h a t w e th ink cons t i t u t e publ ic journal i sm

and

example s

to

i l lustrate

those t r a i t s— and

how

they

differ

from

t r ad i t i ona l

prac-

t i c e—as a s tep toward a working defini t ion tha t journa l i s t s can u n d e r s t a n d .

A

sample

of

readers

was

asked

to

rate these n ew s criteria

from low to

high

on

a

7-po int scale after reading se veral blocks of news coverage

that

resulted from

the civic journ alism projec t t it led "Faith in Our Communi ty" and samples of

more tradit ional news coverage from the same period and newspaper. Some

blocks contained tradit ional new s coverage, some civic journalism style rep ort-

ing,

and

some w ere mixed .

The

following

are the

tex tual a t t r ibu tes

and

their

definitions that w ere ra ted

in

this pilot study (Morris, 2002).

1. Citizen viewpoints: Citizens are identified as contributors in solving a

public issue.

2.

Im pact : M any ci tizens are likely to b e sign ificantly affected by this new s.

3. Invi ta t ions to action:

This

news coverage presents

ways

readers can ac-

tively respond.

4. Proximity:

This

takes place close to readers' homes.

5.

Repor ter - reader interact ion: This indicates reporters have communi-

cated w ith cit izens.

6.

Timeliness:

This

news

is

based

on

recent events.

7. Values: The va lues (m oral— ethical principles) underlying courses of ac-

tion

are

explained.

8. Prominence:

This

new s includes w ell-known personalit ies or celebrities.



172 M O R R I S

9.

Consequences: Consequences

(the outcome or end results) of ac tua l or

possible decisions are

explained.

10. Novelty:

This

news is based on the odd or un us ua l .

11.

Stakeholders: W ho (individuals or groups) s tands to gain and who s tands

to lose are c learly identified (in the news s tory).

12.

Conflict:

This

new s emp hasizes opposing sides. (p. 68)

A procedure was designed to test two hypotheses abo ut the character is t ics of

the news coverage. T he researcher (Mo rris , 2002) wa nted to learn: (a) whe the r

readers would identify civic journalism stories, and (b) w heth er readers w ould

rate civic jour nalis m stories

differently

from

tradit ion al news s tories .

Th e read ers for this pi lot s tu d y consis ted of 12, specif ically se lec ted jou r -

na l i sm s tuden ts who had com ple ted a bas ic ne w s wr i t ing course and we r e in

a media his tory course.

This

sample w as used because th e members pos -

sessed a bas ic know ledge of the e lem ents of jou rna l ism . Each s ub jec t was

asked to read five to six blocks of n e ws and ra te

each

b lock , which r epre -

sented par t o f a newspaper page and contained some of the "Fa i th in our

C o mmun i ty" p r o j e c t . The b lock inc lud ed head l ines , teasers , photos , cap-

tions,

and

o ther news devices .

The

b locks were r a ted acco rd ing

to the 12

t ex tua l a t t r ibu tes p rev ious ly l is t ed .

A t

least

tw o

readers rated each b lock,

and

scores

for

each

of the

criteria w ere

averaged

for each

copy block.

The

scores were group ed into

a

publ ic journa l ism

( P J )

index (s ta tements

1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11

previous ly m ent ioned)

and a

tradi-

tional journ alism (TJ) index (2, 4, 6, 8, 1 0, and 1 2). Each block received PJ in-

dex and TJ index scores. Scoring on a 7-po int scale , the readers gave the publ ic

journalism blocks

an

average

of

4.62

for

p ubl ic journa l ism

and

o nly 3.62

for

tra-

dit ional journ alism ; they gave the tradit ional jou rnalis m blocks a 4.16 for tradi-

t ional jou rnalism and a 3.67 for pub lic journ alism .

The pub lic journ alism index score w as a

f u l l

p oint above the tradit iona l jour -

nalism index score for the blocks that contained the publ ic journa l ism news.

This

shows that the readers correctly identif ied w hich new s blocks contained

more pu blic journalism language at tr ibutes .

They

h ad identified pub l ic journa l-

ism by its

t ex tua l a t t r ibu tes .

5

CONCLUSION

Textual analysis can be

useful

to reporters, editors, news directors, and re-

searchers, who use it to explain how mass media

affect

our ev eryda y lives.

Mahoney

and

Fishlock used textual analysis

to

help s trengthen individual jour-

nalists ' writing skills b y offering models to

identify,

describe, and eva lu a te var i -



10.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS IN JOURNALISM 173

ous types of news writing. Miller and Dewar used textual analysis of complex

government documents

to

uncov er im portan t issues clouded

by

legalese.

Finally,

textual analysis offers benefits through identifying, describing, and

eva lua t ing va rious genres of journalism as shown by the civic jou rnalism pro-

j ec t

in Missouri . That textual analysis revealed that a purposive sample of

journal ism

stu de nts could identify public journalism te xts

b y

language at trib -

utes . M anz ella (2002) fram es the civic jou rna lism debate of the 1990s as a b at -

tle

betwe en the news of record, inve rted-py ram id journalis ts ver sus the

narrative, storytelling journalists. Before deciding w hich

is the one

best style

tor jou rna lism , media cri tics , editors ,

and

news writers m ust carefully identify,

describe,

and evaluate the various genres of news writing. After seeing

valid

al te rnat ives ,

the

questions

to

ask ,

a s

M erri t t (personal comm unication, Sep-

tember 2 , 1996) sug gested , involve the characteristics of various forms of j o u r -

nal ism,

and the set of circumstances

t ha t

call for the use of each fo rm.

T h e q ues t i ons t ha t can be addressed throu gh te x tu a l analys i s a re qua l i -

t a t i ve . A s resea rchers ana lyze a text , they ask the overa rching ques t ion ,

What are the

qual i t ies

of

this part icu lar text ,

and how does

this text com-

p a r e and cont ras t to

o the r

t ex t s?" Un der th is um bre l la , they m ay a sk o the r

q u e s t i o n s

su ch as , "Can read ers dis t inguish a pu bl ic jou rna l ism text

from

a

t r a d i t i o n a l j o u r n a l i s m t e x t ? " o r

What's

the d i f fe rence be twe en a story and

a

r ep or t?" o r "How does in te rac t iv i ty affect the l anguage of

j o u r n a l i s m ? "

T e x t ua l a naly s is take s more t ime

than

rout ine reading , and i t may r e q u i r e

some co m pu ter ha rd w are and sof tw are , but i t i s an effect ive m ethod for un-

d e r s t a n d i n g and e va lua t i ng news wr i ti ng , complex docum en t s and j ou rna l -

ism

g e n r e s .

ENDNOTES

1

For an updated directory of media criticism, go to: ht tp: / / journalism net.com /me dia

2

For more informat ion about genre criticism, see: ht tp:/ /ww w.mb cnet.Org/archives/etv/G/

htmlG/genre/genre.htm

For

more examples

of

fantasy

theme

criticism, see: http://library.ci.scottsdale.az.us/weh2/

tramp2.exe/authority_hits/AOb8gujo.001?server= lhome&item= 1

T he fo l lowing books contain exp l ica tions of m any journal ism

terms

that can be used in

textual analysis: Assessing

Publ ic Journal ism,

edited

by

L a m b e t h ,

M e ye r

and

Thorson

( 1 998 ) ;

News Reporting an d Writing, by

Brooks, Kennedy, Moen

and

Ranly (1999);

Words on

Words, by

John B r e m n e r (1980); T he Public Journalism M ovement in

America, by

Don Corr igan

(1999) ;

A Study of Attitudes toward Audience Interaction in Journal ism, by

John Morris (2002); From Sight to Insight, by Rackham a nd Bertagnolli

(1999);

A Glos-

sary of Literary Terms, by M. H.

Abrams

( 1981 ) ; and A Handbook to Literature, by

H o l m a n and Harmon ( 1986) .

5

A t - t e s t for statistic al significance indicated t he hypothesis w as

suppor ted

by the results

(p <

.0004) .





1 1

Scientists and

Storytellers

The Im perative

of

Pairing Q ualitative

and Q uantitative A pproaches

in C om m unication Research

Susan Schultz

Huxman

Wichita State University

Mike Allen

University

of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

From

its inception, com m unication has

been

a com plex, diverse, and rich cog-

nate

area, spanning

the

humanit ies (speech),

fine

arts (theater), social sciences

( journal ism; telecommunications),

and

natural sciences (communication dis-

orders) . It is little wonder then that the discipline has

experienced

a particularly

lively and lengthy debate that began in the 1920s over its two research tradi-

tions: behaviorism

and

phenomenology.

The issue, w hich s trikes at the hea rt of ontological and epistemological qu es-

tions,

h as

been posited

in

simple, polar extrem es: Behaviorism

is

ded uctive, for-

mal,

functional , and quanti tat ive in i ts quest to explain and predict human

communicative behavior; phenomenology

is

inductive, interpret ive,

evalu-

ative,

and quali tat ive in its quest to und erstand and apprec iate the me aning of

human messages .

This

dichotomous mindset

has led to entrenched and

even

combat ive views: That which w e

cannot

see, we

cannot

m easure and so is

meaningless";

versus

"Attempts

to

find statistical correlation between discrete



1 76 H U X M A N AND A L L E N

variables of a process, context-bou nd phen om ena ( i .e . , co m m un ica tion ) are

hopelessly

m isguided." Increasingly, however,

our

discu ssions hav e been more

inviting

and c ollaborative. If the spirit of postmodernism has tau gh t us any -

thing, it is

that

dichotomies are o ften overd rawn— somet imes r idiculously so; a

multiperspectivism enriches research findings;

and

paradoxes

a nd

ambigui t ies

in the

human condi t ion should

be

celebra ted .

This

chapter , w r i t ten

by one

au th o r

w ho

pract ices qual i ta t i ve research

and

the

other

w ho pract ices qu ant i ta t ive research , suggests tha t there is an im pera-

t ive to pair ing qual i ta t ive and qua nt i ta t ive approaches in com m unica t ion re-

search. I t begins by revisit ing the qu alita tive –q uan titativ e debate, but a rgues

that

many of the dichotomies are ov e r d r aw n a nd th a t o ther

real

h a r ms to the

health of our

discipline

deserve our attention.

From

there, the

chapter outl ines

the types, oppo rtunities , and th reats of tr ian gu late d research and introdu ces

several case s tudies in com m unicat ion th at b lend behaviora l and phenom eno-

logical assumptions.

QUALITATIVE VERSUS QUANTITATIVE:

A R E THE DISTINCTIONS OVE RD RA WN?

When a person possesses only a h a mm er , [s /he] will view a ll problems as r eq u i r ing the

pound ing of nails .

— P r o v e r b

Quantitative research in comm unicat ion takes i ts lead

from

the n a tu ra l sc i-

ences.

T he

ou tcome

of a

qu an t i t a t i v e ex amina t ion sh ou ld

be the

e s t ima t ion

of

an empirical relationship

between

or

among

abstract conceptual variables.

The goal is to f ind a genera l izable re la t ionship tha t goes across con text , t ime ,

and s i tua tion . For examp le , does the am oun t o f po l i t i ca l adv er t i se m ents gen-

era te m ore vo tes fo r a cand ida te? The qu an t i ta t iv e inves t iga to r w ou ld spend

t ime g enera t ing

a

concep tu a l u n d e r s t and ing

o f

w h a t

is

m e a n t

by the

a m o u n t

of paid pol i t ica l adver t isements ,

and then

compare tha t

to the

n u m b e r

of

votes for a cand ida te .

While the term amount of paid political ad vertisem ents may

first

appe ar rel-

atively

simple,

i t

carr ies w ith

i t a

n u m b e r

of de f ini tional

issues.

Does

an

a t tack

adver t isement

on an

opponent count toward

the

candidate 's total

or

not?

Do

advertisements paid

for by

someone else cou nt tow ard this total?

Is a

15-second

television a dve rtisem ent the same as a 30-second adv ertise m ent ? How do you

total new spaper, radio, In tern et, and television materials? As one can see, this

simple

se t of problems re la ted to the opera t ional iz ing or pu t t in g into pract ice

th e conceptual

entity requires

a

great deal

of

effort. Such

efforts are

often acri-



SCIENTISTS

AND

STORY TELLERS

177

monious

as

scholars disagree about

the

conceptualization,

as we l l as

operationalization of various features . Y et this debate and explication, never

fully settled, is an expected and healthy part of the process.

The second issue is

that

a single finding or study is subject to Type I

(false

pos-

itive)

and

Type

II

(false negative) error.

The

problem

is

that science operates

in a

world

of

probability.

A

single finding might

be the

result

of

random error.

The

search

to estimate a single association necessitates dozens o r even hundreds of

a t tempts a t replication. T he replications are eventually summarized

using

meta-analysis to distill or generate a final association across the

entire

body of

l i tera ture that often spans decades (in some rare cases w e have more than 100

years

of

data). Science

is a

dynamic process

of

comparison

of

what

we

think

w e

know

to the current information collected by investigators and the theoretical

predictions

of what ought to be true.

E v e n when the scientific approach to understanding communication

w o r k s (and i t does), i t does n o t supp ly meaning. W e have several meta-anal-

yses that demonstrate

fo r

public health messages that high

fear

messages

a re

more persuasive

than

lo w

fear messages (Boster

&

Mongeau, 1984;

M o n g e a u ,

1998; Sutton, 1982; Witte &

Allen,

2000).

This

is an important

and

pract ical finding

fo r

those

engaged

in

public health. However,

th e

infor-

m a t i o n is abstract and removed

from

the reality o f crafting those messages.

Si t t ing down

to

write

a

high fear message

i s

dif f icul t when research cannot

p r o v ide

instruction for how to do i t . The problem o f c u l t u r a l instantiation is

a

fundamental limitation

o f

quantitative methods

in

communication

re -

sea rch (Allen & Preiss, 2002).

Another example of the blindness to understanding ethnographic factors in

quanti ta t ive

research

is

best expressed

by

Fisher (1994): How appropriate

is

pre- tes t

and

post-test analysis

in

research assuming

a

process view

of com m unica-

tion? (pp. 3–4). Carey (1975) defined communication

as: "a

symbolic process

whereby

reality

is

produced, maintained, repaired,

and

transformed

(p .

17),

and

in 1989 pointedly encouraged mass communication researchers to abandon the

discovery of

laws

and diagnose human meanings (see Leeds-Hurw itz , 1995, pp. 4,

7). Yet, behaviorists still feel compelled to treat complex and dynamic

features

of

our

communicative

life as if

they were w ell-defined variables entering into fixed

relationships

irrespective

of

context.

Scholars have long suggested that predic-

tion is flawed in the human sciences because we

cannot

shield th e domain of hu-

m an

experiences from external influences.

In

short, interpretation

of

meaning

does n ot allow for exactitude. Most important, if we grant that human beings are

self-defining, it is much more accurate to understand communicative behavior

after the fact

than

to predict. Human communication is inescapably historical

(Polkinghorne, 1983, p. 229).



1 78

HUXMAN A ND A L L E N

Quali ta t ive research w as born

from

these reactions to the l imi ta t ions of

qu anti ta t ive design. Phenomenology takes i ts lead from the hum ani t ie s , wh ich

are

commit ted

to

celebrating

the

"wondrous ly uncommon crea t ions

as

escape

the generalizing m ind because they are not , as the scientis ts say of their experi-

ments, replicable" (Wayne

Booth as quoted in

Darsey, 1994,

p.

171) . Qual i ta -

t ive research, as Van Maanen (1983) ar t iculated, is : "an umbrella term"

covering a var iety of interp retive method s th at "seek to descr ibe, decode, tran s-

la te ,

and

otherwise come

to

te rm s wi th

t he

meaning,

not the frequency, of

cer-

tain

...

na tu ra l ly occur r ing phenom ena

in the

social world"

(p. 9) . The

quali ta t ive researcher trea ts data

as

p ar t icula r , cont inuo us ,

and

ambiguous ;

no t

discrete , rep licable, and

clearly

defined. The em phasis is on d escr iption , analy-

sis, and

explanation,

more

than control,

measurement , and prediction (Fitch,

1994,

p .

3 2 ) .

In

te rms

of the

evidence

of

research rep orts , narrat iv e excerpts

of-

ten

replace num er ica l char ts .

In the

com m unica t ion disc ip l ine , qua l i ta t ive researchers

are

comm i tted

to

examin ing

how

agen ts p roduce mean ing wi th words , wr i t t en

o r

spoken

(Tom kins, 1994, p. 44 ).

This

m eans th a t com m unica t ion is v iewed as "a deeply

cul ture d process ," and the researcher m us t be a na tu ra l i s t o f sor ts who

"watches, listens,

and

records communicative

conduct

in its

natu ral set ting"

(Phil ipsen, 1992, p. 7). Research questions th at begin with how and wh y replace

hypotheses that

are

dr iven

by

if-the n connections.

So, for

exam ple , qua l i t a t ive

researchers

ask

such que s t ions

as: How do

adver t isem ents tha t depic t success-

ful

women corroborate and challenge theories of feminism? Why do pres iden-

t ial

inaug ura ls sound

so

m u c h

alike? H ow

does

the

mu s ic indus t ry

use W eb

sites

to a t t rac t consum ers? W hy are people f r ightened of pu bl ic

speaking? These

questions encourage communication researchers

to

person alize, localize,

and

part icularize

the im plications of their findings. Unl ike the i r quan t i t a t iv e coun-

terparts, qualitative researchers do not claim to know w hat their observations

mean "unti l they have developed

a

descr iption

o f the

con tex t

in

wh ic h

the be-

havior took place

and

a t t e mp te d

to see

tha t behavior

from the

position

of its

originator" (Van Maanen, 1983,

p.

10).

Quali ta t ive research does

not

require

the

sense

o f

perm anence necessary

for

scientific

investigation. Philipsen's seminal work "Speaking Like a Man in

Team sterville ," pu blish ed in 1975, does not become

flawed

if we were to go back

to that

south-side

Chicago

neighborhood

and

found

no one

speaking like

that

in

2003. T he requirem ent tha t repl ica t ion o f

resul ts

be con tex tua l ly and tempo-

rally inv ariant does not

apply

to quali ta t ive research, nor should i t . The va lue of

qual i ta t ive

research lies

in

creating

an

in terpre ta t ion

of the

dyn a mic s

of a

cu l -

ture and the com m unica t ion prac tices ongoing in tha t c ul tu re . How ever , cul -

tures and practices change with t ime, experience, and c ir cum s tances .



SCIENTISTS

AND

STO RYTELLERS

179

Qualitative research

is not

without l imitations. Interpreting meaning

is

messy

and

t ime-consuming,

but the

overriding concern

is its

proclivity

to

fea -

ture

the human voice of the researcher. Methods, as

Black wryly

noted:

"ad-

m it of varying degrees of personality" (1965, p. xi) . Qua litative research has

personali ty because a

lone

researcher is generally the sole instrum en t of obser-

vation and the writing ability of the researcher is intrinsic to the validity of the

findings. A qualitative researcher m ust bring the reader to co rroborate an inter-

pre t ive

process. This means that

the

quality

of the

research

is

of ten dependent

on the

caliber

of the researcher's own communicative

performan ce (Black,

1965;

Ivie,

1994). Unlike the quan titative researcher w ho purges style and sup -

plan ts p assive voice

in

order

to

distance

the

reader,

the

qualitative researcher

tries to engage,

even

enchant the reader (Black, 1965, p. xiii)

through

persua-

sive "fore nsic reasoning" (Rosen field, 1968,

p.

10). These traits have

led to

criti-

cism that the m ethod lacks rigor.

With

the

defining characteristics, strengths,

and

limitations

of

qualitative

and

qu ant i ta t ive approaches

in

com mu nication research established,

one can

see more clearly how the variou s practices of the two research traditions w ork . If

you re ad a research report in an academic jo urna l, how can you detect if the au-

thor is using quant i ta t ive or qualitative methods (procedures o r practices) 1 A

simple

answ er would

be if

there

are

numbers

it is

quant i ta t ive ,

n o

numbers qua l -

i tative (Frey, Boton, Friedman, & Kreps, 1992, p. 4). Y et as we discuss later in

the chapter , more obfuscation than clarity comes from this distinction. A qual i -

ta t ive

s tudy wo uld be interested in using some combination of interviews, ob-

servation, and

analysis

of

tex ts

to

represent

the

communicative experiences

o f

the

pe rsons studied. Som etimes called

a

thick description

the

report provides

an

a t t emp t

to

cap tu re

the

essence

of

w h a t

the

person enacts

or

lives w ithin

a

cu l-

ture. Such descriptions attempt to represent the symbolic wo rld of those u nd er

s tudy wi th no a t t emp t to predict or control the process.

A

quan titative investigation

is

concerned w ith establishing

and

evaluating

the

relationship betw een

or

among co nceptualized variables.

The use of

controls (like

those in an expe rime nt) and u nderstand ing the selection of samples for a survey

(to estimate error from

the

group norm

and to

gen eralize

to

those

not in the

inves-

tigation) is critical to a quantitative investigation. The design may use experi-

m e n t s ,

surveys,

or

content

analysis

to

ex tract information

that

assesses

relationships

among

th e

variables und er study.

The

effort

is to

find

a

mean

(a

cen-

tral value) and the

reason

w hy

individual scores deviate

from

that value.

Q ualitativ e research is concerned with representations. Individual

differ-

ences are not tre ated as part of the error term but encouraged to become part of

the investigation. The representations in a qua litative inve stigation are the ou t -

comes

and may or may not

hav e abstract implications

that

gene ralize

to

others.



180 HUXMAN A ND

A L L E N

Quantitative

research views

the

par t icu lar part ic ipants

as

operationalizations

of

a context in

w h ich

to

examine relationships. The refore,

the

statis t ics

are in-

tended to assess and ev aluate those relationships. Q ualita tive research focuses

on the accuracy of the representation of the participants ' c om m unication–c ul-

ture without necessary regard to val idat ion of ex ternal re la t ionships or

generalizability.

While there

are

many specific qualitative procedures

that

researchers

use to

uncover a research question, four common ones used in media research in-

clude:

rhetorical

criticism,

content

analysis, survey, and ethnography (Berger,

1998). U sing rhetorical cr it icism (analysis of discourse) , researchers perform a

close, system atic inspection of m essages w ith the h elp of a selected theory tha t

serves

as a lens. The aim is to

describe, interpret,

and

evaluate message content

(e.g., film, book, W eb site, speech, and a dve rtisem ent) in order to gain greate r

insight for how and why p ersuas ion works . Using content analys is (m easur ing

the amount of something in a representative sampling

of

discourse) , researchers

conduct a m ore sw eeping, system atic exam ination of groups of discourse. The

aim is to compare and contrast message form and

content

(e.g., television

shows, new spaper coverage, and polit ical cam paign l i te ratu re) in order to as-

semble frequencies and establish patterns of messages over t ime. Rhetorical

criticism

and content analysis are text-based and unobtrusive procedures for

quali ta t ive

investigation. Content analy sis, like

survey

research , is a h ybrid pro-

cedure; i t can be used for qua li tative and qu an titativ e purposes.

Using surve ys (e.g., m ailed que stionn aires, telephon e survey s, perso nal in-

terviews, and focus grou ps) , researchers ask people abou t them selves in order to

draw

conclusions

about what

the

larger population thinks.

Hence,

gaining

a

representative sample is critical. The construction of the quest ionnaire o r inter -

view

gu ide m us t

be

u nd e r t ak en

in a system atized way to maximize t he

accuracy

and

usefulness

of the

data gained. Using ethnography (participant observa-

tion) , researchers en ter the field to observe how people com m unicate with each

other

in their nat ura l settings in order to unders tand the tacit rules that govern

their communicative interaction. Survey

and

e thnography

are subject , no t

text-based, procedures

of

qu alita tive investigation. He nce, they

are

often

re-

ferred

to as

obtrusive

methods

that require subje ct consent. Survey

and

content

analysis

are used in quant i ta t ive or qual i ta t ive approaches to com m unicat ion

research and are typically marked b y brea dth of inquiry. Ethn ograph y and rhe-

torical cr it icism are used str ictly in qualita tive approaches to co m m unica tion

research

and are

typically m arked

by

depth

of

inquiry.

As we

trot

out

these distinctions between

the two

research w orldviews,

and

their corresponding m ethods

of

choice,

we are

mindfu l

not to

r e i f y

the

very ste-

reotypes

we

eschew. Many

of the

dichotomies between

the

methods

are

over-



SCIENTISTS AND STORYTELLERS 181

drawn.

1

For instance, quan titative research is usually equa ted w ith num bers,

empir icism,

objectivity, and ded uction. Q ualitative research co nversely is

equated with words, subjectivity ,

and

induction. Upon close inspection, these

grand

either– ors collapse. All comm unication research is abou t words. "Words

const i tu te

THE

data

of

interest

to

Co m m unication scholars," w rote Liska

and

Cronkhite (1994, p. 59). In addition, many qualitative researchers count

things. Some qualitative researchers have described themselves as "unw itt ing

mathemat ic ians" who notice rhetorical patterns, count things, and adhere to

the law of "cen tral tende ncy " (H art, 1994b, p. 75, 80). All com m unication re-

searchers

do

emp irical study.

The critic-ethnographer and the

scientist have

in

c o m m o n

two

vitally im porta nt activities:

to see a

thing clearly

and to

record

w hat th ey have seen precisely" (Black, 1965, p . 4) . All com m unication research

is

r igorous

a nd

em pirically based— though quan titative researchers practice

it

th rou gh research teams, random sampling

and

replication,

and

qualitative

r e-

searchers

practice i t through purposive samples, lengthy imm ersion in a sett ing,

and plausible a rgume nt d rawn from reams of raw data . Perhaps the most cur ious

distinction involves

the

deductive-inductive debate. N either describes w ha t

researchers

do. As Bav elas sum m arized i t: "All researchers engage in a sequen -

tial

process that includes

both

forms

of reasoning" (1995, p. 54 ).

The ha rms of thinking

that

great chasms se parate the two research practices

are

several-fold.

First, differences of this magnitude breed hostility. Berger

(1994) decried the tenden cy of the field's active researchers "to be occupied

chronically with arguing about the relative merits of various methodological ap-

proache s for s tudyin g hu m an comm unication" (p. 11) . The intensity of the de-

bate has som etimes degenera ted into personal attack.

2

Second, turf w ars also

led

to what Janesick aptly

coined:

"methodolatry"—"the slavish attachm ent

and devotion

to

method"

and

"the almost constan t obsession w ith

the

trinity

of

validity,

reliability and gene ralizability"

that

overtakes the discourse (Janesick,

1988, p. 2 1 5 ) . The tempta t ion to become over involved with method means

tha t researche rs are prone to separate experience from knowing (p. 21 5) . Bu rke

(1969)

referred

to the phenomena of overzealous

affirmation

of a myopic skill

set as a trained incapacity to see clearly.

Third,

the idolatry o f a par t icu lar re-

search paradigm has also led to a distressing tendency to sever research from

theoret ica l advancements . O pera t ional m astery does

not in and of

itself pro-

d u ce theoretical insights about human communicators.

A s

Berger (1994)

ob-

served: "Atheoretical quali tative research is as uninformative as atheoretical

qu an tita tiv e research" (p. 14). Finally, looking at behav iorism and phen om en-

ology as oil and water negates the entire possibilities of triangulation—of the

pos tmodern impu lse , o f many fruitful interdisciplinary and academic-profes-

sional par tnersh ips

and the

proposition

to

which these auth ors

are

comm itted .



182 H U X M A N

AND

A L L E N

HOW DOES TRIANGULATION WORK?

CASE STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION

The hum anities without

science

are blind;

science

without the hum anities m ay be

vicious.

— M a r i e

Hochmuth-Nicho las

When

the word blended family

first

e ntered our lexicon to replace broke n

home,

it was met with a m ix tu re of relief and resistance. In some sense, the en-

trance of t r iangula t ion—a blending o f h u m an i s t ic and scientific research cu l-

tures—to

replace the great qualitative -quan titative divide has met with a

similar

reaction in the academ y. Paradoxically , the term tr ia ng ula tio n has been

used

to

describe precision, accuracy,

and

clarity,

but

also tension, duplicity,

and

obfuscation. Originally, the term came from the field of navigat ion to help de-

scribe how the use of m ultiple reference points could he lp investigators zero in

on a precise location. The location of an u nk no w n point can be found "b y the

formation

of

a triangle

[emphasis added] having the unknown point and two

known points as the vertices" (American Heritage Dictionary, 2001). This

meaning of the term makes sense intuitively. As Singleton, Straits, and

McAll is te r

(1988) explained:

"In

their everyday

lives,

people

f requent ly

use

more than one means to solve a problem" (p. 360). So, too, the reasoning goes,

b lending qual i ta t ive and qu ant i ta t iv e m ethods can solve vexing research prob-

lems about communication.

Yet in other

contexts

the

word invites

an

opposite

meaning . V isual com m unicat ion scholars know that the shape of a tr iangle con-

notes

tension

and irresolution. The cliche love triangle reflects this mood. The

B erm uda Triangle

i s a

nav iga t iona l n igh tmare ,

and the

phrase

has

come

to

sym-

bolize lost , misguided, or bungled scenarios. Communication consultants use

the term tr iangula t ing to des ignate wh en tw o people are engaged in u n h e a l t h y

conflict m anageme nt— a dysfunc tiona l com m unica t ion pa t te rn tha t invo lves

sharing frustrat ions about another individua l to a th ird person (Brenner , 2001 ) .

This confluen ce of opposites can enrich the usage of the term in a rese arch

sett ing. Practicing tr iangulation is f raught w i th oppor tun i t ies and th rea ts , clar-

i t y ,

and o bfuscation, the blending of views, and the b reakin g of tradit ions. As

the title of our essay suggests , w ha t the

field

of com mu nica t ion really needs are

good scientists

and

storytellers. Scientists,

who

u nd e r s t and

the

impor tance

of

precis ion and m easure m ent; s tory te l lers , who u nd ers ta nd the im por tan ce of en-

gagement

and

reasoning. Communication research

as a

wh ole needs scope

and

generalizability, but it

a lso mu st

b e

vivid

and part icular . If we can

f rame

our re-

search from a tr iangulated pe rspective, we will yield explanation and insight; be

t rue to the need of replication and recept iv i ty ; and present findings t h a t a re e f f i -

cient

and

compelling. N either wo rldview

has a

corner

on

rele van ce , validity ,

or



1 1 . SCIENTISTS AND

S TO RY TELLERS

significance. A

"syncretic" (Polkinghorne, 1983,

p. xi) or

m ul t ipa rad igma t ic

ap-

proach

allows

these

staples

of scholarship to

flourish.

That

said, where does

one

begin?

The

opportunit ies

for

t r iangula t ion

are

seemingly endless

but

because

the

pa th

is not

well m arked, th reats loom large.

Janesick

(1988) posited four types

of

triangu lation:

(a)

investigator,

(b)

da ta ,

(c)

methodological ,

and (d)

theoretical,

but

published scholarship

in the

discipline

tends

not to

reference this typology.

W e

know

that

increasingly research ers

ad-

vo cate tr iang ulation, but precious few practice i t . W orse yet , grad uat e tra ining

in

univ ersi t ies s t il l tends to prepare s tudents for one method or the other, not

both (Jick, 1983, p. 135), and academic research publications still

prefer

s ingu-

lar

methods, ci t ing length and

focus

con cerns. Y et, exciting mod els of blended

scholarship

exist

on a

range

of

com m unication topics

from

across

the

aca -

demic-professional

landscape.

The

case s tudies examined below treat trends

in

presidentia l discourse

from

the 1960s through the 1980s, media coverage ot

character issues in the 2000 presidentia l campaign, viewer reactions to te le -

vised

political debates in the 2000 election, and

media coverage

of the

AIDS

epidemic from its

inception

to the

present

by

combining qua li ta t ive

and

q u a n t i -

ta t ive

research methods

in

sophist icated w ays.

NEW DIRECTIONS IN CONTENT ANALYSIS

Content

analysis is the oldest quanti ta t ively dr iven method in m ass com m uni -

cation research, extending back

to the

1800s

in

this country,

and

even

the

1500s

in

Europe .

B y the

late 1960s,

a few

practitioners

(Goffman,

1979; Ho lst i,

1969)

embraced

the

radical

notion that

content

analysis should becom e m ore

quali tat ively

driven . Specifically, this nontraditional practice m eans th at: (a)

significance is not

equated exclusively w ith frequen cy

o f

occur rence;

(b)

con-

tent

categories could and should be jud gm ent al or interpretive; and (c) a discu s-

sion

of

la ten t m eanings should

follow the

presentat ion

of

m anifest content .

In

short,

the

research

goal

is to become adept at descriptive

statistics

and

rhetor i-

cal analysis.

Goffman's (19 79) impressive s tudies

of

gender s tereo types

and ad-

vert isem ents exem plif ied some of these new ideas. Few followed this lead.

A contem porary comm unica t ion researcher, Har t , has won recognition for

his sophist icated blending

of

content

analysis

and

rhetorical criticism.

In

1984,

Har t pub l i shed

Verbal

Style and the Presidency: A Comp uter-Based Analysis ,

a

work that

showcased h is specially designed softw are pack age ,

DICTION.

The

work

exam ined 800 presid entia l messages

from

John F. Kenn edy to Ronald Rea -

gan from 30

different

language analysis vantag e points . The s tu dy was both a

humanis t i c and

scientific examination

of

presidential rhetoric

that

in

Har t ' s

ow n weirds w as

"precise, comprehensive, comparative,

and

quan t i t a t ive"

(p .



184 H U X M A N A N D A l . l . K N

14). The sam pling m ethods, un its of analysis, reliance on computer sof tware ,

and,

of

course,

the

d ata presentation

in the form of

nearly

60

tables showing

de-

scriptive statistics and correlation among the language use of presidents, were

quant i ta t ive ly dr iven. The use of interpretat iv e categories (activi ty, optim ism,

cer tainty, realism, embell ishment, var iety, human interest , complexity, e tc . ) ,

the analysis of la tent m eanings, and the overall interest in pres ident ia l uniqu e-

ness (cleverness

of

symbolic choices),

not jus t

presidentia l conformity (fre-

quency of symbolic choices), was quali t a t iv ely dr iven. The resu lts of this

two-pronged inquiry are broad (e.g. , Presidents scored

significantly

higher in

their use of optimism, self-reference, realism and cau tion than business , rel i-

gious,

and

political leaders)

and

deep

(e.g., Kennedy's rhetoric

w as

least

folksy,

Johnson's least com plex, and Nixon's m ost realistic of all othe r p reside nts ' rhe t-

oric).

Hart

captured

the

triangulated effort

in

this way:

T he

purpose here

is to

show

why the

n u m e r i c a l d a t a t u r n e d

out as

the y d id .

Figure

1.2 is ever>' bit as i m p o r t a n t as Table 1 .1 since the

former

t ears us away from the

magic

of

n u m b e r s

and forces us to

dea l , microscopica l ly , wi th

the

s t r u c t u r e

ot

l an -

guage. Such p roced ures re turn us to the l ived

real i ty

of

sym bol-us ing

and demand

t h a t w e d o c u m e n t fo r ourse lves t he facts u n e a r t h e d by the c o m p u t e r . T h r o u g h o u t

this book , therefore , exam ples

of pres ident ia l

persuas ion

will

be

used

extensively .

In

almost all cases, I have confined the numerica l da ta to the Appendixes so t h a t

words— not num bers— rece ive t he a t t e n t i on due t hem . The num bers , o f cou rse , a re

indispensable, fo r t hey add the

level

of de ta i l necessary to m a k e s h a r p

d i s c r im ina -

tions and va l id compar i sons . But every a t t e m pt will be made here to tel l the rhetori-

cal

story

of the

m odern p res idency ;

to

appre cia te th a t s tory ,

w e

m u s t

l is ten, cr i t ica l ly ,

to

w h a t

ou r

p res iden ts have sa id . (1984 ,

p. 34)

Increasingly,

qua l i ta t ive

content

analysis

in

communica t ion

is

being prac-

ticed

and

f inding

a

receptive au dience.

For

example ,

The

Project

for

Excellence

in Jou rnalism , fun de d by the Pew Research Cen ter a t Colum bia U niversi ty, re-

leased in their ow n words, an "un usua l s tudy of the character issue in the

2000

presidentia l election (np, nd) .

T he

s tudy

w as

u n u s u a l

in two

senses. First,

character is a

variable

that

requires interpretive categories

(in

this case,

the

con tent categories included six them es: for Gore, "scand al tainte d," "liar,"

competence ;

for Bush, "different kind of Repu blican," "unintelligent," and

"coasts

on

family").

These

charac ter themes

are

diff icult

to

isolate

and

quant i fy .

Second,

the

content

analysis

w as

paired w ith

a

comp anion telephone surve y

to

reveal

how

influe ntia l press coverage

is in

shaping p ublic opinion

of

candida tes .

The s tudy examined 5 weeks of stories in new spapers , te levis ion, radio, and the

Internet between February and Ju ne of 2000. D rawn from a data set of 2000

print

and

Internet stories

and 400

television

and

radio program s,

the s tudy

sug-

gested that character was a major focus of the coverage. Bush received more

posit ive coverage, Gore more negative coverage; ye t , as the surv ey da ta re-



1 1 .

SCIENTISTS A ND STO RYTELLERS 185

vealed, people

form

their ow n impressions of the candidates' character some-

t imes in spite of the tendencies of press coverage.

In each case, the

content

analytic findings were

enriched

with the pairing of

qualitative and quantitative data. Not only do we learn the what and where of a

communication phenomena,

but

also

the how and

why. Breadth

of

discovery

and depth of insight is a compelling, albeit difficult, research achievement.

NE W DIRECTIONS IN INTERVIEWS

The

emergence

of

civic journalism

has led to an

unanticipated need

for

triangu-

lation

and an

emphasis

on

qualitative approaches

to

newsgathering. Interview

methods, for instance, have become much more complex, time-consuming, and

context-dependent in an

effort

to generate relevant, in-depth stories

from

the

local

citizenry. Sophisticated interviewing methods

that

require

profes-

sional-academic partnerships are finding their w ay

into

television newsrooms

especially during election coverage. The Interdisciplinary Communication Re-

search Institute at

Wichita

State University devised a live debate tracker, a mo-

bile automated response testing instrument (MARTI) that KSNW, the NBC

affiliate,

used

in

covering

the

2000 presidential debates.

Whether

used

for de-

bate tracking, evaluating marketing strategies, testing advertising concepts, or

even analyzing legal defenses, MARTI allows

for

focus

group data

to be

gath-

ered and processed in a more scientific way, according to the principle investiga-

tor of the project, Philip Gaunt (personal communication, May 9 , 2002). For

the television station debate project, a random sample of area residents w as

conducted by a team o f university researchers. Recruitment for the

focus

group

involved screening fo r political affiliation, race, gender, income, and education.

Once the

scientifically

selected focus group participants were identified, they

met at the television station to view the debate live and were given responders

that looked like walkie-talkies

to

record their impressions

in

real time. Each

re-

sponder had a numeric pad (to register discrete cognitive reaction) and a dy-

namic control on the side (to register

feeling

states). Results were aggregated

according to male versus female, and superimposed on the debate image at the

bottom of the screen.

The

novelty

of the

MARTI technology

is

that

it

recorded discrete

and

con-

t i nu o u s

data in easy-to-process real time. In short, the blended research possi-

bili t ies that this technology allowed were several fold. Quantitatively, the

focus group was a

representative

sample.

MARTI

allowed for precision of

analysis in numerical terms. The study controlled for gender and could con-

trol for other variables. Finally, MARTI preserved the anonymity of the par-

t ic ipants from

the

mass audience. Qualitatively,

the focus

group

was

debriefed



186 HUXMAN AN D ALLEN

after the

l ive deb ate

by a

mod era tor

w ho

could

ask

such th ings

as: W hy did the

wo me n

in the

group respond

so

nega t ive ly

to

cer ta in issues, w hile

the men

tended

to

respond

posit ively? Many instances of a gender divide were re-

corded

and the dialed intensity of fee l ing informat ion genera ted more discus-

sion than the pad

presence

or

absence informat ion.

The

e ve n t

was live and

allowed for cont inuous

reaction

thus lessening the artificiality of a t radi t iona l

behavior is t s tudy.

O f

course ,

the

sophist icat ion

of

th is pro jec t requ ired inves-

t igator tr iangulation, too. Engineers , technical directors , producers , and re-

porters at the television station

worked wi th communica t ion

and

educa t ion

facul ty

at the u niv ersi ty to

pu l l o ff

a

first

in loca l news programm ing anyw here

in the

coun t ry (Gaun t , pe r sona l communica t ion ,

M ay 9 ,

2 0 0 2 ) .

A

TRAJECTORY

OF

R E S E A R C H

IN HIV

E DUCATION

AND ME D I A C OV E R A G E

M ore often, tr iangu lated s tud y of a research question com es indirec tly from

tracing the accu m ula ted knowledge base of a subje ct over t ime. T he fast chang-

ing

world

of how the

media responded

to

wha t became k nown

as the H IV

epi-

demic

is a

case

in

point.

A

fundamenta l cha l l enge

to

journa l ism

and the

practices

of the

m ass m edia appeared

in the early

1980s when groups

of gay m en

started dying of rare diseases like Kaposi 's Sarcom a in New

York

and San Fran-

cisco.

T he original label, G ay Related In fectiou s Disease (G RID ), w as e ve n tu -

ally

supplanted

by the

term Acquired Im m un e Def ic iency Syndrome (A IDS)

and the

cause

o f the

disease , Human Immunodef ic iency

Vi rus (HI V) , w as

dis-

covered.

Crit ical questions abo ut m edia coverage ha ve emerged:

(a) Did

media

coverage

fuel

a homophobic reaction? (b) Did m edia practices favor the politi-

cal and

scientific elite,

and the

s ta tus

quo at the

expense

of

change

and

in ter -

vent ion? and (c) Did media desire to avoid discussion of dis tas teful issues,

marginalize

persons (e.g. , hom osexu als

and

d r ug

users) and

practices

(i.e.,

ana l

sex,

breastfeeding, needle sharing,

an d

promiscui ty)

?

Examination

of

m edia coverage

in

this arena exists

from a

variety

o f

sources

both

quant i ta t ive

and

qu a l i ta t ive .

One

ground breaking body

of

research

on

this

topic, Elwood's (19 99)

Power

in the blood: A handbook on

AIDS,

p olitics,

and

com-

municat ion, is a compilation of

behavioral

and

phenom enological approaches

that

take n as a whole exem plif ies m ult iple types of tr iangu lation.

Quanti ta t ive analyses in the book docu m ents the k ind , am oun t , tr ends, and

impact

of

media

coverage in a variety of settings, inc luding such th ings as the

n u m b e r

and

types

of

guests

on

television programs (Wright, 1999), recall

of

public

service anno unc em ents (W alters , W alters ,

&

Priest, 1999a),

and the

rise

of

AIDS as a

public issue (Walters, Walters,

&.

Priest,

1999b).

These investiga-



SCIENTISTS

AN D

STORY TELLERS

187

tions, using

a

variety

of

experim ental , quasiexperim ental ,

and

survey methods

respectively,

provide a valua ble set of quan titative inquir ies on what the m edia

cove rage of this national epidem ic looked like, as well as the im pact of that cov-

erage. In short , the accu m ulated research quantif ies insti tutional bias on the

par t of m edia and points to the silences in the media at representing conditions

afflicting th e

less popular segments

of

society (Fuller, 1999).

W hile m edia coverage of HIV w as being docum ented in term s of qua ntita-

t ive research , additional s tudy explored the un de rcu rren t of frustrat ion and fear

expressed by m arginalized publics. Qualitative essays in the Elwood anthology

addressed

these concerns. Haller (1999) pointed out that the change of AIDS

to a

legally

defined disability carried

a

nu mb er

of

implications

for how

med ia

covered such stories, not

j us t

how many stories were published. Rhetorical

works in the

series deal with

the

political issues involved

in HIV

(German

&

Courtr ight, 1999; McKinney & Pepper, 1998) and permit fur ther unders tand-

in g

of the scientific investigations that preceded

them.

The backdrop of po liti-

cal and

social forces that

had

labeled

the

disease represented

a

means

to

in te rp re t

the na tu r e of the m edia reaction. The inability of the R eagan adminis-

tration to acknowledge the disease and, as McKinney and Pepper (1998)

pointed out ,

the

distractions

of the

Clinton

adm inistration p rovides insight

into

the m edia pract ices documented in the quant i ta t ive s tudies .

The problem w ith any source of scientif ic or quan titative study is that the in-

format ion

m u s t be unders tood in the environment in which those m essages op-

era te .

When

one unders tands the broader social,

economic,

and political

contex t of the messages, then the quantitative data make sense. So, the impact

of the annou ncemen t that NBA All-Star Earvin "Magic" Johnson had con-

tracted

HIV on

publ ic a t t i tudes

and

behaviors (Allen

et.

al., 2001) provides

an

example of

shifting att i tude s

in

response

to a

single event.

The

problem with

quali ta t ive research, on the

other hand,

is

that

interpretive practices

need

a big

pic ture persp ective to valida te the significance of their findings. The wo rk by

Knau s

and Austin (1999) dealing with the impact of the AIDS Mem orial Qui l t

required

a context in which to interpret the m eaning or sym bolism of the qui l t

as a potent ia l form of AIDS educ ation and preve ntion. T he pair ing of qua li ta-

tive and q uant i ta t ive research permits an unders tanding of the qui l t in personal

and

symbolic term s,

as

well

as the

social imp lications

of the

ar twork

as a

force

for

change. S imilarly, Shilts (198 7),

as a

reporter,

did not

simply report

jus t

the

facts

but

through personal in-depth interviews provides insight

into

those medical

and

scientific

facts in the

context

of the gay

com muni ty

and

represents

the

emo-

tional an d political struggles in which such facts take place.

An alysis is not confuse d w ith b ias (an association often made by behav ior -

ists to descr ibe qua l i ta t ive work ) w hen the q ual i ta t ive researcher can d emon-



188

HUXMAN

A ND

ALLEN

strate

t ha t the

conclusion reached carries

a

greater sense

o f universali ty

than

simply the

perspective

of the

individual .

All of the

p reviously ment ioned case

studies are testame nt to the pow er of tr iangu lated research me thod s to redu ce

th e weaknesses of any one method,

com bine

th e strengths of m ult ip le meth-

ods,

and add

sophistication (both scope

and

insight)

to

research questions

in

communicat ion.

CONCLUSION

In an age of mass media, a new and complex phenomeno logy reigns.

—Rod

H a r t

(1994, p . 310)

Ethnographe rs, wrote Philipsen (199 2), m ust

be

good sc ientis ts

and

storytellers.

That imperative, we have argued, should be t rue of all communica t ion re-

searchers regardless

of

perspective (behaviorism

or

phenomenology) ,

field

(journalism or telecommunications) research question

(what ,

and where , or

how, and why), or setting (laboratory or

field).

The pairing of qu alita tive and

quan titative approaches

in

comm unication

is

necessary

in a

discipline tha t

de-

fines

itself in process and conte xt-de pen den t terms. The two approaches are

also nec essary for researchers who are comm itted to showcasing the h u m a n in-

genuity

of our symbol system and yet seek to theorize about the

regularities

of

communicative patterns.

This

ch apter began by revisit ing the

qua l i ta t ive–quant i ta t ive

divid e in or-

der to

capture

the

distinct strengths

and

weaknesses

of

each approach,

but

also to show that many of the dichotomies between the two research tradi-

tions

are

overdrawn.

In

recognizing tha t m any

of the differences are

exagger-

ated, com m unication scholars can see more clearly the types, opp ortu nities,

and

challenges

of

t r iangulat ion.

At the

same time,

w e

acknow ledged tha t

the

term itself

i s fraught

with double meanings, requir ing cau t iou s ve ntu re in to

blended modes of inquiry. W e highl ighted new directions in comm un ica tion

content

analysis and surv ey research, involving a range of com mun ica t ion

topics (presidential

speech

patte rns, m edia cove rage of cam paigns, televised

debate response, and m edia coverage of AID S). A ll used innovativ e tr ian gu -

lation

(con ten t

analysis paired with rhetorica l cri t icis m ; telepho ne

surveys

paired with

con t en t

analysis;

focus

groups paired with

a

computer ized survey

ins t rument ;

and

rhetorical cri t icism paired with personal

in terviews and

tied

to

meta-analyses).

These

kinds

of

studies should indicate that

th e

outlook

fo r

triangulated

re-

search in comm unication is promising. In addition to the

view

already expressed

in this chapter, researchers would be wise to note that the demands of post-



SCIENTISTS AN D STORY TELLERS 189

modernism

in the

academy

and

cross-training

in the

workplace will continue

to

support a syncretic approach to research practice and a more complex pheno-

m enological outlook . Fo uca ult (1980) reminded us that the discu rsive tu rn of

postmodernism privileges the power of words. Power is located in discourse; it is

no

longer

the

handmaiden

of

economic realities. Concom itantly,

the

rise

of

chaos

theory, especially in the field of public relations (M urphy , 1996), reminds us tha t

to ca pt ur e the com plexity and volatility of pub lic opinion, prediction, a nd control

models m ust give

way to

nonlinear, qualitative models.

The communication industry is also demanding that the academy produce

graduates

who are m ult iski lled. Em ployers in al l types of com m unicat ion-re-

lated

fields

expect ,

not

jus t

hope, that students

can

establish rapp ort w ith cl i-

ents; craft compelling stories through articulate speaking, writing, and visual

represe ntat ion; decipher poll ing data, tables, and spread sheets; und erstan d the

research

process; control for variables; and become immersed in com m unica -

tive

contexts by taking it to the streets.

ENDNOTES

Curiously,

these

dichotomies

still find their wa y

into

methods

textbooks with great regu lar-

ity. See Bavelas in Leeds-H urw itz (1995) for an exceptional and w itty discussion of m any

false dichotomies.

"See for instance the Darsey vs. Hart exchange in Western Journal of Communication ( 1 994 )

the special issue devoted to qua l i ta t ive and quan t i ta t ive conce rns . In add i t i on ,

Polkinghorne (1983)

and Cohen's

(1994) work summariz ing

a

c e n tu ry - w or th

of

lively,

and sometimes acr imonious, debate .

REFERENCES

Allen, M., & Preiss, R . (2002) . A n analysis of textbooks in in terpersonal co m m unicat io n:

H ow accurate are the representat ions? In M. Allen, R . Preiss, B . Gayle, & N . Bur re l l

(Eds . ) ,

Interpersonal communication research:

Advances

through meta-analysis ( pp .

371-388).

M a h w a h ,

N J:

Lawrence E rlbaum Associates .

Al len ,

M .,

Casey,

M .,

Emm ers-Sommers ,

T .,

Sahlstein,

E.,

Degooyer,

D.,

D un n ,

T.,

W agner,

E.,

& W inters , A . (2001, Apri l ) . When a celebrity contracts a disease: T he e xample of

Earv in "Magic" Johnson's announcement that he w as HIV positive. Paper presented at

the Central States Communication Association

convention,

Cincinnati , OH. ( ERI C

Document #453149).

American

Heritage

Dict ionary

(2001) . 4th ed. New Y ork: Dell.

A ques t ion o f character : How the media have

handled

the issue and how the pub l i c h as re-

acted (2000) . Project for

excellence

in

journalism, Pew Chari table T rusts , Colum bia U niv er-

sity G radua te School of Journa l i sm.

Bavelas,

J. B.

(1995) . Quantitative versus qual i ta t ive?

In W .

Le e ds - H urw i t z (Ed.) , Social ap -

proaches

to communication (pp.

49-62).

New Y ork: Guilford.

Berger,

A. B.

(1998) . M edia research techniques (2nd ed.) .

Thousand

O aks ,

CA :

Sage.

Berger, C. (199 4) . Evidence? For W hat?

Western journal

of

Communication, 58,

11-199.



19O HUX MAN AND

ALLEN

Black ,

E .

(1965). Rhetorical criticism:

A

study

in

method. Madison,

W I:

Universi ty-

o f

Wiscon-

sin

Press.

Boster, F. J., & Mongeau, R (1984). Fear-arousing persuasive messages. In R. Bostrom (Ed . ) ,

Communicat ion yearbook (8th ed., pp.

330-375).

Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Brenner,

R.

(2001). Emotions

at

work:

The

triangulation :one. Point Lookout, Chaco Canyon

Consulting [on-line]. Available: http://www.chacocanyon.com

B u r k e ,

K . (1969). A rhetoric

of

motives. Berkeley, CA : University of California Press.

Carey, J. W. (1975). A cultural

approach

to communication. Communication, 2, 1-22.

Carey, J. W. (1989). Culture as communication: Essays on media and society.

Boston:

Unwin

Hyman.

Cohen, H. (1994). The history of speech communication: The emergence of a discipline,

1914-1945.

Annandale,

VA: Speech

Communication Association.

Darsey, J . (1994). Must we all be rhetorical theorists? A n anti-democratic inquiry . Western

Journal

of

Communication,

58,

164–181.

Elwood, W . (Ed.). (1998). Power in the blood: A handbook on AIDS, politics, and communication.

M a h w a h , N J : Lawrence E r l b a u m Associates.

Fisher, W .

(1994). Genesis

of the

conversation.

Western Journal

o f

Communication,

58, 3–4.

Fitch, K .

(1994).

Criteria fo r evidence in qualitative research. Western

Jourruil of

Communica-

tion, 58,

32-38.

Frey,

L.,

Botan,

C.,

Friedman,

P, &

Kreps,

G.

(1992).

Interpreting

comm unica t ion. Englewood

Cliffs,

NJ: Prentice-Hall.

F ouc au l t ,

M .

(1980).

Power /knowledge:

Selected interviews

a n d other

wr i t ings ,

1 9 2 7 – 1 9 7 7

(C .

Gordon, Trans.).

New York:

Pantheon.

Fuller,

L.

(1999).

Media manipulations

and the

AIDS/breastfeeding issue.

In W.

Elwood

(Ed . ) ,

Power in t he blood: A handbook o n AIDS, politics, and communication (pp. 341-352).

Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

German, K., & Courtright, J . (1999). Politically privileged voices: Glaser and Fisher address

th e 1992 Presidential nominating conventions. In W. Elwood

(Ed . ) , Power

in the

blood:

A

handbook on AIDS, politics, a n d communication (pp.

67-76).

Mahwah, N J: Lawrence

Er l b a u m Associates.

Goffman,

E.

(1979). Gender advertisements.

New York:

Harper

&

Row.

Haller,

B .

(1999). AIDS

as a

legally defined disability: Implications from

new

media coverage.

In W. Elwood

(Ed . ) , P o w e r

in the blood: A handbook o n AIDS, politics, and

com munica t ion

(pp.

267-280).

Mahwah,

NJ:

Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates.

Hart, R . (1984).

Verbal

style and the p residency: A computer-based

arialysis.

N ew York: Aca-

demic Press.

Hart, R.

(1994a).

Doing criticism my way: A reply to Darsey. Western Journal o f Communica-

tion, 58, 308–312.

Hart,

R.

(1994b). Wandering with rhetorical criticism.

In W.

Nothstine,

C. Blair, & G. Cope-

land (Eds.), Critical questions: Invention, creativity, and the criticism

o f

discourse and the media

(pp. 71–81). New

York:

St. Martins.

Holsti, O . (1969). Content analysis for the

social

sciences and humanities. Menlo Park, CA: Ad-

dison-Wesley.

Ivie,

R.

(1994).

A question of significance. Quarterly Journal

of Speech,

80, 1.

Jan e s i c k , Y. (1988). The

dance

of qualitative research design: Metaphor, methodology, and

meaning. In R. Singleton, Jr., B. Straits, M . Straits, & R . McAllister

(Eds . ) ,

Approaches to

social research (pp. 209-229). New York: Oxford University Press.

J i ck , T. (1983). Mixing qualitative and quantitative methods: Triangulation in action. In J.

VanMaanen (Ed.),

Qualitative

methodology (pp.

135-148).

Beverly H il ls, CA: Sage.

Knaus, C., & Austin, E. (1999). The AIDS memorial quilt as a preventative education: A de-

velopmental analysis

of the qu i l t .

AIDS Education

and Prevention 11. 525-540.



1 1 .

SCIENTISTS

AND

STORYTELLERS

191

L e e d s -H u r w i t z , W. (Ed.). (1995). Social approaches

to

communication. New York: Guilford.

Liska,

J., &

Cronkhite,

G.

(1994, Winter).

On the

death, dismemberment,

or

disestablish-

ment

of the dominant paradigms. Western Journal of Communication, 58, 58 65.

McKinney, M., & Pepper, B. (1998). From hope to heartbreak: Bill Clinton and the rhetoric

of AIDS. In W. Elwood (Ed.) , Power in the blood:

A

handbook

on

AIDS, pol i t ics,

and

commu-

nication

(pp.

7 7 – 9 2 ) . Mahwah,

NJ:


Mongeau, P.

(1998). Another look

at

fear-arousing persuasive appeals.

In M.

Allen

& R.

Preiss (Eds . ) , Persuasion: Advances through meta-analysis (pp. 53-68). Cresskill, NJ:

Hampton Press.

M u r p h y , P. (1996). Chaos theory as a model for managing issues and crises. Publ ic Relat ions

Review, 22, 95-113.

Philipsen,

G. (1975). Speaking like a man in Teamsterville: Cultural patterns of role enact-

ment in an urban neighborhood.

Quarterly Journal o f

Speech,

61,

13–22.

Philipsen,

G.

(1992).

Speaking

culturally:

Explorat ions

in

social

communication.

Albany,

N Y :

State University of New York Press.

Polkinghorne, D. (1983). Methodology for the human sciences. New York: State University of

New York

Press.

Rosenfield, L.

(1968).

The

anatomy

of

critical discourse.

Speech Monographs , 25, 55-69.

Shilts, R.

(1987) .

And the band played on: Politics, people, and the AIDS epidemic. New York:

Penguin Books.

Singleton, R., Straits, B., & McAllister, R. (1988). Approaches

to

social research. New York:

Oxford University Press.

Sutton, S.

(1982). Fear-arousing communications:

A

critical examination

of

theory

and re-

search.

In J.

Eiser

(Ed.),

Social ps ychology

and

behavioral med ic ine

(pp.

303-337).

New

York:

Wiley.

Tompkins, P. (1994). Principles of rigor for assessing evidence in qualitative communication

research. Western Journal

of

Communication,

58, 44-50.

Van

Maanen,

J.

(Ed.). (1983). Qualitative

methodology.

Beverly Hills,

CA:

Sage.

Walters,

T., Walters, L., & Priest, S. (1999a). Life on the edge of the precipice: Information

subs idy and the rise of AIDS as a public issue,

1983-1989.

In W. Elwood (Ed.), Power in the

blood:

A

handbook

on

AIDS, pol i t ics,

and

communication (pp. 257-266). Mahwah, NJ: Law-

rence Erlbaum Associates.

Walters,

T.,

Walters,

L., &

Priest,

S.

(1999b).

What we say and how we say it: The

influence

of

psychosocial characteristics

and

message

content

of

HIV/AIDS Public Service

An-

nouncements. In W. Elwood (Ed.) , Po we r

in the

blood:

A

handbook

on

AIDS, pol i t ics,

and

communication (pp.

293–310). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Witte, K., & Allen, M. (2000). A meta-analysis of fear appeals: Implications for

effec t ive

health

campaigns.

Health Education

Behavior,

27, 591-615.

Wright, K.

(1999). AIDS,

the

status quo,

and the

elite media:

An

analysis

of the

guest

lists of

The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour and Nightline. In W. Elwood (Ed.), Power in the

blood: A handbook on AIDS, p ol i tics, and communication (pp. 281–292). Mahwah,

NJ:

Law-

rence Erlbaum Associates.






12

Academic/Professional

Partnerships

Newsrooms and Com m unity

Jan

Schaffer

Pew

Center for Civic Journalism, Washington, DC

J-Lab: The Insti tute for Interact ive Journalism, College Park, M D

Over the pas t decade, new s organizations have forged new rela t ionships w i th

var ious

p artn ers in thei r com m unit ies . Somet im es the re lat ionships are w i th

other new s organizat ions , somet imes they are wi th com m unity group s . Some

of

the m ost prod uctiv e relat ionsh ips, how ever, hav e been w ith local colleges

and

universities.

W hereas, in the past , universit ies have been aloof and often qu ite detach ed

from their hometowns, they are now emerging to leverage their expert ise in

ways that can m ake a difference to their comm unities . Higher edu cation arti-

cles

have tradit ionally focused on tow n– gow n tensions, binge drinking, or land-

lord-student tenant disputes— in addit ion

to

academic

laurels or

controversies .

While

not trying to abandon their watchdog roles, news organizations are

reaching out to colleges and univ ersities to add some ad ditional juice to their

journalism. Simply pu t ,

the

news organizations

a re

seeking

to tap

some

of the

academy's intellectual muscle in ways that build some capacity fo r addressing

commu ni ty

issues

or solving com m unity problem s. M oreover, th e universi t ies

are looking for ways to be good c orp orate citizens.

193









1 2 . NEWSROOMS AN D CO MMUNITY

197

For Randall ,

the

op por tuni ty

to

engage studen ts

in a

real projec t

for

credit

is

invaluable. Studen t team s brainstorm su rvey questions

to get at the

research

object ives. They drive the 60 miles to Savannah, every evening for three weeks,

to make the phone calls.

They

enter answers into a spreadsheet . S tudent teams

analyze responses from different subgroups. They really see the research pro-

cess

from star t to finish, and learning these research skills is im portant," R and all

said

(personal com m unication, M arch, 200 2). M oreover, the stud ents get ex-

cited when they discover something.

They

also receive a sm all stipend to help

offset

their transportation costs .

The

students tell prospective poll respondents they

are

also working

on a

class

project .

One

benef i t ,

noted

Donald,

is

that

"our response ra tes tend

to be

pret ty

high, especially considering the declining rates of particip ation in na-

tional surveys" (personal com m unication, M arch 27, 200 2).

The new spaper-unive rsity partnership yields large-sam ple, com m unity sur-

veys— 800 or more responde nts and as m any as 50 questions— for a fraction of

w h a t a professional pollster would charge. To date, the surveys have

been

the

basis

for proje cts exam ining Savannah's increasingly elderly com m unity, the

perform ance of i ts schools, and the fu ture of the Savannah River.

The

survey wo rk, however,

is

ju s t

an

early

part

of a

process. Findings

are

cre-

atively

followed up with a t remendous am ount of fieldwo rk, focus groups, advi-

sory

pane ls, and oth er citizen entry points. In the Aging M atte r series, for

ins tance,

the

sur ve y research laid

the

groundwork

fo r

focus groups, reader advi-

sory

panels , and reporting to chronicle how the Savannah region was becoming

older demo graphically and w hat th at m eant in term s of political, economic, so-

cial and infrastructure spending choices (M. D. Suw yn, R. Lester, M . M ayle , &J.

R .

Marino, personal comm unication, Ja nu ary

24 ,

2002) .

In Vision 2010, A Learning Odyssey, the paper started with a citizens advi-

sory

gro up of 60 people who brainstormed how the pub lic could take o wne rship

of its schools. The g r ou p met more

than

20 t imes and grew to 150 people over

the course of a year. They also visited 21 model

schools

around the country and

reported about their visi ts

for the

paper.

A

survey fleshed

out h ow the

community v iewed

the

public school system .

Focus

group s throug hou t the com m unity followed. Businesspeople we re asked

to gauge how prepared high school graduates were for employment. Recent

graduates talked abo ut their K-l 2 experience. Focus groups of teachers, admin-

istrators, private-school students and faculty were also held.

In

a

follow-up survey

in

November 2002

of

1,500 people,

23%

could accu-

rately

describe the Vision 2010 project and identify it with the newspaper.

For its proje ct on the com peting dem ands for Savannah River water , the pa-

per

con ducted a survey on how m uch respondents knew about w ater resource



198

S C H A F F K R

issues. That w as

followed

by

tours

of the

river, intervie w s

of

port, city

and

env i -

ronmenta l

officials,

and a tow n hall m eeting. Late r in 2003, the pape r plann ed a

follow-up surve y to assess w heth er i ts report ing

efforts

had any im pac t on publ ic

knowledge

of the

issues.

POLLING

AND

T O U RIN G

Hearst's San Francisco Examiner

and San

Francisco

State

University

When anecdotal

evidence hin ted at la rge demographic changes in the Bay

Area

at the end of the

1990s,

the San

Francisco

Examiner

tapped un ivers i ty

ex-

pertise to cha r t the changes and get ahead of the Census . A n early a nd va lua b l e

find

w as

urb an geographer

M ax

K i rkeberg

at San

Francisco

State.

"I'm

a

geogra-

pher . Most

o f my

inform at ion comes from research

I do on

t h r e e - h o u r

walk ing

tours

of dif ferent

neighborhoods,

i l lus t ra t ing dif ferent

them es ," K irkeberg said

(personal communica t ion , Apr i l , 2002) . Repor ter

Annie

N a k a o

first

tapped

Kirkeberg to take some reporters on a tour of changing neighborhoods. They

ta lked

abou t

it

wi th such en thus ia sm th a t

the

paper asked

him to do the

same

thing for editors . "We thought i t was such an eye-opener that other people

should see i t. So we inst i tu t ion alize d i t . W e called i t the New City Tour, and w e

tried

to get as

m a n y

of the staff as we

could inv olved," sa id then-M anaging Edi-

tor

Sharon

R osenhause (pe rsona l com m unica t ion , Ju ne 12 , 2002) .

Kirkeberg

took

the

journa l i s t s

to

southeas tern par ts

of the

c it y un kn o w n

to

tourists and

kn o wn

to

journa l is ts only

by

their im ages.

Fo r

instance , th ey vis i ted

neighborhoods

south

of

Miss ion Stree t , where warehouses were be ing

con-

verted to

dot.com

use and a lot of older businesses w ere being dis located. "The

biggest change was the replacement of the Afr ican-Amer ican major i ty w i th a

rapidly growing Asian presence. I took them to ne ighborhood s t ree ts wh ere

they would

be

overwhelmed wi th shops wi th

Chinese

charac ters , " K irkeberg

said. "To m y

surprise,

or w as it my

na ive te ,

the

reporters learned

an awful

lot,"

he said. "I thought reporters would know the

city

but m any were new to San

Francisco or lived elsewhere. Ev erythin g I showed them seemed to be new to

them

(personal com m unica t ion , A pr il , 2002) .

Rosenhause agreed tha t ,

once

t he

reporters

hit the

neighborhoods, they

saw

astounding ch anges. "Even people who'd been

in San

Francisco

a

very long t im e

w e n t to places they 'd never

been

before and learned th ings they didn' t know be-

cause

it had changed s o

much . "

A s

ma n y

as 60% of the

staff

took

the

tour , w hich

becam e a way to engage the jou rna l is ts and he lp w i th the i r edu ca t ion .

R osen hau se said the p ape r got a lot of "bu y-in " to a ye ar- lon g series labeled "The

New

City." (See Fig. 12.2.)



ealers

Remaking

San

Francisco

C o p k i l l e d

in

h a i l

o f

shots

a f te r

t r a f f i c

stop

•• •

as:

FIG. 12.2. San Francisco's New City project benefited from polling by San Fran-

cisco

State.

99



200 SCHAFFER

The project a lso involved a m ult i la ng uag e pol l— in Eng l ish , Spanish and

Chinese—of

700

city residents,

and

again

the

paper turned

to San

Francisco

State, with support from

the Pew Center for

Civic Jou rnal ism . Finding

a

pol l -

ster who w as as excited abo ut the w ork as the new sroom was key. The E x a m -

iner hired the

Public Research Insti tute

at San

Francisco

State to do the

m ult i l ingual survey. Said Ro senhause , " I knew we had m ade the r igh t choice

w h e n

the

director, Rufus B rown ing, told

us:

'This

is the

p roject I 've w ai ted

all

of

my

career

to do'

(1999) .

BUIL DING A N E I G H B O R H O O D C O L L E G E

Journal Star, Peoria, IL, Bradley University

and

Illinois Central College

Editor Jack Brimeyer knew tha t leadership was an issue in Peoria. There w as a

shortage

of

people

running for

office,

a shortage of civic voluntee rs, a shortage

of

candidates to chal lenge incumbents . He wanted to do journal ism on the

problem but he wanted it to have impact. He did not w a n t a series that w ould be

another dead

dog" projec t

that

lies

on the

page,

and

nobody

wants

to

deal w ith

it

(Ford, 1998).

From the star t , he soug ht the in volvem ent o f civic groups and the local un i-

versity and com m unity college, p u t t in g representa t ives on a s teer ing com m it-

tee. He wanted to be able to "hand off" the project, once the reporting was

done,

to

others

in the

comm u ni ty

who

could "run w ith i t ." Litt le

did he

expect

that i t would result in the formation of a "Neighborhood College" to give

emerging comm unity leaders tra ining in key

skills.

An early

stop

was Bradley University, w here John C. Schw eitzer, head of the

Co m m unications De partm ent, used the school to do

five mai l

surveys— of local

com panies, m inorities , volun teer groups, retirees, and alum s of the C ham ber of

Commerce's leadership training school.

Another

general phone survey— of 500 Peorians— was conducted by Joe

Pitlik, statistics professor

at

Illinois C entra l,

w ho got so

excited ab out

th e

project

he ended up donating his time and freeing up $6,000 in funding from the Pew

Ce nter for Civic Journa lism, later used to laun ch the Neighborhood College.

Also on the steering committee was Barbara H ar tne t t , who directed ICC's

Professional

Development Ins t i tu te

and w as

help ing with

th e

creation

o f a

Cen-

ter for Nonp rof i t Excel lence.

The survey s helped the paper report a mu l t ipa r t , civic jou rna lism series in

1996 called "Leade rship Ch allenge" th at triggered

a

town hal l m eet ing

for

more

than 300 people and had a major impact on the c i ty ("The Jam es K. B at ten



12. N E W S R O O M S

AND

C OMM U N ITY

2O 1

Award , " 1997). One of the things that struck all of us in the Leadership Chal-

lenge was this

notion

that leadership is everywhere, and we need to nurture

leadership and nurture the skills that people in neighborhoods were lacking,

Hartnett recalled. Many people in the neighborhoods had this innate ability to

lead but they didn't know how to put together a newsletter or who to talk to in

city hall. So that's what the Neighborhood College would do (personal com-

munication, April 23 , 2002).

The Neighborhood College was initially sponsored at ICC and funded with

grants , but it soon took off on its own. Now it's ru n off-campus once a year by the

Neighborhood Empowerment project. Many of the graduates now serve on city

commissions and

boards.

The

college

is a

low-budget enterprise, involving

12

Wednesday evenings.

The speakers—the mayor and city council members, government officials and

nonprofit leaders—are free. The only expenses are sandwiches, sodas, and a

final dinner.

The

schools enjoyed

the credit

they

got for the

project

and the

opportunity

to be good community citizens. Bradley University found a way to work civic

journalism into

its

curriculum.

The

paper

got to tap a

wealth

of

community

re-

sources

and

institutions that

had

their arms open when

the

journalists were

ready

to hand off the project.

PROVOKING COMMUNITY DIALOGUE

The Sun News, Myrtle Beacn, SC,

and Coastal Carolina University

Myrt l e Beach became a city only in the 1950s. Now, it's the nation's second

fastest-growing

housing market, behind L as Vegas. Coastal Carolina Univer-

sity w as created only in the 1970s. In the year 2002, however, the newspaper's

year - long series on the area's exploding growth gave a new boost of energy to

the university's somewhat stale model of hosting an annual economic confer-

ence. About

200

people came

to an

April Growth Summit 2002,

and the

par t ic ipants

go t

first

crack a t playing a new computer game t he newspaper un-

veiled, challenging participants

to Chart the Strand's

Future.

The

great

thing here is we have a means for making something happen as a result of the

Sun News reporting, enthused Harold Stowe, executive in residence at the

universi ty.

"B y

putting some extra energy into

it and

creating

an

opportunity

for something to

happen

at the end of a reporting effort like

that,

it will be a

much more substantive conference than it has been for the past couple o f

years" (personal communication, March 20, 2002).



2O 2 S C H A F F E R

Facilitated break-out sessions on five topics

identified

in a Sun

N e w s

series on

growth the previou s year helped to crystallize questions and

issues.

Local gov-

ernment

leaders were pressed for answers. Participants were asked to

fill

out

cards, saying w hat they think should happ en

and

what role they'd like

to play.

Follow-up

questionnaires

were

planned.

A call from Sun

N e w s

editor Trisha O'Connor to the university president 's of -

fice initiated the par tnership . T he paper and

university spli t

the costs; the un i -

versity provided the facil i ta tors; and the paper did the jou rna l ism . "O ur goal is

to put

information

out there for the

communi ty

to

make wise decisions; we're

not

making

the

decisions,"

O'Connor

sa id (personal communica t ion , March

13, 2002) .

"W e

wrote about what

w as

happening here ,

and we

we n t

to

other

places , such as Fort Lauderdale, and wrote about what was happening there,

good

and bad. It 's fascinating to hear

people

quote our stories back to us. We feel

we have something

important.

We

look

forward

to

continuing

it.

In Stowe's

view,

Coastal Carolina Universi ty

has

good resource s , w hich

can

provide extra insight

into

managing

the

area 's growth.

If the

univers i ty

can

reach

out to get more of a community dialogue s tar ted on some of the issues,

"maybe we

could

force

things

to

happen

at a little faste r pace. While the news-

paper gets

a

discussion venu e

to

give some legs

to its

report ing,

the

u nivers i ty

gets

to

showcase

its

exp ert ise

and

engender

a

broader ap preciat ion

of the

school

as

a community resource. The s tudents , Stowe said, a lso benefi t

from

a

high-level

examination of the

issues, which

enhances

their edu cation (per-

sonal com m unica t ion , M arch 20, 200 2) .

BUILDING INTERNATIONAL

NEWS MODELS

Earlham College, the

Dayton

[Ohio] Daily News,

the

Palladium-Item, Richmond,

IN

W ell before

the terrorist

at tacks

of September 11,

2001, some newsrooms were

struggling with their coverage

of

national

and

international news. Most news

organizations, squeezed by space cutbacks, had tr immed their report ing of

world news or were reduced to ru nn ing w ire s tories .

Jus t

how

meaningful

was

this

wire copy

to

readers?

If it was

increm ental cov-

erage

of

developm ents , could readers keep

u p

wi th

the issues or the

cast

of

char-

acters?

D id readers even k now w here some

Third

World cou ntr ies

were? What

would give them the a t t achment to be interested in the

stories?

Cheryl

Gibbs,

an

assistant

professor

at

Ear lham

College in

R ichmond ,

In-

diana ,

who had a

s t r o n g ba c kg r o un d

in

wo r k in g w i th Da y to n ' s Ke t t e r i n g





204 S C H A F F E R

BUILDING

CONTENT

The

Oakland Post and the University

of

California-Berkeley

Former

Los Angeles Times reporter Bill D r u m m o n d had been inspired by the

whole idea

of

civic journalism, harkening back

to

early experiments with

vote r-drive n election coverage in the early 1990s. I t was som ething he wa nte d

to expose his s tude nts to as a jou rna lism professor at the U nive rsity of Califor-

nia-Berkeley. He had a track record of involving adv anc ed-re portin g stu de nts

in stories on M arin C ity for a pap er called

M arin

City

Focus,

wh ich the studen ts

themselves literally hun g on doorknobs .

This

t ime, he soug ht an outlet th at already had the presses and th e distr ib u-

tion

system , the Oakland Post, a minor i ty-owned weekly that had been aro und

for 40 years but didn't have much of a reporting staff. Drummond had known

publ isher

Tom Berk ley fo r years. "I approached him and said I have someth ing

to offer

and ,

in

r e t u r n ,

I get

som eth ing back

for my

s tu d en t s

and he saw the

wis-

dom of

i t," Drum m ond recalled (personal com m unication, M arch

13,

2002).

Drum m ond proposed tha t his s tu de nts report and edit s tories and

actual ly

lay out pages for a new spape r insert called "Inside O aklan d." (See Fig. 12.3.) A t

the

hear t

o f the

efforts

were regular focus gro up m eet ings every other week du r-

ing the course of the semester (W. Drum m ond, personal comm unication,

Octo-

ber 1,

1998). Said Dru m m ond ,

in

repor t ing

on the

p ro jec t

to the Pew

Center

for

Civ ic Journal ism, "It was more th an j u s t another exercise in wri t ing and p u b -

lishing new spaper

stories....

Most important were the fo cus groups, which met

regularly wi th s tudents to offer their views and to give w riters and editors feed-

back abo ut w hat they were doing" (personal com m unicat ion , O ctober

1 ,

1998).

The comments and ins ights from the com m unity res idents in the focus groups

informed story assignments throughout the project.

At the t ime the p roject was launc hed , O akland was get t ing a lo t of a t tent ion.

Former C alifornia Gove rnor Jerry Brown w as running for m ayor. Econom ic de-

ve lopment

was a big

i s sue. Drum m ond

felt the

com m uni ty wou ld benefi t from

more reporting and research.

For three years the Berkeley students edited "Inside Oakland" sections.

Drummond 's rad io class also

did a

new s mag azine program

on

K A LX - FM ,

the

Berkeley station

that

reaches

Oakland. The

students cross-promoted,

on

radio,

news

th at was going to be in the new spaper, and prom oted, in the paper, s tories

that w ere going to be on the radio.

The project ended before December 2001, when Berkley, the paper 's pub-

lisher, died. H is pass ing ra ised ques t ion s about the fu tu r e of the Post and w h a t



Jack

London

jazz:

battling

a bad rap

Want

a speed bu m p on your street? Get in line

FIG.

12.3. "Inside O akland" was reported and edited by Berkeley s tudents .

2O5



206 SCHAFFER

Drummond called a "perfect collaboration." The s tuden ts w ould spend their

shoe leather and bus tokens to find out w h a t was going on," D rum m ond said,

"and he w ould publish it (personal communication, October 1, 1998).

CIVIC

MA PPING

The

News

Star, Monroe, LA, Louisiana Tech University,

Grambling State University

One

third

of the N e w s Star 's community is African Am erican. One-half of its

new hires are straight out of college. So any partne rships tha t help

diversify

the

newsroom and b et ter prepare young journ al is ts for connect ing with the com-

munity

are of

particular interest

to

Editor Kathy Spurlock.

Reginald

Owens

has had a pa r t icu lar interes t in m aking sure the whole com-

m unity is

covered.

A n

Afr ican Am erican

and

associate professor

of

journa l i sm

at L ouisiana Tech, he said, "I saw civic jou rna lism as a tool to m ake s ure we look

at every element of the community" (personal communication, April, 2002).

When Spur lock p roposed tha t O wens ' s tude nts team wi th her repor ters to

m ap educ at ion issues , i t pa id off for both pa r tne rs . The s tu de nts developed

more enterprise reporting skil ls ,

and the

new sp ap e r

got the

m a n p o w e r

to do

civic m apping, an exercise that probes the layers of stakeholders in a c o m m u -

nity

and

their f raming

of

issues.

The

r e su l t

w as

"Passing

the

Test,"

a

series

of

stories

in

2001 that s tar te d

on the

front page

and

cont inued

in a

12-page spe-

cial section. (See Fig. 12.4.) It focused on Louisiana 's high-stakes LEAP test ,

adminis tered

to four th and

eighth graders . Four th graders were

failing in

a la rming num bers . The p ro jec t invo lved s tud ents from both Lo uis iana Tech

and

Grambling Sta te ,

a

historically Black college.

The

s tu d en t s

can

take com-

bined classes by university agreem ent.

It w orked th is way:

A

couple

of

s tud en ts were paired w ith

a

repor ter from

the

paper,

and then five of

these team s adopted

five

schools

and the

geographic

a r-

eas aroun d the schools to map . The team s visited "third p laces" in the c o m m u -

nities where people gather. They talked to store owners and people on their

front porches. They

set up

meetings

and did

focus groups w ith faculty

and

pa r -

ents , funded with suppor t

from the Pew

Center

for

Civic Journal ism . Their

a s-

signment

was to

come

back with five sources for a story.

O w ens and the pap er then contracted w ith Louisiana Tech's a lu m ni solicit-

ing

staff

to do a survey of people in those com m unities, asking them about a

dozen questions

on

education. Using

the

information

from the survey, the

focus

groups,

and the m apping, the team s cam e up with story ideas, and the s tud en ts

were assigned stories.



News-Star

Friday

May 11, 2001

D i s c l o s u r e

m a y b u y

M c V e ig h

t im e

Engineer:

N.

18th St.

Extension

nears end

O u r kids need us'

Schools

get

first

LEAP21

scores

today

FIG. 12.4. A newsroom-universi ty c i ty mapping projec t in Lou isiana led to cr i t ical

coverage

of

s tudents fai l ing high -stakes testing.

207



208 SCHAFFER

T he

week after

the

stories were published,

the

s tud ents handed

out

flyers,

in -

vit ing com m unity residents

to a

town h all m eeting;

250

people attended.

This

is the

first

time some of

those

stude nts were ever in a newsroom.

This

was their

first

professional byline. Now, they have an idea of w ha t repor ters

really

do and

the

problems they

run

into,

Owens

said.

"Right below the surface is the issue of race," he said. O we ns said he was

able

to

pair

White and

Black students

to go

into

the schools,

most

of

wh ich

were p redom inant ly Black .

Some

of these k ids had nev er been into som e of

these types

of

neighborhoods

and

they

got a

chance

to

look

at

some social

dy-

namics .

They

saw it for real . They ran in to people w ho w ere sus pic iou s of th em

because they were

White.

Although ,

at first,

people

in the

com m uni ty were susp ic ious ,

on e o f the

big-

gest results was tha t the com m unity an d the schools had a posit ive experience

with the new spape r. "As a res ul t of those stories, people called the se schools and

asked,

'What can w e do? ' And now they have volunteers coming in ," O wens

said. That's wh at the projec t was all about" (personal com m un ication , Ap ril,

2002 ). Spurlock agreed, "W e essentially introduced the c om m un ity to the issue

and

allowed

the

community

to be

involved

in

proposing so lutions" (personal

comm unication, Apr i l , 2002) .

COLLABORATING WITH CIVIC PARTNERS

New

Hampshire Public Radio, University

of New

Hampshire Survey Center, the New Hampshire Center

for

Public

Policy

Studies,

New

England Center

for

Civic

Life,

The New

Hampshire Historical

Society

Leadership New Hampshire

A

grand collaboration,

the New

H am pshire Civ ic Connect ion,

is

seeking

to do

what any one of the partners, individually,

cannot

do

alone:

deal with a pub-

lic-policy issue from beginning to end . In th is case the

issue

is the qual i ty o f ed u -

cation in the state (Greenberg, 2002).

In New H ampshire , the hot-but ton issue is how to

fund

e duc ation. But to the

partners,

who

started m eeting

in

2001,

the

question

that needed to precede the

funding

ques t ion w as: W hat is the qual i ty of ed u ca t ion? W h a t do we need to

fund good schools?

The group , all nonprofit organizations, s tar ted w ith a poll done by the Survey

Center. They're great," said

Jon

Greenberg, senior producer

a t New

H a m p -

shire Public Radio. "Wh enever possible, the y

slip

ques t ions we have into polls

they are already doing, so we 've got ten a

free

r ide" (personal com m unic at ion,

M ar ch 8, 2002) .



1 2 .

N E W S R O O M S AND COMMUNITY 2O 9

The

first poll explored

the

oft-repeated finding that,

despite

public skepti-

cism abou t educ at ion, people are satisfied w ith th eir local schools. The Civic

Connection

took responses from telephone interv iews and compared them

with the a c tua l per fo rman ce of the respondents ' school distr icts . So, the poll-

ing data " is a t tach ed to some hard information abo ut how schools are per -

forming,"

said Andy Smith, director of the Survey Center , which , with the

Center for P ublic Policy Stud ies, is pa r t o f the univers i ty ' s Ins t i tu te for Policy

and Social

Science

Research (personal com mu nication, April 23, 2002). The

poll

showed tha t , most

of the

time, that satisfaction

is

based

on

inadequa te

in-

formation.

For instance, in

districts

that

ranked

in the

bottom

third,

half

the

r e sp ond en t s t h ou g h t

the

schools were doing

a

good

or

ex ce l l en t j ob ,

Greenberg repor ted (2002) .

The poll res ults have laid the groundwork for a series of local forums,

focus

groups, and a discussion series over the nex t 2 yea rs to bridge the g ap be tw ee n

the

public 's language

and

ed ucato rs' lan gua ge. "It 's very nice

to get

insights in to

your work from others and see it carr ied throug h to a bigger audience , a dif ferent

audience," Smith said (personal

communication,

April 23, 2002). Moreover,

Sm ith said, it is seen as contributing not jus t to the deb ate on the quality of ed u-

cation, but giving the legislature some good information to work

from.

The

par tners have identified another poll they would like

to do, and the

group

is

seeking to raise $10,000 to fund it.

Doug H all says his Center for Public Policy Studies w ould not h ave m uc h im-

pact w ith ou t partn ers. Hall is credited with being a key instigator of the collabo-

ration. We are a quantitative research operation but we

don't

have the ability

to disseminate inform ation across a wide audience" (personal com m unication ,

April 23 ,

2002 ). Pub lic television

and

radio,

h e

pointed out, have

the

ability

to

get the inform ation out , bu t they have repor ters who hop from one

subject

to

ano ther eve ry day, w itho ut deep expe rtise in any one area.

The New

England Center

for

C ivic Life, which

is

affiliated with Frankl in

Pierce College, convened state residents to discuss the qua l i ty of educa t ion .

We

see the key to a more robust dem ocracy as giving

more

information to citi-

zens" said directo r Do ug Challenger, a sociology professor (personal co m m u-

nicat ion, A pr i l 24 , 2002 ) . But the center prefers a "public learning" m odel vs.

an expe r t in fo rm at ion model . "W e believe the p u b l i c has a p roduc t ive way to

talk

about issues .

There

are insights and wisdom in their experience and

knowledge

o f

issues tha t

is

often overlooked

or

never tapp ed into , even

by or-

ganiza t ions that w ant to serve the p ubl ic ." By involv ing s tud ents in convening

the pub l ic , the center is helping students

broaden

skills and their knowledge

of

c o m m u n i ty

life.

In all , the par tners expressed sa t is fact ion, even enthusi-

asm,

f or the i r

efforts.

Said Hall: "After we test it out for anothe r year or so, we



21O SCHAFFER

will

pick

another topic,

mostly likely

health

care,

that

we can all work on to-

ge the r " (pe r sona l com m unica t ion , A pr i l 23 , 200 2) .

CONCLUSION

As w e can see in all

these par tnersh ips , there

are

some comm on denom inators .

They

advance quali ta t ive knowledge abou t par t icu lar issues, and they

offer

something

to

benefit

all the

partners.

For the newsrooms, the p ar tnership s

offer

ways to tap the pu blic for inp ut or

feedback,

informat ion

that

improves

the

journa l i sm

and

often helps

it

rise

above limp

anecdotes.

It

makes

the

journalism more interactive

by offering

more entry points

than the

new s organ ization alone could provide.

T he

collaborations also give

the

jou rna lism more " legs," m ore ability

to run

with some m om entum

off

the pr inted page or a new scast . I t gives the jou rnalis ts

a sense

that they

are

doing more

than jus t a

da ta du m p, after which they

pat

themselves

on the

back

and say

their

job is done.

Indeed ,

if cit izens

can't

figure

out w hat to do w ith the da ta , the job is not very

useful

and hardly f in ished.

Where

th e newsrooms can add va lue is in also helping the citizens, as well as

elected

officials,

do their jobs.

Finally,

the

efforts

c r ea te new a t t a c hme n t s , for

both

the u nivers i t ies and the newsrooms, wi th people in the com mu ni ty , and , as

with

any

a t tachment , the re

is the

potent ia l

for a

long-term relat ionship.

For the

university partners,

these

ventures have showcased significant

ex-

pertise and, often, challenged academ ics

to use

the i r in te l lec tu a l m uscle

in new

ways for the

benef i t

of the

communi ty . Inevitably, wh en s tuden ts pa r t i c ipa ted ,

they got hand s-on experience w ith real-life issues.

The

partnerships

can

s tar t when

one

party cold-calls

another, as

Editor

Trisha

O'Connor

did in

M yrtle Beach. They also

can

bui ld

from

pas t acqu ain-

tances, such

as

those th at

led to the

creation

of the

energy

software in

M adison,

WI. The best way to

initiate

the

collaborations

is for one

party

to

simply

reach

out to the o ther w ith a specific idea. If the re's a w in-win scenario for bo th pa r-

ties,

there's

usually

a w ay to

m a k e

i t

wo r k . O f te n

it is

easier

for the

news organi-

zation to

make

the

ini t ia l overture because journalis ts ,

in

general ,

tend to be

skittish when asked

to do something by

n on-journalis ts .

Each par tner must be pe rmi t t ed the freedom to adhere to indiv idu a l core

missions. Im portantly , par tne rs

w ho

engage

in

advocacy mu s t

realize

tha t

the

news organizations

cannot.

Fund ing is not always necessary. As these e xam ples show, m an y of the ven -

tures bui l t

o n

ac t iv i t ies tha t

the

individ ua l par tners wo uld have done anyway.

But

the individua l

efforts

would have delivered much less than the sum of the

whole

enterprise.



1 2 . N E W S R O O M S A ND

C O M M U N I TY

211

W hile the Pew Ce nter fun ded many of these initiatives, others took on a life of

their

ow n

after early partnersh ips proved their w orth.

In

some cases,

as

with

th e

We the

People Wisconsin" partnership,

the

news organizations have formed

a

collective

nonprofit entity, which seeks funding from community corporations

and foundations interested in supporting civic-engagement

efforts.

Most news

organizations, though, won't accept funding from non-journalism outfits.

Funding for small

local

initiatives is usually most easily

obtained

from local

founda t ions . Univer s i ty deve lopment

officials

o ften have l is ts of local

funders

who can be approached. The

fdncenter.org

Web

site,

hosted by the

Founda-

t ion Center

in

Washington,

D C ,

also provides

a

national l is t

of

fou nd a t ions

and a key-word search funct ion that can help

ident i fy

prospect ive

funders .

I t 's

a lways

best if you can

find

someone to introduce you or offer an end o r semen t

letter. If

t h a t

is not

possible,

you can

usua l ly research

a

founda t ion ' s

W eb

s i te ,

w h ich will of ten te l l

y ou

w h e t h e r

an

init ial query letter

or a

fu l l -b lown g r a n t

appl ica t ion is prefer re d . Ei ther should be fo l lowed up wi th a te lephone cal l

and a r e q u e s t for a meet ing .

If you r application is denied , ask the fu nd e r to recommend other sources of

support . In t r u th , foundat ions usual ly fund individuals more than ideas, so it's

impor tan t

to

note

you r track record

and

background.

For most of the collaborations in this chapter, qualitative research was ju s t

the beginning of the process. Survey wo rk was done, not so m uch to produc e a

final news story as it was to unearth clues that

needed

to be fleshed out with

some

qua l i ta t ive inpu t .

This

of ten we nt by many nam es, such as focus groups ,

reade r advisory panels, brainstorming sessions.

Strong research designs

usually

build in multiple points for information to

flow in, thereby ensuring that the feedback is cross-checked and

that

the re-

searchers can u npa ck nua nce s in a way that sheds inform ative l ight on the

topic. Since most issues have more gray areas

than

black and white ones, the

best results of ten occur whe n focus groups are asked to consider t rade-offs or

choices for dealing with an issue rather than to render a thumbs-up or

t h u m b s - d o w n opinion.

Successful

col laborat ions should produce someth ing

useful

for both the

new sroom and the c lassroom. I t 's im por tan t for researchers to share prel im i-

nary

resul t s

ear ly w ith the new sroom. Too of ten, researchers can

fall

into de-

duc in g

a s imp lis t ic cause and

effect

when ed i tors can actual ly c i te anothe r

obvious cause tha t

will

significantly change

the

analys is . Exchang ing inform a-

tion to ref ine the analysis breeds a sense of cross-ow nersh ip that can feed an

appe t i te for ongoing relationships.

In all cases, par tners know they have a successfu l

initiative

w h en the

c o m m u n i t y s t a r t s to reac t .

This

p r e s u m e s , of course , tha t the p a r tne r s h av e



212

S C H A F F E R

b u i l t in multiple venues fo r readers or viewers to respond a nd participate

fur-

ther, if they wish.

It's important to measure the response. For one thing, it provides fodder for

evaluation. Second,

it

supplies feedback

fo r

fu ture funders .

So,

track

the

atten-

dance

at

meetings, count e-mails

and

phone calls, collect letters

and formal

commentary, pay attention to the number of volunteers or participants, and

note

outcomes.

As important, report

those

responses back to your audience, to

the university, to the publisher or general manager. It helps

chronicle

the mo-

mentum

in the

community,

and i t

helps

to

build appetites

for

fu ture initiatives.

The

ultimate success occurs when

the

level

o f

qua l i ta tive insight enables

a

news

organization

to

articulate, with considerable authority,

a

community's col-

lective wisdom

and

aspirations,

and that

prompts

the

community

to

take own-

ership of the problem.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Pew

Center staff

writer Pat Ford assisted with research for this chapter.

REF EREN C ES'

Ford,

P.

(1998). Leadership

challenge:

Building

a new generation of leaders.

Don't stop

there'.

Five adventures in civic

journalism.

Available at http:/ /www.pewcenter.org/doingcj/pubs

stop/leader.html

Gibbs, C. (2002,

Winter).

New views on old wire

stories.

Civic

Catalyst,

12.

Greenbe rg, J.

(2002, Winter). Civics

physics: Energy m atters in NH

effort.

Civic

Catalyst,

13.

The

James

K. Batten

Award

for Excellence in Civic Journal ism:

Leadership Challenge/Peoria

(IL) Journal

Star.

(1997) . News breaks: Can journalists fix it? (Available from the Pew Cen-

ter for

Civic Journalism, 7100 Baltimore Ave., Suite 101, College

Park,

M D

20740).

Rosenhause, S.

(1999, Spring).

The

Examiner maps

th e

remaking

of The New

City. Civic

Catalyst,

1, 15.

Still,

T .

(2002, Winter). Interactive

game

totes energy costs. Civic

Catalyst, 6.

ENDNOTES

Volume numbers fo r

Civic

Catalyst do not

exist;

al l num bers

listed

are pages.



Glossary

John

L. Jack

Morris with Sharon Hartin lorio

and

volume

coauthors

Accuracy: To achieve ac curacy in news reporting, facts should be verified by

at least one indepen dent source to overcome m istakes, l ies, false memories, and

misinterpreted documents (Brooks, Kennedy, Moen,

&

Ranly, 1999,

p.

220) .

The traditional d efinition of accura cy in news is repeating or paraphrasing faith-

fully w hat an interview subject says. In public journa lism, accuracy is related to

recognizing and reporting th e complexity of the community being covered

(Sirianni & Friedland, 2001 p. 220).

Anonymity:

A promise of anonymity is a guaran tee tha t a given respondent

or source

cannot be

linked

to any

particular statement

he or she

makes

(Wimmer & Dominick, 2000, p. 73).

Attribution: Attribution is the clause that tells a reader of a news story, ei-

ther directly or indirectly, who is speaking. For exam ple, a clause such as "he

said" is called an attribution (Brooks et al., 1999, p. 207). Attribution for the

first

instance

in

w hich

a

speaker

is

mentioned

in a

news report should include

identification,

for exam ple, Director of Rese arch John Jones said . . . .

Analysis: The act w hereby something is separated into par ts, and those pa rts

are given rigorous , logical, and detailed scrutiny, res ultin g in a consistent and

relatively com plete accou nt

of the

elements

and the

principles

of

their organiza-

t ion (Holman & H arm on, 1986, p. 20) .

Analytic generalization–An alytical inference: This is the process of gener-

alizing "a pa rticu lar set of

results

to some broad er theory" (Y in, 1994, p. 36 ). A n-

alytic generalization

and

inference,

in the social sciences, are

based

on the

findings of a

s tudy

or

studies.

213



214 GLOSSARY

Anecdote:

In qualitative methodology, an anecdote is a short narrative de-

tailing the p a r t icu la r s of an interes t ing event (Holm an & H arm on, 1986, p. 2 2 ) .

Balance: One explanation of balance is the dif ference betwee n two i tems

(Bremner ,

1980, p. 57) . In n ew swriting, balance often is satisfied by presenting

tw o

sides

of an

issue.

Batten Award: From 1995 to 2002, the Pew C enter for Civic Jo urn alis m

(which came

to a

close

in

2002) presen ted

the

awards , named

for

K nigh t Ridder

executive James Batten,

to

encourage best practices

and

innovations

in

civic

journalism (Ford, Sum m er 2002, p . 2 2 ) .

Behaviorism: An approach to research tha t a ims to expla in and predic t hu-

m an

c om m unicative behavior, behaviorism

is

marked

by

quan t i ta t ive methods .

In the

disciplines

of

psychology

and

sociology,

the

behavioral approach

is a

the-

ory and accompanying m ethods th at focus on ex ternal ly observable hu m an ac-

tions rather

than

m enta l processes (DeFleur & B all-Ro keach , 1989, p. 39) .

Bias:

When a researcher allows her or his personal opinions to influence oth-

erwise fact-based conclusions,

the

research

or

w ri t ing based thereon

is

biased

(Brooks

et al., 1999, pp. 153-154).

Case study:

A case stud y is used to exam ine m any charac terist ics of a single

subject

(Severin &

Tan kard, 1992,

pp.

30-31).

The

term

case

stu dy generally

describes research tha t m ay use a variety of data co llection m ethods to exam ine

a single subject or a set of c losely inte r re la ted subjects .

Chaos

theory: Often applied to crises in the communica t ion field, chaos

theory explains how e ven ts occur in terms of confluenc e. The theory is radical

in that i t challenges rationalist ic theories of prediction and control and l inearity

of

thought .

Charles

F. Kettering Foundation: This operating foundation sponsors

in-

ventive research that

focuses on

th is ques t ion: W hat does

it

take

to

m a k e

de-

mocracy work

as it

should? (www.ket ter ing .org)

Civic catalyst:

This term

is

used

in

civic mapping

to

denote

the

respected

leaders whom people look to in their everyday lives for community expertise

and wisdom and who encourage others to get involved in civic

life

(Harwood &

M cC rehan, 2000). Civic Catalyst

was the Pew

Cente r

for

Civ ic Jou rna l i sm q uar -

terly newsletter.

Civic

connectors:

A

term used

in

civic mapping denoting individuals

who

move b etween groups spreading ideas, often w itho ut havin g any

official

capac-

ity (Harwood & M cCrehan,

2000).

Civic journalism: Civic jou rnalism

is a

broad label

put on efforts by

journal-

ists to do their jobs as jou rna lists in ways that help to overcom e peop le's sense of

powerlessness and alienation. The goal is to produce new s th at cit izen s need to

be educated about issues and current events, to ma ke civic decisions, to engage



GLOSSARY

215

in

civic dialogue

and

action—and generally

to

exercise their respo nsibilities

in a

democracy

(Schaffer,

1999). The term s civic journa lism and pu blic jou rnalis m

have been used interchangeably.

Civic

map p ing:

This activity or m ethod is a systematic way for rep orters to

identify the various layers of civic life and the potential sources and news in

them so they can repo rt first and best w hat is happening in a com m unity (Har-

wood

& M cCrehan, 2000).

Communitarian:

Co m m unitarian philosophy stresses the balance betwe en so-

cial forces and the person, between com munity and autonomy, between the com-

mon good and

liberty,

be tw een ind ividu al rights and social responsibilities (Etzioni,

1998, p. x.). The term also

refers

to a person who practices this philosophy.

Community conversation: When this term

is

used

formally, it

denotes

a

group of

citizens discussing

a

public

issue at a

media-sponsored meeting.

The

group

is

m oderated

by a

reporter

or

other discussion le ader w hose prim arily role

is

to l is ten (M orris , 2002, pp. 68, 127 , 210) .

Conclusion: A conclusion is an inference drawn from facts (Rackham &

Bertagnolli,

1999, pp. 133–134). Con clusions are usually associated with qua n-

t i tat ive

research w hile a discussion or summary of the findings w ithou t s tating

an

assumption about their meaning

is

associated with qualitative research .

Confidentiality:

A promise of confiden tiality assures a source or responden t

tha t, even though he or she can be associated with a specific s tatem ent or re-

sponse by the resea rche rs or repo rters, his or her nam e will never be pub licly as-

sociated with

i t

(Wimmer

&

Dominick, 2000,

p.

73) .

Conflict: Conflict occurs when

a text or

situation presents

two

opposing fac -

tions (M orris , 2002, pp. 68, 127 , 210 ) .

Construct

validity:

The level of construc t validity is the degree to which a

test , survey, experiment, observation, etc. measures an intended hypo thetical

con struct, deem ed to explain behavior (Gay, 1987, p . 542 ) .

Content

analysis: This is a

quantitative

and


method

where in researchers conduct a sweeping, systematic examination of groups of

discourse.

The aim is to com pare-contrast message form and content in order

to assemble f requencies and establish patterns of messages over t ime. It is

marked

by objectivity (reliability o f content categories) , systematicity (a repre-

sentative sample

of

discourse),

and

generality (findings

that

show

theoretical

relevance based on the com parisons produ ced) . Quant i ta t ive content analysis

uses de facto (nonjud gm enta l) ca tegories such as observable de m ographic fac-

tors.

Qual i ta t ive content analysis uses interpretive ( judgmental) categories

such as

val ue appeals (H olsti, 1969).

Context/contextualizing:

The researcher's construction of the phenome-

non or the jo urn alist 's reporting of the experience und er stud y in term s of indi-



216 GLOSSARY

viduals and the

social worlds

in

which they l ive

is

contextua l iz ing. Providing

context is

also recreating experience

in

t e rms

of

conduct , cons t ituencies ,

and

surroundings (Huberman

&

Miles, 2002,

p.

359).

Deduction: The process wh ereby a researcher s tar ts w ith a theory and then

seeks to learn wh ether em pir ica l (observable) da ta supp or t it is de du c t io n (Frey

et

al., 1992).

A

reasoning process

that

moves

from

general

to

spe cific ideas

is de-

duc t ive (Rackham

&

Bertagnolli, 1999,

pp. 314-315).

Detachment:

The dominance of scientific t ho ugh t and m e thods in W estern

civilization sanctified the most distanced observer as being the most reliable

(M err i t t , 1995, p. 18). The dis tance of such a nonp art isan ob server is m arked by

lack

of

involvem ent

and

separation

from

the

con tex t

of the

research.

Emic a nd E ttic: In

q ua l i ta t ive research,

t he

em ic represents

the

insider 's

(or

research subject 's ) perspect ive ; wh ereas ,

the

ett ic

is the

outs ider ' s

(or object ive)

perspective.

When

the researcher o r repo r ter wr i tes from the emic perspect ive ,

the insights should be shown to the

subjects

to cross-check the a c c u r a c y of the

description (Potter, 1996,

p.

4 2 ) .

Empirical research: The

natural

sciences are

based

on

empiricism,

the

belief

that

the

world

is

m easurable

and all

objects

and

actions

can be

perceived (Wim mer

& Dom inick, 2000, p. 1 2). Em pirical research is a system atic and critical investiga-

tion of

natural

and

social

phenomenon. It can be conducted by

qualitative

methods

or

quantitative methods

or

both

via

observation

or

collecting data

or

evidence.

Enterprise story:

An enterpr ise s tory is a news s tory tha t

focuses

on a pro-

cess,

not a

specific

event

(Gibbs

&

W arhover, 20 02,

p.

4 27 ). Coverage

of a

m u r -

der is not enterpr ise report ing; a story th at addresses why the m ur de r ra te is

higher in one p ar t ic ula r area of the com m un ity over others is .

Entry points—portals: These

are

terms

for

op portunit ies

in

news coverage

fo r

ci t izen inpu t, such

a s

town h a l l m eet ings

or

focus g roups , tha t m ove

the

jour -

nalism beyond simply providing information

to

engaging the i r audiences

ac-

tively

in

analyzing

and

using information (Ford, Spring 2002,

p. 1). The

terms

also

apply

to opp ortunit ies for ind ivid uals to use electronic technology for the

purpose

o f

interaction w ith

each

other

and

news organiza t ions regarding events

and

issues

in the

news.

Ethics:

Ethics is the

s tudy

of philosophic pr inciples

from

which can be de-

rived actions

that

resolve moral problem s (L am beth, 1992,

p.

80).

Ethnography: This is a

qua l i ta t iv e research m ethod w here in researchers

en-

ter the field.

Through l iv ing

in th e

c o m mu n i ty un de r

s tudy and

pa r t i c ipa t ing

in

community

life, ethnographers

learn

how people

comm unicate wi th

each other

in cer ta in set t ings in order to un de r s t a n d the taci t

rules

tha t govern the ir inter-

actions. A s an encompass ing te rm, e thnography or e thnograph ic s tudy can be

used interchangeably with

the

terms

field

work

and

particip ant observation.



GLOSSARY 217

Epistemology: This is the study of know ledge sources. In com m unication,

epistemic

inquiries are

based

on how

theories

and research contribute to our

knowledge of com m unication acts and processes.

Evaluation

research:

The

study

and

assessment

of

program plans, their

im-

plementa t ion and their impact (Wimmer & Dominick, 2000, p. 369).

Experiment: An artificial environment that is controlled to

isolate

variables

and

find

evidence of cau sali ty is an expe rime nt (Wimm er & Dom inick, 2000,

pp. 210–218). An experiment often

consists

of at least two groups—in one

group an indepe ndent var iab le is manipula ted and in the other group no manip-

ulation takes place.

The

research observes

any

effects that result

in the

experi-

men ta l

and

control groups

and

d raws conclusions based

on the

observat ion.

Fact: A

fact

is an

assertion

that can be

verified

by other

observers (Rackh am

& Be rtagnolli , 1999, pp. 130–135).

Fairness:

A news story often has more

than

tw o sides. Fairness involve s find-

ing all sides of the issue and including responses from anyone who is being at-

tac ke d or wh ose integrity is being que stione d (Brooks et al., 1999, p. 15).

Feature story: New s stories developed w ithou t short deadline pressures

are

called fea ture stories or fea ture s.

They

often

concern

trends, personalities, and

lifestyles

(Brooks

et

al., 1999,

p.

563).

Focus

group:

A discussion of approximately 6–12 people moderated by a

leader trained to elicit comm ents from all m em bers abo ut a predeterm ined topic

is

a

focus group. Focus group s

are

used

to

gather preliminary information

for a

research projec t , to develop questionnaires, to understa nd reasons behind phe-

nomena ,

or to

test prelim inary ideas

or

plans (Wimmer

&

Dominick, 2000,

p.

119). They can also be used to

verify

findings of prev ious resea rch and to elicit

com prehe nsive, su bjective responses to specific questions.

Focused interview:

Conducted one-on-one, the focused interv iew method

is

similar

to

both

the

in-depth

or

personal intervie w

and focus

group interv iew-

ing,

bu t

focused

interv iews can get at more complex topics than focus groups

without r isk that the individual responses will be influenced by others' com-

men t s .

T he

pu rpose

of

focused interviews

is to

identify

underlying commonali-

ties th at m ay be consistent am ong the responses. Focused interview s provide

backgroun d for

enterpr ise

or

polit ical reporting

or can

stand alone

as the sub jec t

of

a

new s repor t .

Framing-News frame:

Fram es are conce ptual tools , such as a conflict na rra-

tive or exp lanato ry narra tive, that m edia and individuals rely on to convey, in-

te rpre t , and ev alu ate inform ation (D enton, Sum m er 1998, p . 4) . Frames call

att en tio n to som e aspects of reality , while obscuring

other

e lements (Entman,

1993,

p. 55) in

m u c h

the

same

way

that

the

frame

of a

picture provides

a

bound-

ary

for and

draws a t tent ion

to the

image that

it

surrou nds. Traditionally , jou r -



218

GLOSSARY

nalists have focused on conflict in framing news reports , but researchers have

identified

other news frames: m oral values, economics, po werlessness, and hu-

man

imp ac t ( N eu man , Jus t ,

&

Crigler, 1992,

pp.

60-77).

Generalization:

An inference about a population is a generalization. In

probability sampling, generalizations are statistically significant only w hen the

sample has been selected randomly and

contains

enough subjects to minimize

sampling error (Wim mer & Dom inick, 2000, pp. 85–99). Be ing able to genera l-

ize

the results of a research project to a larger population is an end resu l t of

quantitative research; quali tative research

differs in

t h a t

its resul ts

offer expla-

nation ra ther

than

prediction

and

seldom

are

genera lized (Huberm an

&

M iles,

2002).

Hard news-News

stories: Also known as spot news and deadline stories,

hard news is a type of news wr i t ten unde r p ressu re of short deadlines as

informa-

tion becomes available (Brooks et al. , 1999, p. 558).

Hawthorne

effect: This

phenomenon was identified at Western Electr ic

Company 's Hawthorne Plant in Chicago in 1927. The Hawthorne effect occurs

when the subjects in an

experiment

realize

that

something special is happening

to them. The feeling of being special alters the su bjects ' behavior thu s posing a

th reat to the validity of a research project

(Meyer,

1991, p. 175 ) . S tudies tha t

use control groups do not

face

this problem.

Hutchins

Commission:

The Hutchins Commiss ion, was so called because

its chair was Univ ersity of

Chicago

President Robert H utch ins, but i ts official ti-

tle was the Commission on Freedom of the Press. Created on the suggestion of

Henry Luce, then publisher of Time m agazine, to investigate increasing

controls

or m anage m ent of the press, the com mission con cluded in 1947 that freedom of

the press in the U nited States w as in danger beca use of i ts m onopolistic na tu re,

adding that a free society depends on t ru thfu l , comprehensive, and intell igent

reporting

of

events presented

in a

context that gives them m eaning (Brooks

et

al., 1999,

p. 17;

Folkerts

&

Teeter, 1989,

p.

464).

Impact: This refers

to the nu m be r of people

likely

to be affected by a news

story (Morris , 2002, pp. 68, 1 27, 21 0) . Impac t also can refer to the level or de-

gree of effect produced by a s i tua t ion.

Induction:

The process wh ereby a researcher first gathers data and then de-

velops

a

theory

from

them, often referred

to as

'grounded theory,'

is

induction

(Frey

et.

al., 1992).

A

reasoning process that moves from specific

to

general

ideas is indu ctive (R ackh am & Bertagnolli, 1999, pp. 31 4– 31 5).

Interaction: Three types of interactio nal s i tuation s are face- to-face interac-

tion,

in

which

the

par t ic ipants

in the

exchange

are

imm edia te ly p resen t

to one

another; mediated interaction, that involves the use of a technical medium

such as paper and pen, a

telephone,

or a personal computer; and mediated



GLOSSARY 219

quasi- interaction that involves relations established by mass media (books,

television, etc.). Me diated qu asi-interac tion inform ation is directed to an in-

definite range of potential recipients.

Interactive journalism: Jou rna l i sm

that

actively provides en try points

for

people

to

interact with

the

information, tell their

own

s tor ies ,

and

p a r t ic ipa te

in

public dialogue

can be

termed interactive (Schaffer,

2001). Use of Web

sites, e -m ail new s d iscuss ion groups , and other technology that people m ay

employ

to interac t with each other and new s organizations also is called int er-

act ive journal ism .

In-depth interview: Also known

as an

intensive interview,

an

in -dep th

in-

terview

provides detailed backgroun d to answ ers, permits observation of non-

verb al responses,

can

last several ho urs,

is tailored to the respondent, and can be

inf luenced by the relationship established between interviewer and sub jec t

(Wimmer & Dominick, 2000, p. 122) .

Life

history:

A research technique

that

focuses on one individual's

life;

life

history

is a form of

biography

or

autobiography.

Life

histories

may be essays

a bo u t one's life or journ al writ ing (B ertaux, 1981; S mith, 1988).

Marketing research: The

goal

of

adve rtising

is to

sell

a

product

to

people

who have the desire fo r the p roduc t and the ability to buy it . M arket ing research

a t tempts to

identify audiences

for

particular produ cts (Biagi, 2001,

p .

235) .

Natural Laws— Natural

Science: This is a system of

thought holding

that all

phenom ena can be expla ined in terms of natura l causes withou t a t tr ibu t ing

spir i tual or metaphysical significance to them (Danesi, 2000, p. 158).

Neutrality:

In newsw riting, the

concept

of ne utra l reportage was advanced

in a 1977 U.S. Cou rt of Ap peals ruling wh en the ju dg e ove rturned a libel verdict

because the N e w

York Times

had accurately reported a libelous statem ent w ith-

out takin g sides

in the

issue.

This

concept, however,

has not

attained

the

s ta tus

of a reliab le con stitutio nal defen se (Teeter, Le Duc, & Loving, 1998, pp.

259–263) . A canon of reporting, neu trali ty requires th e journal is t to remain im -

part ia l

and not express opinion in news coverage.

Null hypothesis:

A

term used

in

quan titative research,

the

null hypothesis

is

a s ta tement tha t measu rab le

differences

are due to

chance

alone (Williams,

1992, p. 66).

Nut

graph:

When

a

news story opens w ith

a

scene, quotation,

or

anecdote,

the paragraph that l inks th e opening to the main idea of the story, or lede, is

called

the nut

graph (Brooks

et

al., 1999,

pp. 183-184).

Ontology:

The

s tudy

of

essence

or

origin,

in

com m unication, ontological

in-

quiries are based on those com m unication factors that m ake us hu m an.

Opinion: An opinion is an inference or conclusion draw n from

facts

(Rackham & Bertagnolli, 1999, pp. 130-135). It is a belief held toward a spe-



22O

GLOSSARY

cific

object, such

as a

man ,

or an

issue,

or a

belief held tow ard

an

event

or

activ-

ity.

Individuals

hold

many

opinions,

some

of which may conflict. Different

s i tuations

m ay

trigger

one of

many personal opinions

to be

p rominen t

for an in-

dividua l at a par t icula r mom ent in t ime.

Operationalization: A n operational definit ion of a var iable specifies proce-

dures that

enable

a

researcher

to

experience

or

me a s u r e

a

concept (W imm er

&

Dominick, 2000,

p.

12).

Oral

history: This

research techniqu e add resses

the

personal experiences

of

ordinary people involved in the his tor ical process (Brennen, 1996, p. 5 7 1 ;

Thompson, 1990).

Participant

observation:

A

field

observation that involves

the

researcher

as

part icipant

in the

behavior under s tudy

is

called pa rticip ant observation

(Wimmer

&

Dominick, 2000,

p.

47 ) .

Personal

concern(s): Personal concerns are the problems o f indiv idua l c i ti -

zens that

are

shared

by or resonate

with

the

general public

and

these concerns

may be

quite

different from

poli t ical issues. National Gallup poll ing

has

sur -

veyed

the

impor tant problems

facing the

U.S. population since 1975 (lorio

&

Huxman, 1996,

pp.

98-100).

Pew

Center

for

Civic Journalism:

The Pew

Center,

f u n d e d

by the Pew

Charitable

Trusts from 1992

through

2002, was an incuba to r for c iv ic jour -

na l i sm exper imen ts tha t enab led news o rgan iza t ions

to

c r ea te

and

r e f ine

be t t e r

ways

of repor t ing the news to engage people in publ ic

life

( w w w .

pewcenter .org).

Phenomenology:

This is an

approach

to

research that a ims

to

under s tand

and

appreciate

th e

meaning

of

human messages .

It is

m arked

by

qua l i ta t ive

methods. Phenomenology is also a specific social science theory based on the

belief that

consciousness is

always

directed at objects ; as suc h, phenom enology

is

the s tudy of the forms and manifestations of

experience

as they are perceived

by

the

mind (Danesi, 2000,

p .

1 7 2 ) .

Political

Issue(s): As problems comm on to the gene ral pub lic , poli t ical is-

sues are

those that

are

presented

on

politicians'

a nd

m edia agendas

as

having

so-

lutions

in or

being related

to

gove rnm ent action.

Population: Any

class

of

object (including h um ans)

or

even t defined

on the

basis of i ts unique and observable character is t ics is a population (Will iams,

1992, p. 11 ) .

Postmodernism:

Postmodernism

in art and

philosophy que stions tradit ion al

assump tions abou t cer ta inty, identi ty,

and

t ru th based

on the

belief tha t words

are abstract

symbols without fixed meanings (Danesi,

2000, pp. 180–181).

Pretest—Post-test: In a social scientific experiment, after two samples are

randomly selected

from a

popula t ion , each

is

given

the

same pre tes t

and



GLOSSARY

221

post- test , but only one sample receives the experimental treatment between the

tests (Wimmer

&

Dominick, 2000,

p.

218).

Public journalism: Also known

as

civic journalism, public journalism

is a

practice of journalism

that

listens to citizens, considers alternative

framing

of

news stories, stimulates public understanding of social and political issues, ad-

vances possible solutions, and continually evaluates its communication with

the public (Lambeth, Meyer, & Thorson, 1998, p. 17).

Public opinion: There are at least four definitions of public opinion. First,

modern polling assumes

that

public opinion

is an

aggregation

of

many individ-

ual opinions (results of a survey); second, that public opinion is the opinions of

the

majority;

third, that

they

are

what

is

communicated

consensus—social

norms;

and

fourth, that they

are

merely

a

fiction

or

reification

and do not

exist

in reality (Herbst, 1993, p. 43–46).

Public sphere: This

abstract

concept refers to

civil society where rational,

critical debate, free from domination

of the state, occurs

(Thompson, 1995,

p.

237) .

In common usage, the realm of media, politics, and opinion processes is

often

referenced as the public sphere.

Precision journalism: Newswriting based on intensive and systematic fact

finding (Meyer,

1973,

p.

13), precision journalism uses quantitative social sci-

ence research methods

to

collect

and

interpret large amounts

of

informational

data

and

report

the

findings

in a way that can be

easily understood.

Professional

ethics:

This is the study of philosophic, professional principles

related to career or employment situations from which can be derived actions

that resolve moral problems (Lambeth, 1992, pp. 80, 106-107).

Pulitzer prizes

Endowed by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, these an-

nu a l

awards

from

the

trustees

of

Columbia University

are

given

for

outstanding

work

in journalism and the arts (Goldstein, 1997, p. 170).

Purposive

sample: This is a

nonrandom sample

of a

population where sub-

j ec t s

are

selected

on the

basis

of

specific characteristics

or

qualities (Wimmer

&

Dominick, 2000, p. 84).

Random sample This

is a type of sampling or subject selection in which a

collection

of

objects

or events is

defined

in a way so

that each

one in the

popula-

tion has an equal chance of being selected (Williams, 1992, p. 52).

Reliability

This standard

for

judging research quality

is the

consistency

of

mea-

surement both internal

and

external

to the

study (Williams, 1992,

pp.

29-30).

Replication

An independent verification of a research study (Wimmer &

Dominick , 2000, p. 432), in general, replication entails repeating a research

s tudy

in order to verify it s findings.

Respondents: The

subjects

or

participants

in a

research project

are

called

respondents .



222

GLOSSARY

Rhetorical criticism: This is a qualitative research method wherein researchers

perform

a

close, systematic inspection

of

discourse

via a

selected communication

theory

that serves as a lens. The aim is to describe, interpret, and evaluate message

content in order to gain greater insight for how and w hy persuasion works. Rhetori-

cal criticism can also be called communication analysis or media analysis.

Sample: A

subgroup

or

subset

of a

population

is

called

a

sample (Wimmer

&

Dominick, 2000,

p.

432).

Secondary sources: A secondary source is research performed by others to

come to some conclusion about a topic or make some kind of an argument.

Secondary research: This is a form of editing, in which quotations (and

sometimes

summaries, phrases,

and

syntheses

of the

material read)

from

this

scholar and

that

scholar are

collected

to produce an essay or article. Secondary

researchers

use the research that others have done. (Berger, 2000, p. 23).

Sensationalism:

In a

broad sense, most good writing

is

sensational because

it

appeals to the senses of touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight. Most media critics

use the term when referring to news

that

attracts attention by appealing to pru-

rient interest

or

shock value (Ward, 1997,

p.

29).

Social capital:

Those stocks of social t rus t , norms, and networks that people

can

draw

on to

solve

common

problems

are

social capital. Networks

of

civic

en-

gagement, such as neighborhood associations, sports

clubs,

and cooperatives,

are essential forms o f social capital (Friedland, Sotirovic, & Kaily, 1998, p. 195).

Social capital

is the

value

or

power accrued when people know

one

another and,

as a

result, work together (Ford, Winter 2002).

Social responsibility: This is a

philosophy that calls

fo r self-regulation of

freedom of the press for the betterment of society.

Source:

A person or persons who provide information that is relevant, use-

ful, and interesting to a news audience (Brooks et al., 1999, pp. 4–6).

Stakeholders:

People

or

organizations

who

stand

to be

gainers

and

losers

in a

public

course

of

action

are

often labeled stakeholders (Morris, 2002,

pp. 68,

127,

210).

Statistical inference: This is the process of estimating a characteristic of

a

population from a characteristic of a sample of the population (Williams,

1992, p. 51).

Structural functionalism:

This

social

scientific theory

is

based

on the

idea

that the organization of a society provides the source of its stability (DeFleur &

Ball-Rokeach ,

1989, p. 31).

Subjectivity: Subjective writing presents personal impressions and experi-

ences (Rackham

&

Bertagnolli, 1999,

pp.

130-135).



GLOSSARY 223

Survey Asking questions o f a sample or a ll of a population constitutes a sur-

vey. The methodology includes selecting a subject, constructing the questions,

writ ing

instructions, presenting the questions, achieving a reasonable response

rate,

and

interpreting

the

results (Wimmer

& Dominick, 2000, pp.

160-190).

Textual analysis

Text, broadly speaking, is any work of art in any medium.

Texts can be company contracts, newspapers, government documents, even

street signs o r tattoos. Through careful reading and analysis the researcher or

repor ter can uncover information on something else besides the words them-

selves (Watson, 1997,

pp. 80–84). To the

researcher

this

usually

is

something

abou t

the

social world

of the

writer

or the

intended audience.

To the

reporter

t ex tua l

analysis

m ay

uncover buried

facts

or

provide leads

to

other information.

Thick

description In qualitative research, description

that

is thick presents

essentia l

themes and strictures discovered in the context of the respondents' or

subjects ' setting,

their

language,

their emotions,

and

their

terms (Huberman

&

Miles,

2002,

p.

359).

Thick

description

is a

shorthand term

for the web of

mean-

ings

that sustain a culture (Lindlof, 1995, p . 52).

Third places The layer of civic conversations and spaces where people

ga the r

to talk and do things together, such as churches, diners, and barbershops

are

called third places where reporters

can go for

information (Harwood

&

McCrehan, 2000).

Type I error

In quantitative research, Type I error occurs when the re-

searcher rejects a null hypothesis, or rejects th e research premise

that

there is no

difference between

the

groups under study,

and

claims there

is a difference,

when, unbeknown to the researcher, the findings are wrong and in reality there

is no

difference.

Type

II error

In quantitative research, Type II error occurs when the re-

searcher accepts

a

null hypothesis,

or

accepts

the

research premise that there

is

no difference between the groups under study, when, unbeknown to the re-

searcher the findings are wrong and in reality there is a difference.

Validity: Th e

standard

for

judging research quality

is the

degree

to

which

a

mea-

surement technique, research procedure, or research finding is accurate (Frey,

Botan,

Friedman, & Kreps, 1992); that is , measures what it claims to measure.

Values These are underlying principles of courses of action (Morris, 2002,

pp.68, 127, 210).

Variable: An

observable characteristic

of an

object

or

event that

can be de-

scribed according to some well-defined classification or measurement scheme

can be called a variable (Williams, 1992, p. 11).



224 GLOSSARY

R E F E R E N C E S

Berger, A. A. (2000). M e d ia an d commun ication research methods. Thou sand O aks, CA: Sage.

Ber taux ,

D.

(Ed.).

(1981).

Biography

an d

society:

The

l i f e

history approach

in the

social

sc iences.

London: Sage.

Biagi, S.

(2001).

Media/Impact: An

introduction

to

mass media (5th ed., instructor's ed.).

Belmont, CA: W adsworth

-Thompson

Learning.

Bremner,

J. B.

(1980). Words

on

words:

A

dictionary

fo r writers and others w ho

care about

words.

N ew York: Columbia University Press.

Brennen,

B .

(1996). Toward

a

history

o f

labor

and new

work:

The use of

oral sources

in jou r -

nalism history. The Journal

o f

American

History,

83 (2 ) :

571-579.

Brooks,

B. S.,

Kennedy,

G.,

Moen ,

D. R., &

Ranly,

D.

(1999). N e w s

reporting and

w riting (6th

ed.) . New York: Bedford-St. Mart ins .

Danesi,

M .

(2000). Encyclopedic dictionary

of

semiotics,

media,

and

communications.

Toronto:

University

of

Toronto Press.

DeFleu r, M. L., &

B al l-Rokeach,

S.

(1989).

Theories

of mass communication (5 th ed . ) . W hi te

Plains, NY: Longman.

Denton, F. (1998, Sum me r ) C racking th e Spiral of Silence. Civic Catalyst, 4.

Entman , B. (199 3). Framing: Toward a clarification of a f ractured paradigm. Journal

o f

Com-

munication,

43 (4 ) ,

51–58.

Etzioni,

A .

(1998).

The essential

com munitarian reader. Lanham,

M D:

R owman

&

Littlefield.

Folkerts,

J., &

Teeter,

D. L.

(1989).

Voices of a

nation.

New

York: Macm i l lan .

Ford, P. (2002, Win ter). Law rence, KS : Com mon grou nd on g row th. Civic Catalyst ,

Ford, P. (2002, Spring) Gaming the news—building new entry points.

Civic Catalyst,

Ford, P. (2002, Sum me r). Bat ten aw ard money takes man y paths . Civic Catalyst, 22.

Frey, L .,

Botan,

C .,

Friedman,

P., &

Kreps ,

G.

(1992) .

Interpreting

communication. Englewood

Cliffs,

N J:

Prent ice-Hal l .

Friedland,

L .,

Sotirovic,

M., &

Kaily,

K .

(1998). Publ ic journal ism

and

social cap ital .

In E. B.

Lam beth, P. E. Meyer, & E . Thorson (Eds.) , Asse ssing public

journal ism.

(p. 195). Colum-

bia, MO : University of M issouri Press.

Gay,

L. R.

(1987). Competencies

fo r analysis and application

(3rd ed.) . Co lum bus,

O H:

Merri l l .

Gibbs,

S., &

W arhover,

T.

(200 2). Gett ing

the

whole

story. New

York: Gu i l ford .

Goldstein,

N .

(Ed.) . (1997).

T he

Associated Press style book

and

l ibel manual (6th t rade

ed.) .

N ew Y ork: The

Associated Press

Harwood, R. C., & M cCrehan, F. (2000 ). Tapping civic l i f e (2nd ed.) [on-l ine] . Avai lable a t:

http:/ /www.pewcenter.org/doingcj/pubs/tcl/

Herbst,

S.

(1993). Numbered

voices: How opinion polling has shaped

Am erican politics. Ch icago :

University of Chicago Press.

Holman,

C. H., &

Harmon,

W .

(1986).

A

handbook

to

literature (5 th ed . ) .

New

York:

Macmil lan.

Holsti, O. R . (1969). Content analysis for the social sciences and humanities. Reading, MA: Ad-

dison-Wesley.

Huberman , A. M., & Miles, M. B. (2002) .

The

qualitative

researcher's

companion.

Thousand

Oaks, CA: Sage.

lorio,

S. H., &

H u x m a n ,

S. S.

(1996). Media coverage

of

polit ical issues

and the

framing

of

personal concerns. Journal of Communication, 46(4) , 97-115.

Lambe th , E. B. (19 92). Com mit ted journalism: An ethic for the profession (2nd ed . ) .

Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Lambeth,

E. B.,

Meyer,

P. E., & Thorson, E.

(Ed s.). (1998).

Assessing public

journalism.

Colum-

bia,

M O :

University

of

M issouri Press.

Lindlof, T R .

(1995). Qualitative co mm unication research methods. Thousand O aks,

C A :

Sage.



GLOSSARY

225

Merr i t t , D. (1995). Public journalism:

W hy telling th e

n e w s

is not

enough. Hillsdale, NJ: Law -

rence Erlbaum Associates .

Meyer,

R

( 1 991 ) . The new

p recis ion journalism.

Bloomington,

IN :

Indiana U niversi ty Press .

Morr is ,

J. L.

(2002).

A

study

of

attitudes

toward audience interact ion

in

journalism: Cit izen-based

reporting. Lewiston,

NY :

Edw in M ellen.

N eum an, W . R. , Ju st , M. R. , & Crigler , A. N . (1 992) . Common

knowledge:

N e w s

and the

con-

struction

of political

meaning.

Chicago: T he

University

of

Chicago Press.

Potter, W. J. (1996) . A n analysis

of thinking

and research

about qualitative methods.

M a h w a h , NJ:

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates .

R a c k h a m , J., & B ertagnolli, O .

(1999).

From sight to insight: The writ ing

process

(6th ed.). Fort

W or th , T X : Harco urt Brace .

Schaffer, J. (1999) . Attack dog, watch dog,

guide

dog:

The role

of

th e

media

in building

comm unity

[on-line]. Available at: http://www.pewcenter.org/doingcj/speeches/s_batonrouge.html

Schaffer,

J. (2001,

Fall)

Interactive journalism: clicking on the

fu tu re .

APME

News.

Sever in , J. W., & Ta nkard , Jr . , J. W . (1992). Communication theories: O rigins, methods, and uses

in th e

mass media (3rd ed.). White Plains,

NY :

Longman.

Sirianni, C., & Friedlan d, L. (2001 ). Civic innovation

in

America. Berkeley, CA: Un iversi ty of

California Press.

Smi th , L. M. (1998). Biographical method. In N. K . Denzin & Y . S .

Lincoln

(Eds.) ,

Strategies

o f

qualitative inquiry (pp. 285-305). Thousand Oaks , CA : Sage Publications.

Teeter, D. L., Le Due, D. R., & Loving, B. (1998). Law of mass communicat ions:

Freedom

an d

control

of pr int and

broadcast

media (9th ed.) . New York: Foundation Press.

Thompson,

J. B.

(1995) .

The

m edia

an d

modernity. Stanford,

CA :

Stanford U niversi ty Press .

Thompson ,

P.

(1990) .

The

voice

of th e

past: Oral

history.

London:

Oxford Universi ty Press .

Ward, H. H. (1997). Mainstreams

of

A merican m edia history. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Watson , R . (1 997 ) . Ethnomethodology and textual analysis. In D. Si lverman (Ed.) , Qualita-

tive

research: Theory, method

and

pract ice (pp. 80-98). Thousand O aks,

CA:

Sage.

Williams, F. (199 2). Reasoning with s tat is tics: How to read quantitat ive research (4th e d.) . F ort

W or th , T X : Harc ourt B race Jovanovich.

W imme r , R. D., & Dominick, J. R. (2000). Mass

media

research:

An

introduction

(6 th ed . ) .

Be lmon t , CA: Wadswor th .

Yin, R. (1994) . Case study research: Des ign and methods . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.






Author

Index

Note :

f

indicates

figure, n

indicates

endnote

A

A bb ott, A., 28, 29, 38,

150,

161

Abrams, M. H., 173n, 174

Adams, S., 113, 124

Agar,

M., 81, 91

Allen,

D., 69, 72

Allen, M., 177, 187, 189, 191

Alonso, C. G, 78, 91

Anderson,

B.,

147,

161

Anderson, N., 27, 29, 35, 36, 38

Andrews,

F. E.,

38n,

38

Anonymous, 69, 72

Appiah,

K. A., 50, 56

Argyris,

C., 82, 91

Atkinson,

P.,

128, 129,

141

Austin , E.,

187,

191

Austin,

L, 10, 19

B

Babbie, E.,

136,

141

Bagdikian,

B. H., 4, 9, 18

Ball-R okeac h, S. J., 37, 38, 214, 222, 224

Barzun, J., 49, 55

Bave las, J. B.,

181,

189

Bayer,].,

3 7 , 3 8

Becker, H., 23, 25, 38

Bend er, J. R., 130, 132, 142

Bennett , W. L., 4, 18

Berger,

A. A., 112, 124, 128, 142, 222, 224

Berger, A. B., 180,189

Berger, C,

181 ,189

Berner,

R. T.,

136,

142

Bernstein, C., 59, 72

Bertagnolli, O ., 166f, 173n, 174, 215,

216-219,222,225

Bertaux, D. , 219 ,224

Biagi, S. , 113 , 124 ,219 ,224

Black,

E.,

179, 181,

190

Black,]. ,

9, 18

Bloor, M., 76, 80, 81,86, 9 1

Blumer,

H., 48, 55, 137 ,142

Bogue,

D. ]., 29, 30, 38

Bohhoeffer, D., 46, 55

Booth, C. A., 30, 38, 148, 161

Borg, W., 61, 68, 72

Boster, F.J ., 177, 190

Botan,

C ,

179, 190, 21 6, 218, 22 3,

224

Botan, C. R,

163, 165,

174

Braithwaite, C. A., 128, 142

Brandt, L., 38n, 38

Brannick,

T., 77, 82, 91

Bremner, ]. B., 173n, 174, 214, 224

Brennen,

B., 220, 224

Brenner,

R.,

182,

190

Brissett, D.,

112,

124

Brooks , B. S., 166/ 169, 171, 173n, 174,

2 1 3 , 2 1 4 , 2 1 7 - 2 1 9 , 2 2 2 , 2 2 4

Brown, S. R., 163, 174

Bulmer,

M., 34, 38, 148, 161

Burgess, E. W., 7, 19, 29, 30, 33, 38

Burke, K., 181, 190

227



228

A U T H O R INDEX

Campbell,

D. T,

119,

124

Campbell, K. B., 147, 150, 160n, 161

Cantril, H., 59, 72

Capella, J. N., 133, 142

Carey,

J.

W., 9, 10, 1 8, 45, 46, 50, 55,

177,

190

Casey, M., 187, 189

Cawelti, J. G., 165, 174

Chance,

J.,

165,

174

Charity, A., 10, 18, 142

Coffey, S., 11, 18

Coghlan,

D. J., 77, 82, 91

Cohen,

H.,

189

n

,

190

Coleman,

R.,

169,

174

Connery,

T. B.,

136,

142

Conquergood, D., 128, 129, 142

Corrigan, D. H., 173n , 174

Countryman, K., 105, 106

Courtright, J., 187, 190

Crawford,

N., 43, 55

Cressey,

P. G., 27, 38 ,

148-150,

161

Cresswell,

J. W., 190

Crigler, A. N ., x, x, 218,

225

Cronkhite, G., 181, 191

Culver, C., 133, 142

Curran , J., 42, 55

D

Daily,

K., 37, 38

Danesi,

M ., 219, 220, 224

Darsey, J., 178, 190

Davenport, L.,

130, 132,

142

Davis,

A . F., 161

DeFleur, M. L, 214, 222, 224

Degooyer,

D.,

187,

189

Demon, F., 217 ,224

Denzin, N. K., 48–52, 55, 56, 64, 72

Dewey,

J., 7, 9, 18

Dicken Garcia, H., 43, 55

Dionne, Jr., E. J., 9, 18

Dominick,

J. R.,

112, 116, 117 , 125, 213 ,

215-223,

2 25

Dotson, J., 69, 72

Dunn, T., 187, 189

Durham, M. G., 130, 142

Dyer, B., 7 1 , 7 2

Edgley,

C .,

112,

12 4

Elliott, D., 133, 142

Elwood, W., 186, 190

Emery, E., 44, 55

Emery,

M., 44, 55

Emmers-Sommers ,

T.,

187,

189

Entman, B ., 2 1 7 , 2 2 4

Entman, R. M., 4, 9, 18

Erickson,

E, 68, 70, 72

Et tema,

J., 53, 55

E t t ema . J .

S., 130, 142

Etzioni,

A .,

215 ,

224

Euben, R J., 50, 55

Eveland, Jr.,

W. R , 37, 38

Fallows, J., 9, 18

Faris, R. E. L,

160n,

161

Fedler, E, 130, 132, 1 42

Fern, E. E, 77, 91

Fielder, V.D., 76, 85, 91

Fielding,

J. L.,

112 ,

124

Fielding, N. G., 112, 124

Fischer,

M. M. J.,

128,

143

Fisher, W , 177, 1 90

Fiske, M ., 109-113, 118, 124

Fitch, K., 178, 190

Flick,

U, 48, 55

Flint, L., 43, 55

FloresJ.G., 78, 91

Folkerts.J., 2 1 8 , 2 2 4

Fontana, A. , 77, 7 8 , 9 1

Ford, R, 159, 161, 200, 21 2, 214, 216, 22 2,

224

Former,

R. S., 42, 43, 55

Foster, R, 60, 61 ,72

Foucault ,

M., 9, 18, 50, 55,

189,

190

Frankland, J., 76, 80, 81,86, 91

FreyJ.H,

7 7 ,

7 8 , 9 1

Frey,

L., 179, 190, 216, 218, 223, 224

Frey,

L. R., 163-165, 174

Friedland, L, 213, 222-225

Friedland, L. A., 10, 19, 24, 39, 147, 160, 161

Friedman,

R,

179, 190, 216, 218, 223,

224

Friedman,

R G.,

163-165,

174

Fuller, L,

187,

190

Gall, J., 61, 68, 72

Gall,

M .,

61 ,68 ,

72

Gamble, D., 128, 142

G



AUTHOR I N D E X

229

Gans, H.J., 133, 142

Gassaway,

B.,

138,

143

Gay, L. R., 215, 224

Geertz,

C., 25, 38,

128, 131,

142

German,

K.,

1.87,

190

Gibbons, W, 43, 45, 55

Gibbs, Q, 2 0 3 , 2 1 2

Gibbs,

G. K., 113, 124

Gibbs,

S . , 2 1 6 , 2 2 4

Gillham,

B., 60, 64, 68, 72

Glaser, B. G., 120, 124, 128, 130, 142

Glasser,

T., 53, 55

Glasser, T. L., 10, 18, 53, 55,

131,

142

Gle nn, J . M.,

38n,

38

Goffman, E., 183, 190

Gold, R., 129, 142

Gold,

R. L,

128, 132,

142

Goldman, A., 54, 55

Goldstein, 2 2 1 , 2 2 4

Gollin, A. E., 110, 124

Gomm, R., 60, 61, 72

Goudreau, R., 89, 92

Graber,

D. A., 4, 18

Graff,

H. E, 49, 55

Greenberg,

J .,

208, 209,

21 2

Greenwood, D., 82, 83, 91

G u o , Z., 37, 38

H

Haas,

T., 71, 72

Habermas, J., 9, 18, 50, 56

Haley,

A., 95, 106

Haller, B., 187, 190

Hamil ton , D., 61, 69, 73

Hammers ley , M., 60, 61, 72, 128, 129, 141

Harding,

S.,

130,

142

Harmon,

W .,

173n, 174, 213, 2 1 4 ,

224

Harrington, W., 136, 141, 142

Har t ,

R.,

181, 183, 184, 188,

190

Harwood,

R. C., 151, 152, 159, 160n, 161,

2 14 , 2 1 5 ,

223,

22 4

Henning,

A., 43, 45, 56

Herbst , S., 224

Herzog, H., 59, 72

Hetr ick , J. , 159, 161

H i n d m a n ,

E. B., 141, 142

Holma n , C. H.,

173

n

, 174, 213, 214,

224

Hosti ,

O .,

183,

190

Holst i , O.K., 215 ,

2 24

Hoopes, J., 94–9 7, 100-102, 106

Hsia, H.J., 117, 124

Huberman, A. M., 120, 125, 216, 218,

223,

224

Huxman,

S. S.,

116, 124, 220,

224

I

lorio, S. H., 37, 38, 95,

106, 116, 124, 220,

224

Iser, W., 164, 174

Ivie,

R.,

179,

190

lyengar, S., x, x

Jamieson, K. H., 133, 142

Janesick, Y ., 181, 183, 190

Jenkins, C., 71, 72

Jensen,

K. B., 7, 18

Jick, T., 183, 190

Johnson, D., 102, 106

Junker , B., 129, 142

Jus t , M . R., x, x,

218,

225

K

Kaily,

K ., 2 2 2 , 224

Kang, N., 147, 161

Kellogg, P. U., 32, 38

Kendall , RL, 109-113, 118, 124

Kennedy, G., 166

f

, 169, 171, 173

n

, 174,

2 1 3 , 2 1 4 , 2 1 7 , 2 1 8 , 2 2 2 , 2 2 4

Keyton,] . , 128, 129, 132, 142

Kirksey, R ., 71,72

Knaus,

C,

187,

191

Knodel,

J., 79, 92

Kohut ,

A .,

121,

124

Kostyu , R E., 130, 132, 142

Kovach,

B., 130, 137, 142

Koven, S., 32, 38

Kramer,

M.,

136, 137, 142,

143

Kreps,

G., 179, 190, 216, 218, 223, 224

Kreps, G. L., 163-165, 174

Krippendorff, K.,

163,

174

Krueger,

R . A. ,

77-81,92

Kvale , S.,

136,

143

Labaw,

P. J., 118, 124

Lambeth , E. B., 85, 92,

169, 170, 173n,

1 7 4 , 2 1 6 , 2 2 1 , 2 2 4

Lance,

D., 95, 96, 107

J

L



230

AUTHOR INDEX

Landis, S., 82, 92

Lazarsfeld, E R, 111, 124

LeDuc, D. R., 219,225

Leeds-Hurwitz, W., 177, 189n, 191

Lelyveld,]., 16, 18

Lesch, C. L, 128, 129, 143

Levin, M., 82, 83, 91

Lichtenberg, J., 45, 56

Lincoln, Y. S., 48, 49,

51,55,

56

Lindlof,

T. R.,

111, 112, 124, 128, 143, 223,

224

Lippmann,

W., 9,

18,44,56

Liska.J., 181, 191

Lofland.J. , 136,

143

Lofland, L. H., 136, 143

Loving, B ., 2 1 9 , 2 2 5

M

MacDonald, B., 44, 45, 56

MacDonald, J.,

81 ,91

Mannheim, K., 9, 18, 130, 143

Manzella , J. C., 174

Marcus, G. E., 128, 143

Maso,

I. ,

112,

124

Mathews, D., 88, 92

McAfee, N., 88, 92

McAllister, R., 182, 191

McCombs, M . E. , 1 1 4 , 1 1 5 , 1 2 5

McCracken, G.,

112, 118,

124

McCrehan,

F, 214, 215, 223, 224

McDevitt,

M., 138, 143

McKeown, B., 163, 174

McKinney, M ., 187, 191

McLeod,].

M., 37, 38, 160, 161

McMull in , R., 98, 107

Mead, G. H., 7, 19

Meckler, A. M., 98, 107

Merriam, S., 60, 64, 68, 72

Merritt,

D., 9, 10, 19, 69, 73, 76, 92, 216,

224

Merton, R. K., 78, 92,

109, 110, 112, 113,

118,

124

Metzler ,

K .,

113,

124

Me ye r, R , 5 , 6 , 8 , 1 9 , 21 8 , 22 1 ,2 25

M eyer, P. E., 85, 92, 169, 173n, 174, 22 1 ,

22 4

Miles,

M . B.,

120, 125, 216, 218, 223,

224

Miller, D. L, 7, 19

Mills, C. W., 47, 56

Mishler,

E. G.,

118,

125

Moen, D. R., 166/, 169, 171, 173n, 174,

2 1 3 , 2 1 4 , 2 1 7 , 2 1 8 , 2 1 9 , 2 2 2 ,

224

Mon ge au ,

P.,

1 77 , 190,

191

Morgan, D. L,

77-79,

81, 92, 111, 112, 125

Morris,]. L, 169-173n, 1 7 4 , 2 1 5 , 2 1 8 , 2 2 2 ,

223 ,225

Morrissey, C. T., 98, 107

Mulhal l ,

S., 52, 56

Murphy ,

L., 44, 56

Murphy , P., 189, 191

N

Nathan,

R, 112, 125

N e u m a n ,

W. R., x, x,

218 ,

225

O

O l t h u i s . J . H., 52, 56

P

Palmer,

V, 29, 39

Park, R. E. , 7, 1 9 , 2 9 , 3 3 , 3 5 , 3 9

Par t l e t t , M., 61, 69, 73

Paterno,

S. E,

113 ,

125

Patterson,

G. H., 45, 56

Pat ton , M., 60, 64, 65, 73

Paynter, B., 71,72

Pepper, B., 187, 191

Pere:, E.G., 138,

143

Perks,

R., 98, 107

Peters, J. D., 10, 19

Peterson,

E. E. ,

1 1 2 ,

125

Petheram, B., 44, 45, 56

Phil ipsen,

G.,

178, 188,

191

Pippert, W., 46, 56

Pl au t , T. S., 82, 92

Poindexter,

P. M.,

114, 115,

125

Polk ingho rne, D., 177 , 183, 189n, 191

Pondillo, B., 147 , 161

Pool,

I. S., 9, 19

Portell i ,

A ., 103, 107

Poster,

M., 4, 19

Pott er , W . J ., 1 1 2 , 1 25 ,21 6 ,2 25

Preiss,

R .,

1 7 7 ,

189

Priest,

S.,

186,

191

Punch , M., 133, 134, 143

Purcel l , E. A., 44, 56

P u t n a m , R., 9, 19, 8 2 , 9 1



A U T H O R I N D E X

231

P u t n a m ,

R. D., 87, 91, 92

Q

Quine, W. V., 44, 56

R

Rackh am, J .,

166/, 173n, 174,

215-219,

2 2 2 , 2 2 5

Ranly,

D.,

166f, 169, 171, 173n, 174, 213,

2 1 4 , 2 1 7 - 2 1 9 , 2 2 2 , 2 2 4

Rich, C., 134, 143

Richardson,

L, 49, 56

Ritchie,

D. A., 93, 95, 98-100, 102, 103,

107

Roberts,

N., 44, 55

Robson,

K., 76, 80, 81, 86, 91

Rockefeller, S. C., 50, 56

Root, M., 50, 56

Rosen, J., ix, x, 9, 10, 19, 76, 82, 92

Rosenfield, L., 179, 191

Rosenhause, S. ,

200,

212

Rosenstiel,

T.,

130, 137,

142

S

Saad,

L., 124n, 125

Sahlstein, T.,

187,

189

Salmon, C. T., 10, 18

Schaffer,

J . , 151 , 161 ,215 , 219,225

Scholz,

R., 61, 62, 70, 73

Schudson, M., 9, 19

Seaton , J., 42, 55

Seidman, L, 112, 125

Severin, J. W., 2 1 4 , 2 2 5

Shaw, C. R., 29, 39

Shilts, R.,

187,

191

Shumway,

G., 98, 107

Sims,

R ,

136,

143

Sinclair, U, 43, 56

Singleton, R., 182, 191

Sirianni, C., 10, 19, 24, 39,

213,

225

Smith, D. M., 82, 91

Smith,

L. M.,

219,

225

Sotirovic, M ., 2 2 2 , 224

Spradley,

J. E, 141, 143

Spurlock,

K.,

159,

161

Stake,

R ., 59-61,64, 69, 71,73

Stanley,

J. C.,

119,

124

Stein, M . L, 1 1 3 , 125

Still,

T.,

194,

21 2

Straits, B., 182, 191

Strauss, A. L.,

120, 124, 128,

142

Stringer, E. T., 77, 92

Sutton, S.,

177,

191

Swift, A., 52, 56

Tankard, Jr.,

J. W., 214, 225

Taylor,

C., 50, 52, 56

Teeter,

D. L., 218,

219,

224, 225

Terkel, S., 95, 107

Thomas,

D.,

163,

174

Thomas, M .,

7 6 , 8 1 , 8 6 , 9 1

Thomas, W. L, 7,

1 9 , 2 7 , 3 4 , 3 9

Thompson, J. B., 4, 19,

221 ,

225

Thompson, R, 96, 102, 103, 107, 220, 225

Thompson, R., 89, 92

Thomson, A., 98, 107

Thorson,

E., 85, 92,

169, 170, 173n, 174,

221 , 224

Thrasher, E, 27, 29, 39

Tietje,

O., 61, 62, 70, 73

Tompkins, R,

178,

191

Trevor, J., 82, 92

Tuchman, G., 9, 19, 133, 143

U

Ureneck, L , 11, 19

V

Van Maanen, J., 68, 73,

128, 143, 178,

191

W

Wagner, E.,

187,

189

Walters,

L, 186, 191

Walters,

T, 186, 191

Walzer,

M., 50, 56

Wang, H., 37, 38

W ard, H. H., 222, 225

Warhover, T,

113, 124, 216,

224

Watson, R., 223, 225

Weber,

M., 128, 143

Welleck,

R., 164, 174

Wenzl, R., 105-107

Wester, E, 112, 124

T



232

AUTHOR I N D E X

Wicker,

T.,

95, 107 Y

Wigginton, E., 95, 107

Williams,

E, 219-223, 225

Yang,

S., 37, 38

Willey,

S., 77, 80, 92

Yankelovich,

D., 9, 19, 80, 83, 92,

140,

Wimmer,

R. D.,

112, 116, 117, 125, 213,

143

215-223, 225

Yin,

R .,

60–68,

70, 73,

213 ,

225

Wing, F. E., 32, 39

Winters ,

A.,

187,

189

Wirth , L,

27, 29,

39

Witte, K .,

1 7 7 , 1 9 1

Wolf,

S., 50, 56 Zna niec ki, E, 7, 19, 27, 34, 39

Woodward,

B., 59, 72

Zuckerman,

H.,

112,

125

Wright, K., 186, 191



Subject

Index

Note: f indicates figure

A

Accuracy, 12, 43, 46, 68,

119, 130, 132,

140, 164, 180, 182, 213, 216

Addams, Jane, 30-31,

148

Allen, Dale,

69

Analysis,

viii,

71, 83

Analytic generalization, 60, 213

Analytical inference,

213

Anderson, Nels ,

27, 29, 34-36, 38, 39

Anecdote, 139,

214

Anonymity, 118, 185, 213

A

Question

of

Color,

69-72

Attribut ion, 157, 166, 213

Automated response

testing

(mobile

auto-

mated response testing instru-

ment (MARTI) , 185-186

B

Balance , 8, 9, 1 2, 72, 80, 104, 111, 129,

130-133, 137, 1 3 8 , 2 1 4 , 2 1 5

Bat ten A ward , 85, 90,

200, 201,

212 ,

214,

224

Behaviorism, 175, 181,

188 ,214

Bias,

11, 48, 96, 103, 130-132,

138,

187,

214

avoiding,

132-133

unbiased,

45, 78

Booth, Charles,

30, 148

Brack,

Richard ,

85-87

Brainstorming,

167

Brimeyer, Jack ,

200

Burgess,

Ernest, W., 7, 19, 27, 29, 30, 33,

34,

148

Bushee, Ward,

88-90

Case

studies,

ix ,

xii,

13, 14, 23, 27, 47, 59,

60, 61-65, 67-69, 137, 138,

146,

155, 165, 176, 182, 183,

188,214

Challenger, Doug,

209

Chaos

theory, 189,214

Charles F. Ke ttering Foundation, xvii,

xviii, 10, 88, 202, 203, 214

Chicago

School

emergence

of, 26

founding scholars of, 27, 28

method,

22, 23, 148

unique qualit ies

of,

23-25

model,

36, 37

of

sociology, 21

Cincinnati Enquirer,

88

Cities

decentralization

of, 33

Invasions of, 33

natural areas of, 33, 34

Civic catalyst,

214

Civic connectors,

214

Civic journalism, xiii,

x v,

xviii,

10, 23, 24,

37 , 38, 76, 84, 85, 92, 95, 100,

122,

141, 147, 151, 153, 154,

158, 169-172, 185, 193, 194,

200,

201, 204, 206, 214, 220,

221

233



234

SUBJECT

I N D E X

Civic mapping

(def ined),

145, 146

cognitive mapping, 147

conceptualizing, 147

fu tu re

of,

158–160

in contemporary journalism, 150

The

Harwood Method, 151,

152

in

practice, 152-154

in historical social research , 148-150

Key

Moments pro jec t , 154-158

Passing the Test project, 206–208

s t ruc tura l

mapping, 147, 148, 154

Coding, 120, 168, 178

Com mu ni ta r ian phi losophy, 215

Communi ty

conversation,

76, 77, 81, 86,

88, 90,

169, 170 , 215

Conclusion, 215

Confidentiality,

65, 78, 79, 1 31, 134, 170,

215

Conflict, 99, 172, 182, 215, 216

Consequences,

172

Construct validity,

64, 68, 215

Content analysis,

71,

138, 168, 17 9, 180,

183-185, 188, 215

Context ,

ix, xv, 3, 5, 10, 11, 15, 17, 21, 22,

29,

34 ,

36–38,

41, 43,

45–47,

49–51, 60, 61, 69, 72, 95,

101-103, 110, 111 , 118, 131 ,

132, 137, 150, 156, 165, 167,

176–178,

180, 182, 185,

187-189 ,203 ,215 ,216 ,218 ,223

Countryman,

Karen , Irene "Reenie",

s e e

Oral history)

D

Deduction, 25,

166, 167,

216

Detachment, 8,

12 7, 129, 130, 132, 138,

140,216

Dewar,

Helen, 168

Dewey, John, 7, 9, 10, 26, 82

Donald, David, 196–198

Drummond,

Bill,

204, 206

Error, 15, 16, 25, 148, 156, 160, 1 77 , 179,

2 0 2 , 2 1 8 , 2 2 3

Ethics,

43, 46, 51, 216

Ethnography,

vi, ix,

xii ,

13, 14, 22, 26, 37,

127-133,

135-137, 140, 146,

180, 216

Evaluation research,

138, 21 2, 217

Experiments,

10, 11, 25, 50, 51, 60, 76,

77, 82, 84, 85, 11 1, 139, 14 1,

146,

147 , 150, 154, 155 , 15 7,

178,

179, 196, 204, 21 5, 21 7,

2 1 8 , 2 2 0 , 2 2 1

Fairness,

3, 4, 217

Feature story,

68,

113, 165,

217

Fielder, Virginia Dodge, 76

Fieldwork,

7, 22, 27, 134, 197

Fishlock,

Diana,

167

Floyd, Doug,

154-155, 157

Focus groups

academic, 77-79

journalism,

79–82

methodology

of, 76

techniques, 76

Focused interview, vi, xii , 13, 14, 78,

109-117,

123, 217

F o x f i r e

Collection, 95

Framing, x, 8, 81, 85,

159, 206,

217 , 221

Freedom

of the

press,

9

Gaunt, Philip, 185

Generalization,

25, 60, 69, 71, 96,

160,

167, 2 1 3 , 21 8

Gibbs,

Cheryl,

202, 203

Goudreau, Rosemary, 88

Greenberg, John, 208,

209

H

Emic

and ettic, 68, 71, 216

Empirical research,

xii, 216

Enterprise,

45, 145, 157, 201, 206, 210, 217

story,

14, 32, 99, 116, 216

Entry points-portals,

4, 216

Epistemology, 135, 217

Hall, Doug,

209

Hard news,

68, 218

Hartnett, Barbara,

200

Harwood Method, 151-154

Harwood, Richard,

159

Hawthorne e f f e c t , 134, 21 8

Ho w

Race

is

Lived

in

America, 15, 16

F

G



SUBJECT INDEX

235

Hu ll House, 30, 31, 148

I

Impac t ,

171, 186,

218

In-depth

interview, 8, 112, 187, 219

Induc t ion , 25, 135, 175, 181,218

Interaction, 4, 7, 11, 28, 29, 78, 218

Interactive journalism, xviii, 123,

219

Interactive media environment, 4 , 5

Interpretive

journal ism

and public

life, 51–53

social science, 51

sufficiency,

46

t r iangula tion, 48, 49

validity, 47, 48

Interviews

(see

also Oral History)

focused, 110

advantages of, 114, 115

aims of, 111

analyzing, 120, 121

criteria

for, 111,

118

disadvantages of, 115, 116

diversity

of

responses,

119

dura t ion

of, 119

early use of, 110–112

planning

a

project,

116

ensuring validity,

119

preparing for interviews, 117, 118

purpose of the research, 116, 117

techniques of, 113, 114

street, 109, 185,

186

Interviewing, ix, xiii, 7, 8, 17, 48, 93, 95,

98 ,

100, 104, 109, 111-113, 115,

118, 135, 151, 157, 169, 185,

21 7

Malinowski's research

in, 128

objectivity in, 129, 130

reporting,

134-136

techniques

in,

128, 129, 140,

141

textual analysis in , 163, 164, 172,

173

attr ibutes of, 171, 172

of civic journalism , 169-172

of

docu men ts, 168, 169

of

news writing, 166,

167

purposes of, 164, 165

types of, 165

visual

forms of, 166f

writing,

137

objectivity in , xii, 6, 8, 9,

43-46

university education in, 8

utilizing qualitative

methods

in, 14, 15

Journalist ic

code

of str ic t objectivity, 6,

8, 9

K

Kaylor, Steve, 152, 153, 160

Kellogg, Paul,

U, 31, 32

Kennedy, George, 170

Kirkeberg,

Ma x ,

198–200

Koehn, Ken, 152, 153

Ku lcinski, Jerry, 194, 195

Lawrence Journal-World, 85

Lazarsfeld,

Paul, 110,

111

Life

history,

34, 93, 95, 103, 104, 219

M

Jacobi, Peter,

167

Journalism

education,

5, 6, 11

the beginning of, 41, 42

ethnographic ,

128


covert observation, 133

ethical considerations of, 129,

132-134

avoiding bias, 132, 133

confidentiality, 134

objectivity

as verification, 132

Mahoney, Evan, 166

Marketing research, 112, 219

McBride, Kelly,

158

Mead, George Herbert, 7, 26, 28

Media ethics, 43-46

concerns over,

43

inquiry into, 43, 44

textbooks in, 43

Merritt, Davis "Buzz",

9, 10, 69, 73 , 76,

151,

171

Merton,

Robert, 78, 109–113, 114, 118

Miller, Bill, 168

Moral Literacy, 53, 54

L

J



236

SUBJECT

I N D E X

Morality,

49, 50

Multiple method(s), 188, 190

N

Nakao, Annie,

198

National Issues Forums (N IF), 88

N a t u r a l

S ciences, 6, 44, 46, 175, 176, 219

Neutrali ty, 46, 49, 50, 129, 130, 137, 21 9

News media technologies

development of, 8

N e w s organizations

and communities, 193, 194, 210–212

Earlham

College,

Dayton

(Ohio)

Daily

N e w s , and the

Palladium

Item,

202 ,

203

Journal Star, B radley Univers ity , and

Illinois Central College,

200,

201

New Hampshire Publ ic Radio, Uni-

versity of New

Hampshi re

Survey Center,

New

Hampshi re

Center

for

Public Policy

Studies,

N ew

England Center for Civic

Life,

The New

Hampshire

Historical Society, Leader-

ship

N ew

Hampshire,

208-210

San Francisco Examiner and San

Francisco S tate U niversity,

198-200

Savannah M orning N e w s and Georgia

Sou thern Univers i ty ,

196–198

The News Star , Lou isiana Tech U ni-

versity,

and

Grambling

State University, 206–208

The Oakland Post and the University

of California-Berkeley,

204-206

The S un N e w s and Coastal Carolina

University, 201,

202

Wisconsin

State Journal and the Uni-

versity of

Wisconsin-

Madison, 194-196

News reporting, viii, xii , 10, 173, 174, 201,

21 3

traditional, 113, 114

Newpapers

in

Britain,

42

in the United States , 42

Novelty, 172

N u l l hypothesis , 66, 219 , 223

Nut graph, 136, 166,

219

O

Objectivity, vii, xii, 6, 8, 9, 41, 43, 44, 46,

49, 50, 54, 105, 1 27 , 129, 130,

131, 132, 137, 140, 215

O'Connor, Trisha, 2 02

Ontology,

219

Operat ional izat ion,

180,

220

Opinion,

44, 48,

2 1 9 ,

2 20

Oral History

(defined) ,

94


choosing

a

topic,

95, 96

controversial

ques t ions , 98, 99

credibility

of ,

102,

103

drawbacks of, 95

interviews, 97-99

analyzing da ta , 101, 102

recording, 99, 100

t echn iques ,

100, 101

of

Co untry m an, Ka ren Irene "Reenie",

103-106

research,

97, 98

sampling, 96, 97

O ral H istory Association, 95

O wens, R eginald, 206,

208

Park,

Robert , 7, 8, 10,

27-29,

33, 34, 35,

148

Partic ipant observation, 12, 13, 22, 27, 36,

59, 63, 64, 136, 180, 216, 220

Peck, Chris, 154-157

Personal concerns,

xi,

120, 121,

220

Pew Center fo r Civic Journal ism, xiii, x viii,

10, 84, 85,

147, 151 , 153, 154,

193, 200, 203, 204, 206, 21 1 ,

214,

220

Phenomenology, 175, 178, 181, 188,

220

Political issue(s), 14, 114, 145, 187, 220,

2 2 1

Postm odernism , 176, 189,

220

Power in the Blood: A Handbook o n AIDS,

Politics, an d Communicat ion, 186

Precis ion journal ism, 5, 6, 46, 196, 221

Pre-test/Post-test , 118, 177, 220, 221

P



SUBJKCT I N D E X

237

Prominence,

171

Proximity,

171

Publ ic

journalism,

ix, xi,

xiii,

xvi,

xvii,

24,

76,

82, 94, 169,

171, 172, 213,

2 1 5 , 2 2 1

Public opinion, 6, 9, 70, 114,

120-122, 124,

159, 184, 189,

221

polls, 6, 114, 120

Public sphere,

4, 17, 35, 221

Puli tzer prizes,

15, 69, 95, 136, 221

Purposive sample,

117,

2 21

R

Randall, Jim, 196, 197

Random

sample,

117, 187,

223

Reliability, 25, 63, 65,

103, 104, 106, 115,

119, 181, 215, 221

Replicat ion,

62, 66, 132, 177, 178, 182, 22 1

Repor t

of the

Commission

on

Freedom

of

the

Press (Hutchins Commis-

sion) , 45, 218

Research methods

action, 77, 82, 83, 91

case study (overview of), 23-25, 59-61

analyzing the evidence, 65-67

collecting

the

data, 63-65

embedded,

62

formula t ing

the

research questions,

61

holistic, 62

l i teral replication,

62

mul t ip le

design,

61, 62

single

design, 61

wri t ing

the

report,

67-69

qualitative, 6–8,12, 21, 46, 47, 178, 179

applying, 14, 15

l imitat ions of, 179

observation, 12, 13

par t ic ipan t observation, 13

par t i c ipa t ion ,

13

procedures ,

180

versus

quantitative,

176-181

quantitative,

6, 21, 176, 179, 180

high fear

messages, 1 77

Power in the

Blood, 186-187

secondary,

97, 223

Respondents ,

34, 60,

114, 115, 118-120,

122-124,

134, 139, 140, 197,

209,

213, 215, 219, 221,

223

Rhetor ica l

criticism,

180, 183, 188, 222

Rosenhause, Sharon, 198

Russell

Sage Foundation, 31–32

Sample/Sampling,

60, 70, 96, 97, 115,

117,

119, 124, 169, 171, 172, 179,

180,

184, 185,

197, 215, 218,

220-223

Savannah Morning News

backyard barbeques,

75

Vision

2010

project,

83-85, 197

Schweitzer,

John,

200

Sensationalism, 43, 222

Smith, Andy,

209

Social capital, 87, 91, 154, 222

Social responsibility (theory),

2 22

Social

survey

movement,

31, 32

Sources, 3, 14, 23, 29, 34, 43, 54, 63, 64,

68, 75, 80, 81, 84, 85, 88, 97,

98,

100,

103-105,

113,

120,

122, 127, 129, 131-133, 135,

136, 138, 145, 149, 151,

153-155,

158, 159,

164,

165,

168-170,

186, 187,

195, 203,

206,

213, 215,

217 ,

222,

224

Spur lock, Kathy, 206, 208

Stakeholders,

86, 157, 163, 168,

172,

206,

222

Standpoint epistomology,

130

Statistical inference,

25, 222

Still, Tom, 194, 195

Stowe,

Harold,

201,

202

Struc tura l functionalism,

2 22

Subjectivity, 130, 222

Surveys,

6, 25,

29-33,

36, 38, 60, 70,

77–81, 91,

100,110,

114,116,

120, 122, 139, 140, 179, 180,

184, 188, 196-198, 200, 203,

206, 208, 209, 211, 215, 220,

221, 223

Suwyn,

Daniel, 75,

83-85

Symbolic

interaction,

7, 28, 142

Tapping Civic Life, 151, 152, 160

Technology

in the

late

19th

century,

42

news

media,

8

S

T



238

SUBJECT I N D E X

Terkel, Studs,

95

Textual analysis

(see also

Journalism), vi, xii,

13, 79,

163, 164, 165, 166, 166f,

167–169,

172, 173,

223

The

Hobo,

34–36

The Moral Foundations of

Professional

Ethics,

U

University

of

Chicago,

x, 7-10, 21-23, 26,

27,

33, 35, 36, 148, 155, 165,

218

Documents

Sharon Hartin Iorio-Qualitative Research in Journalism_ Taking It to the Streets (Lea's Communication Series) (2003)