CRJS 3005 In-Class Test 2 Study Guide

(WIP for last lecture)

Unobtrusive Methods

Research techniques used to collect data without interacting with, disturbing, or alerting the subjects being studied.

Focus on analyzing existing evidence, such as physical traces, records, or behaviour observed from a distance, preventing the subject’s behaviour from changing that are common in surveys or interviews.

Manifest Content

Literal, surface-level, & consciously recalled content of a dream, text, or communication, as opposed to its hidden, symbolic meaning.

Latent Content

Hidde, symbolic, & unconscious meaning behind dreams, fantasies, or communications. Represents repressed desires, fears, or psychological urges that require interpretation to be understood.

Folk Devils

A person/group portrayed in media & culture as deviant, outsiders, or a threat to societal values. Though most of the time they are not as bad as they were exaggerated to be.

Moral Panics

Issue that was overexaggerated in public reactions, but not really bad.

Ethnographic Content Analysis

Integrated, reflexive, and iterative method used to analyze documents by combining qualitative interpretation with quantitative tracking of themes, patterns, and meanings.

Moves beyond mere counting to discover how documents shape, and are shaped by, social contexts, focusing on discovering, describing, and understanding context.

Summative Content Analysis

Method that counts keywords and interprets their context, focusing on surface-level content (manifest). Example of this is by Mona Chalabi who highlighted that BBC disproportionately favoured Israeli victims in terms of volume and emotional weight, using terms like “murder” & “massacre” exclusively in connection with the deaths of Israelis.

Thematic Content Analysis

Concerned with the subject or theme of something, or with themes and topics in general. Example includes the video “Protests aren’t what they look like on TV”, where TV only portrays violent protestors instead of peaceful protestors, as well as more reaction than historical context.

Cultural Studies

Studies of popular culture and its representations.

Visual Sociology

Studies visual dimensions of social life, using images as both data and methods.

Postmodernism

Reality is socially constructed and subjective, favouring irony, fragmentation, and the blending of high and low culture.

Mundane Technology

Everyday, routine, and often overlooked tools, such as smartphones and kitchen appliances, that are deeply embedded in daily life. They are characterized by their normalization, user appropriation, and the ability to enhance quality of life through practical, routine, and often overlooked use.

Stigmata

Physical sign marking an individual as biologically inferior, savage and inevolved.

Atavism

Criminals are evolutionary throwbacks inferior to non-criminals.

Presentism

Practice of interpreting past visual materials through the lens of contemporary values, knowledge and perspectives.

Contextualism

Emphasizes understanding visual materials within the specific cultural, social, and political environment in which they were created.

Generic Social Process

Aspects of interaction that transcend individual situations. They include: 

• Acquiring perspectives. 

• Achieving identity. 

• Doing activity. 

• Developing relationships. 

• Experiencing emotionality. 

• Achieving linguistic fluency. 

By observing the behaviour of members within this population, researchers can identify common elements of a process that are shared across that population.

Sensitizing Concepts

Expressions used to understand the empirical world.

Institutional Ethnography

Maps how everyday activities are organized and shaped by institutional processes. Examining how local experiences are coordinated by remote, “ruling relations” such as policies, texts, and bureaucracy.

Generalizability

Extend to which research findings, data, or concepts from a specific study or sample can be applied, transferred, or extended to a larger population, different settings, or broader contexts. It measures how widely applicable research results are, often acting as a synonym for external validity.

Ethics of Unobtrusive Methods

How are the findings represented? (Whose story? Pseudonyms & discontinuous identities)

What are your own opinions about the topic?

Language and translation.m

Cyberspace, anonymity & storing data.

Offer a balanced view (not “neutral” view).

Adam Gaudry

Four principles underlying importance of researcher’s relationship with Indigenous communities: 

1. Research is grounded in, respects, and validates Indigenous world views. 

2. Research output is intended for use by Indigenous communities. 

3. Researchers are responsible to Indigenous communities for the decisions they make, and communities are the final judges of the validity and effectiveness of research projects. 

4. Research is action oriented and inspires direct action in Indigenous communities.

Discourse Analysis

Study written, spoken, or sign language in relation to its social, cultural, and political context.

Goes beyond structure to analyze how language is used in real-life situations, focusing on how language constructs meaning, shapes social practices, and influences power dynamics.

Foucauldian Discourse Analysis

Critical approach examining how language, knowledge, and power combine to construct “truths” and social realities.

Analyzes how specific ways of thinknig define what can be said, whom, and in what context, influencing social practices and subjectivies.

Discursive Power

Shaping reality, establish norms, and influence behaviour by controlling language, narratives, and framing within public or political discourse.

Rather than using physical force, it shapes what is deemed acceptable, true, or important, often determining which voices dominate debates and which are marginalized.

Medieval Society

Brutal Public Punishment.

Demonstrates absolute power to enforce absolute subjugation.

Modern Society

Normalizing Discourses

Discourse

Specific ways of thinking.

Foucaldian Genealogy

Explores the historical emergence of current truths, knowledges, and power relations.

Avoids seeking linear origins, focusing instead on discontinuities, struggles, and “subjugated knowledges” to destabilize dominant narratives and uncover how individuals are constituted as subjects, often through discursive practices and mechanisms of surveillance.

Foucauldian Problematization

Analyzes how specific behaviours, phenomena, or, say, social issues (like madness, sexuality, or delinquency) become treated as “problems” at particular historical moments.

Examines the discourse and practices that construct these issues rather than assuming they are inherently problematic.

Contextualism

Understands events or images within the specific cultural, social, and temporal environment in which they were originlally produced.

Ethnocentrism

Tendency to believe that one’s own ethnic group or society is superior to others and, thus, to use this group as the standard when evaluating other groups.

Organizational Power

Institutional Ethnography investigates this by mapping how the everyday work and experiences of individuals are coordinated, constrained, and shaped by translocal, text-based ruling relations. Instead of treating power as a top-down entity, institutional ethnography reveals it as a “socially organized” process, showing how local activities are linked to and managed by institutional, managerial, or professional practices.

Ruling Relations

The complex of administrative, managerial, and professional practices that govern, manage, and coordinate human activity. They are the “how” of power, functioning outside of local contexts yet profoundly shaping them.