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The importance of ethnography in media research

It could be argued that some mass communication research methods constrain the audience to an entity that is empowered by the media, and not something that is actually enriching it. Taking art and taste' as an example, when trying to differentiate between high and low culture, good and bad taste, one must look at and evaluate such issues as social context, political outlook, and ideology. One must appreciate that the text can be interpreted differently based on an infinite set of social and cultural positioning. The issue becomes not whether an object is good or bad, but how it functions in society.' (Bird, 2003, pg 119) Bird explains, as we are analyzing a work of art, we need to consider its context in a particular time, place, socio-political structure and so on' (Bird, 2003, pg 119) The problem therefore is that some earlier mass communication theories localize meaning between the text and the receiver and not necessarily view culture as empowering the media by using it as raw material to symbolically fashion identity. Paul Willis, through his ethnographic research, would argue this is an important concern in understanding what culture is in regard to everything else.

Willis' belief in ethnography as vital to understand everyday lived cultures' comes down to that of contextualization. In television consumption Morley and Silverstone (Morley and Silverstone, 1990) divided their research into two contextual frameworks, namely the domestic and the technological but as Ang discusses, they rightly state these contextual frameworks cannot be separated from the wider context of social, political and economic realities.' (Ang, 1996, Pg 73) In essence Ang claims that Morley and Silverstone have a lack of perspective (the confusing consequence is that they seem somewhat unclear as to how to articulate the plethora of other contexts they theoretically envisage' (Ang, 1996, pg 73)) because as Jonathan Culler states: Context is boundless, so accounts of context never provide full determinations of meaning.' (Culler, 1990. pg 128) Therefore, Willis' understanding of ethnographic research leads him to believe that it better articulates everyday society because the researcher is immersed in the ever changing contexts of the receiver. What such research does is offer a means to overcome the artificiality of mass communication research since it's based on naturally occurring data.' (Ruddock, 2001, pg 128) . Ruddock claims, one place to begin is to identify regular patterns


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The importance of ethnography in media research

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