Dr Alasdair Jones Col.8.08 and Dr Elena Gonzalez-Polledo Col.7.07

The course is available to PhD students in departments such as Media & Communications and Sociology. Also available where regulations permit and with permission of the teacher responsible.

Introductory course on qualitative methods (e.g. MY421, MY521 or MC4M1) recommended as pre-requisite or co-requisite.

Most qualitative research is in the form of written or spoken texts, produced through interviews and field notes or collection and analysis of documents. Recently qualitative researchers have become interested in ways of capturing and documenting other kinds of data and other dimensions of social life. This course will examine methods for collecting and analysing data which are not primarily textual or linguistic, and how these can be integrated into qualitative research.   Lectures will cover key topics such as time and memory; space, place and mobile methods; digital research and online environments; and using visual, audio and other sensory data.  Key example readings will be assigned, discussed and assessed each week.  Seminars provide practical skills through hands on exercises of data collection and analysis, closely tied with the lecture content.  These skills will be developed further in a final small research project on a topic of the students’ choosing to be submitted at the beginning of summer term.

The course aims to understand how qualitative methods can be applied to non-traditional data and how to address traditional methodological concerns such as rigour and representativeness. The course is aimed at students who are considering one or more of these elements as part of their dissertation research design and/or who are interested in gaining more advanced skills in qualitative research.

20 hours of lectures and 9 hours of seminars in the LT.

Week 6 will be a Reading Week during which students work independently on their formative assignment.

Seminar activities will receive in-class feedback. A brief proposal for final summative coursework (c. 1000 words) should be submitted and will receive formative feedback and guidance.

Note: No one text covers the whole course.

Pink, S. (2009) Doing Sensory Ethnography, London: Sage.

Bull, M. and Back, L. (eds) (2003) Auditory Culture Reader, London: Berg.

Rose, G. (2006) Visual Methodologies, 2nd ed, London: Sage.

Massey, D. (2005) For Space, London: Sage.

Adam, B. (1995) Timewatch: The Social Analysis of Time, Cambridge: Polity

Press.

Project (100%, 7000 words).

One 5500-7000 word research project related to the course material, on a topic selected by the student (100%).