Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a significantly increased interest internationally in applying qualitative research methods to the study of social and cultural processes. The turn to qualitative approaches has perhaps been especially prominent in mass communication research. Particularly during the last decade, there have appeared a number of major qualitative studies of the institutions, contents, and audiences of mass media. In the words of James Carey, the field thus has entered into “a process of making large claims from small matters: studying particular rituals, poems, plays, conversations, songs, dances, theories, and myths and gingerly reaching out to the full relations within a culture or a total way of life” (Carey, 1989: 64). The present volume, through surveying the state of the art of qualitative science as well as examining its theoretical and political implications, aims to take stock of the qualitative turn in mass communication research. Further, the Handbook is offered as a resource for the further development and application of qualitative research in the field.