Media analysis

Area	Usability and services
title	Market, opinion and social research, including insights and data analysis - terms and service requirements
Latest edition	2019-02
ISO	-

Area	Usability and services
title	Print media analyzes - terms and service requirements
Latest edition	2009-01
ISO	-

The media analysis is a research field of communication and media science that deals with the medium at from different perspectives (z. B. Starting from the recipient).

In order to give a rough overview of the possibilities offered by media analysis methods , some methodological approaches are presented. For this purpose, various theories will be briefly outlined, which are essential for understanding the analytical methods based on them. The various approaches to media analysis differ not only in terms of their methodological approach, but above all in their epistemological backgrounds. Your understanding should serve as the basis for differentiating the different methodological approaches.

Hermeneutics

The subject of hermeneutics, which arose with humanism at the beginning of the 16th century, was initially the content of the Bible. Until then, their truthfulness was considered to be concrete. The theologians therefore tried to create a methodical set of rules that should restrict the finding of biblical truth and - above all - the possible interpretations to the one and only true interpretation. This view was clearly distinguished from the world of ideas of the Middle Ages, in which the idea of the so-called fourfold sense of writing in the Bible predominated. These explanations make it clear that when dealing with texts, the understanding of truth and thus questions of power always play a decisive role. While hermeneutics at the end of the Middle Ages was still entirely in the service of maintaining ecclesiastical power, the goal of the hermeneutics of the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey in the 19th century was above all to distinguish the understanding humanities from a purely explanatory natural science . From a positivist- sociological perspective, Dilthey saw the process of interpretation as a closed process that is independent of the recipient himself and that is based on a superordinate “objective spirit” and is therefore independent of the historical context . Hans-Georg Gadamer , a student of Martin Heidegger , explains in his famous book “Truth and Method” (cf. GADAMER 1975) that the process of understanding is embedded in historically changeable circumstances and thus takes into account the respective horizon of the act of knowledge got to. This horizon is shaped by previous knowledge and is expanded or corrected by receiving the object of investigation. With the interpretation, there is a new understanding of the research subject. The dilemma of the circular causality between knowledge and interpretation referred Gadamer as " hermeneutical circle ". Hermeneutics is always a crossing of horizons, which, however, happens with its own predefined terms. Starting from Heidegger, hermeneutics extended its subject area to the entire spectrum of understanding knowledge by emphasizing that any form of knowledge must ultimately be based on interpretation.

Action-oriented media analysis

Action-oriented media analysis is not a firmly established school of media analysis. It is listed here because it approaches the interpretation of media content from a relatively young perspective based on action theory . With this type of access to an interpretation, the central concern is to analyze and explain the author's actions. Put simply, find out why the author writes what he writes. To reveal the motives, there are various approaches based on action theory that can complement each other. In the purposeful theories of action, the focus is on the author's orientation towards utility, a kind of homo oeconomicus .

The more norm-oriented directions of action theory assume that it is not only the mere calculation of benefits that is of interest, but also the applicable cultural values and social norms and the reproduction of the socio-cultural world by homo sociologicus .

From an understanding-oriented perspective of action theory, the author of media content can be seen as homo communicans . The author's actions are viewed as dependent on his biographical context of experience, which means that this perspective shows certain parallels to Gadamer's approach .

Ultimately, very similar problems arise for a media analysis informed by action theory as in hermeneutics. The search for an understanding of action finds its epistemologically blind spot in the impossibility of merging horizons. The dilemma corresponds to what Gadamer called the hermeneutic circle as early as 1975. The interpreter's wealth of experience increases in the sense of broadening his horizons, but it will never be congruent with that of the author.

Recipient-oriented media analysis

In recipient-oriented media analysis, the situation of the viewer is made the object of research. It is therefore not so much a media analysis in the true sense of the word, but rather a kind of media impact research .

Based on the statement that every perception is related to an inner attitude of the perceiver, which arises from worldview , character attitude, knowledge and experience, Lippert concludes that “the meaning of media messages and their effects must be examined in a recipient-oriented manner” ( LIPPERT 1987 p. 73) In order to examine the individual reactions of the recipient and their conditions, the following basic questions can be asked:

What importance do the recipients attribute to the media product?
How are contexts of meaning and meaning reconstructed by the recipient?
How is the current reception situation seen and interpreted as a meaningful reality?

Lippert summarizes the fundamental influences on perception as follows: "The situation-specific conditionality, the social boundary conditions and the person-relatedness of receptive actions are the reference points of all attempts to make statements about the effects of medially conveyed messages." ( LIPPERT 1987 p. 71) The recipient / the recipient so the subject is the focus of research. Research on the effects of media does not attempt to examine 'reality', but rather the symbolism carried out through the structures of perception, thinking and feeling , which appears for the individual in images and language. By fixating on the individual, an epistemological contradiction is only apparently circumvented. Firstly, an objective reality is assumed which, although it cannot be unclouded, is present as the basis of all perceptions. Second, as a researcher, one can only approach the recipient's perception in the sense of the hermeneutical circle. A horizon merging can of course never take place here either.

Discourse analysis

Incompatible with the above approaches apprehension of reality selects the (de-) constructivist imaginary discourse analysis . Put simply, it is the tool of discourse theory ; in its main features the work of a single man: Michel Foucault . In the course of the wave of constructivism , feminism and multiculturalism , which are closely related to discourse theory, and the associated march of the '68 generation ' through the institutions, discourse theory has gained great importance in the context of qualitative social research . Foucault was interested in modernization as a process of discipline . To this end, he examined the language of various social authorities that have the authority to define what is true. Foucault's interest in knowledge revolves around the amalgamation of language and power. For him, language is the central constructive element of social reality and not the image of a reality that is not directly perceptible but is present in the background, which MAYRING and MERTEN, for example, postulate (see e.g. MAYRING 1996, p. 9 ff. And MERTEN 1983 , P. 49). Ultimately, this means that only what we can express in language exists for us. Jacques Derrida , the founder of deconstructivism , formulates this as follows: “there is nothing outside the text”. The regimes of the language as territories are marked by the borders than SBAs Foucault calls discourse . Its analysis method is comparable to a kind of remote sensing. Only with a certain distance, an enormous overview and by filtering out the background noise, the normal talk, is it possible to recognize the structure of the discourse. The discourses represent the set of rules of language and are associated with “exclusion mechanisms ” ( DIAZ-BONE 2002, p. 83). You determine what is said how and, above all, what must not be said. Discourse analysis is not devoted to examining text from the author's point of view, nor does it research the formal structures of the text. She tries to understand the meanings that arise through the combination of the various elements of the discourse. Discourse analysis thus asks about the “rules of the production of statements” ( DIAZ-BONE 2002, p. 79) In Germany, Jürgen Habermas in particular helped shape the concept of discourse. In contrast to Foucault, he sees discourses as “rational and power-neutral” ( JÄGER 2001, p. 127) entities and thus assigns a different level of effectiveness to language itself. Unlike Foucault, language is not the fundamentally structuring element of our social world. In the context of media analysis, Habermass's concept of discourse unfolds fewer opportunities for practical investigation and should therefore not be analyzed further at this point.

Based on Foucault , various approaches to discourse analysis have emerged, some of which are combined with action-theoretical and text-analytical methods. Discourse analysis as a uniform method does not exist due to the different theoretical orientations and the different world views of the discourse analysts behind it .

Norms

DIN EN 15707 defines the vocabulary for the service requirements for media research in the field of print media. Many of the definitions of relevant terms are based on specifications in ISO 20252: 2006.

literature

Rainer Diaz-Bone : cultural world, discourse and lifestyle. A discourse-theoretical extension of Bourdieu's theory of distinction , Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2002, ISBN 3-8100-3526-2

Andreas Dörner, Ludgera Vogt: Media Studies and Social Sciences: A plea for practical research cooperation using the example of ethnographically embedded media analysis , In: MEDIENwissenschaft, H. 3/15, Schüren Verlag, 2015, pp. 325-340, full text

Hans-Georg Gadamer : Truth and Method. Basic features of a philosophical hermeneutics , (Collected Works; Vol. 1,1), Mohr, Tübingen 1975, ISBN 3-16-145613-0

Maarten A. Hajer: The Politics of Environmental Discourse. Ecological Modernization and the Policy Process , University Press, Oxford 1997, ISBN 0-19-829333-X

Thomas Heinze: Media Analysis. Approaches to cultural and social criticism , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1990, ISBN 3-531-22159-0

Andreas Hepp: Cultural Studies and Media Analysis. An introduction , VS, Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft, Opladen 1999, ISBN 3-531-23184-7

Siegfried Jäger : Critical Discourse Analysis. An introduction , Unrast-Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-89771-732-8

Reiner A. Keller u. a. (Ed.): Handbook of Social Science Discourse Analysis , Leske + Budrich, Opladen

1. - Theories and Methods , 2001, ISBN 3-8100-2851-7

Heinrich Lippert: Recipient-oriented media impact research. Foundation and model of a recipient-oriented media analysis , self-published, Münster 1987, ISBN 3-9800678-2-3

Philipp Mayring: Introduction to Qualitative Social Research. A guide to qualitative thinking , Beltz, Weinheim 2002, ISBN 3-407-25252-8

Klaus Merten : content analysis. Introduction to theory, method and practice , Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1983, ISBN 3-531-11442-5