Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research: Communication through mass media as the key to societal understanding and advancement

The two primary forms of research are quantitative, or positivist research, and qualitative, or interpretive research. Quantitative research begins by establishing a hypothesis that can then be quantifiably tested to prove or disprove a theory, and the design of quantitative research studies must prove (or disprove) a relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable, while at the same time ruling out other potential influences. Some examples of this type of research are:

• Surveys,
• Experiments,
• And content analyses.

In contrast to quantitative research, the qualitative approach focuses on investigating “why” something is happening. Examples of qualitative research include:

• Interviews,
• Case studies,
• And focus groups.

There are benefits to both types of research, and here we will take a deeper look into the use and effectiveness of each.

Quantitative Research

First, we will use a quanititative analysis of research represented in mass media — called “Scientists are talking, but mostly to each other: a quantitative analysis of research represented in mass media”. This particular study looked to answer three questions:

1. How many scientific papers that were published in peer-reviewed journals made it to a mainstream audience?
2. What percentage of papers were represented I the mainstream news media?
3. Since the number of papers published has increased, has the number of papers reported of increased?

To answer these questions, the study compiled all articles that referenced research, a journal finding, paper, researcher, or study, then determined which of those articles originated from a published paper by correlating those to published papers using ISI’s Web of Science. The results showed that that while there were 508,795 total science articles published in 1990, only 66 unique papers were reported on in Time and NBC News, which represents only 0.013% of the total papers published. Similar data was found from the year 2001 as well.

The results concur that current communication channels are a narrow filter, showing that research is overwhelmingly going unnoticed by the mainstream public.

This proves an important note for the scientific community and mass media. Communication is crucial in all aspects of society — including that of the scientific community. As F. Sherwood Rowland, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science stated in his address in 1993, as pointed out in the study, “We are also finding, usually with dismay, that the society which surrounds us and which has supported us quite generously in the past seems less than fully appreciative of what we see as our tremendous success.” There needs to be more effort placed on communication in all aspects of society and science, to keep knowledge alive and available to the public.

Qualitative Research

To evaluate the effectiveness of qualitative research, here is a study of the “Ethical Use of Social Media to Facilitate Qualitative Research.” The study used Facebook to facilitate in-depth explorative photo elicitation research with 34 young women, who had some experience with drinking alcohol. They sought to capture their perspectives on varying levels of drinking experience at the highest exposure period to social influences to drink. They used an interview format of qualitative research to gather data, and gave an in-depth descriptions of their efforts to make the study ethical — this is something this study did that the quantitative study had no need to do in their research, but made the qualitative research more concrete. Their ethical efforts included receiving ethics approval from the Flinders University Social and Behavioral Research Ethics Committee, gaining participant consent, and providing details on Facebook’s privacy settings, engagement, retention, and information sharing.

The study determined the benefits of using social media as a research tool as including:

• Improved facilitation
• And development of rapport throughout reciprocal information sharing with participants.

The study found that social media privacy settings can provide only limited protection info correctly customized. In using social media, there are inherent difficulties encountered when seeking protection against unethical behavior, including:

• Hacking
• Identity theft
• Privacy
• And data ownership.

Overall, the researchers suggest that qualitative researchers be encouraged to use social media as part of an ethically sound research process, but only if the benefit of this innovative method outweighs the risks to privacy and confidentiality. Social media is a practical research tool, but good qualitative research can be difficult to achieve using traditional non-digital methods. In short, social media is a great research tool, but must be used meticulously and with an understanding that the ethics of social media are different than those of traditional medias. So in our future use of qualitative research, it is recommended that social media data collection be utilized under different expectations and contingencies.

Both types of research are beneficial for different types of research, but as we’ve seen in these two studies, qualitative research allows for a deeper dive into the “why” of a research question. Instead of simply providing data collected from other studies, qualitative research allows for a more current collection on data, that includes the thoughts of real people in real time. While both research types are crucial to the continuation of learning and advancement of society, qualitative research is what really gives us a depth of understanding into the inner-workings of a social concept in question.

References

Streefkerk, R. (April, 2019). Qualitative vs. quantitative research | differences, examples & methods. Scribbr. https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/qualitative-quantitative-research/.

Suleski, J. & Ibaraki, M. (2010). Scientists are talking, but mostly to each other: a quantitative analysis of research represented in mass media. Sage Publications. https://journals-sagepub-com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/0963662508096776.

Lunnay, B. & Borlagdan, J. & McNaughton, D. & Ward, P. (September, 2014). Ethical use of social media to facilitate qualitative research. Sage Journals. https://journals-sagepub-com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/doi/full/10.1177/1049732314549031.

DoIT News. (February, 2019). 4 ways to better protect your privacy in social media apps. UW-Madison Information Technology. https://it.wisc.edu/news/4-ways-to-better-protect-your-privacy-in-social-media-apps/.