Researching Culture

The growth of interdisciplinary cultural studies poses new challenges for the process of doing research. This textbook introduces the range of approaches and methodological tools available for undertaking critical research, and shows how cultural studies transcend traditional divisions between qualitative and quantitative methods and between social sciences and humanities. `This clearly written, well-illustrated text satisfies a long-standing need for an authoritative account of the methodology of cultural studies. It will become required reading on many courses′ - David Silverman, Goldsmiths College, University of London The growth of interdisciplinary cultural studies poses new challenges for the process of doing research. In this textbook, Pertti Alasuutari introduces the range of approaches and methodological tools available for undertaking critical research, and shows how cultural studies transcend traditional divisions between qualitative and quantitative methods and between social sciences and humanities. He draws upon three main sources: the qualitative traditions of sociological and anthropological research, including ethnography and symbolic interactionism; methods for the study of language and interaction - semiotics, narrative analysis, conversation analysis and discourse analysis; and quantitative analysis in terms of its relevance to data produced by research on culture.