Abstract

Qualitative mass communication research has social concerns and uses whose possibilities have scarcely begun to be realized. This form of research need not restrict itself to a subdivision of a specialist discipline, but can contribute to a sustained, critical development of reflections and conversations about media that are widespread in everyday life. Thus, qualitative work serves to establish contexts in which a thoughtful awareness of current media practices may develop. Such work may include an exploration of the procedures by which we, the audience-public, are represented and of the alternative ways in which the different interests and purposes of diverse social and cultural groups might be communicated in a public form. To put on record means more than putting findings into scholarly debate. If the research community is to become at least in some ways the community’s research, then this work must constantly assess its own sources, contexts, and spheres of influence.