Sources of ‘data’
To put it very simply, we could divide your possible sources of ‘data’ into two categories: data that you have to generate and data that already exists. By that I mean to contrast, say, a research interview you conduct on the topic of genetic disease with, say, a newspaper article on genetic disease. The newspaper article, on the face of it, exists independently of your action whereas the research interview exists only due to your action. So we could divide the potential sources of data into these two categories: researcher-generated and already existing data. However, this assumes that you are somehow more ‘active’ with the former category and reasonably ‘passive’ or ‘neutral’ in relation to the latter. In both cases your actions are utterly central in producing the materials as ‘data’. In both cases you have to actually discover it, physically collect it, make decisions about what materials you are going to gather and what materials you are going to ignore. Irrespective of the actual form of the materials – video recordings of television programmes, audio files of focus groups, newspaper articles, screen shots of web discussion groups or photocopies of academic journal articles – you have made certain choices. Importantly, you have decided to call this specific ensemble of materials, which you collected together, your ‘data’.
So where does that leave us? In reports of research, some things are named as ‘data’ and some activities are named as ‘data collection’; other things and activities do not hold the same status. In one project I worked on, the two ‘official’ sources of data were:
video recordings of doctor–patient consultations about a specific condition; and
audio files of research interviews with patients about the consultation.
However, the findings of the research are also the product of the engagement with the following materials:
Transcripts of the doctor–patient interactions and research interviews.
Handwritten and typed field notes of what happened prior to, during and after the consultations and interviews.
Field notes, audio files and minutes of the research team’s meetings and other related activities.
Official documents distributed by the research team (including patient information leaflets, consent forms, funding documents and research reports).
Academic research papers and books (covering such topics as social scientists writing about doctor–patient interactions; medical researchers and ethicists writing about a specific medical condition and doctor–patient interactions; and social scientific and scientific research methodology texts).
Leaflets, handouts and newspaper cuttings (covering a specific medical condition).
Websites (aimed specifically at social and medical researchers and the general public).
Assorted handwritten and typed notes to myself, memos and quotes.
For me, all these materials were ‘my data’. Or rather, as I prefer it, all these materials made up my archive. This archive, combined with conversations with the research team, friends, strangers, watching television, listening to the radio, reading novels, et cetera, and most importantly, bolts from the blue (often over a large cup of coffee), enable the production of specific research findings and papers.
I could easily have called this whole section ‘Generating data’. And I would have probably focused on roughly the same things. However, the scare quotes I have placed around the word ‘data’ may suggest I have a problem with the term. I am never quite sure when I am conducting my own research what actually is my ‘data’ and what is not my ‘data’. Is a quote I take from a recording of a doctor–patient consultation data? Whereas the quote I take from a social science article discussing doctor–patient consultations is not data? I use both to develop my argument, so for me both are data. Equally, are the topics covered in the interview data? Whereas the interview schedule itself and the reading and discussions that led to its development are somehow not data? All these areas of activity are central to producing my arguments.
Rather than just thinking about ‘generating data’, in any narrow sense, you need to think about generating or producing an archive – a diverse collection of materials that enable you to engage with and think about the specific research problem or questions. On a practical level, this means collecting and managing an array of different materials. Obviously, what materials make up your archive is directed by both your specific research question and your theoretical trajectory. In order to briefly review the possible sources of researchable materials, I am going to divide the following discussion into two areas: document-based sources and audio- and visual-based sources. I should note that this is a wholly arbitrary division. For example, when an audio file is transcribed it is, in one sense, translated into a document. However, this arbitrary or working division is just that, and is based on my need to offer you an accessible and manageable story.
Document-based sources
On the face of it, this would appear the easier archive to generate. And to be honest, it can be. As a lot of the material you could be working on will already be in the ‘public domain’ – either published on paper or on the web – you do not have to go through the process of getting consent to use the material or recruiting and recording often very busy people. Your major considerations are often related to how to initially discover, then source, and then make some form of recording of the documents. In this section, I am just going to offer a few examples of documents you could use, and talk about some of the general pitfalls and problems. In Chapter 9, I shall offer some more detailed cases.
The most ubiquitous and accessible source of documents is newspaper and magazine articles. Both web- and paper-based content are a massive potential resource for most academic projects. You only have to think about the diversity of weekly and daily local, national and international newspapers, as well as the ever-growing numbers of general and specialist magazines we are confronted with on a day-to-day basis, to realize how much material is easily available for analysis. You can learn a lot about the trajectory of culture and institutional practice through engaging with these materials.
Let us take, for example, a recent phenomenon – articles and magazines specifically targeted at men and their relationship with their bodies. When you look at the print cover of a monthly magazine like Men’s Health you will be witnessing specific discourses of masculinity. Each cover seems to have headlines like ‘how to tone your stomach in one month’ or ‘six exercises to develop a six pack’, alongside pictures of men with washboard stomachs. This raises various questions, including: What (new) versions of masculinity are being promoted? What (new) connections are men meant to make between their bodies and self-identity? Are men (now) objects of a female gaze? I hope it is easy to see how an analysis of such headlines, and the articles that they refer to, might raise some very interesting questions about new formations of masculinity.
Research has also focused solely on newspaper headlines; for example, Lee (1984) offers a rich analysis of the headline ‘Girl Guide Aged 14 Raped at Hell’s Angels Convention’. Among many things, he highlights how this headline works to attract our attention and persuade us to engage with that story. The headline raises a puzzle: how is it that these two categories of people – ‘Girl Guides’ and ‘Hell’s Angels’ – not routinely connected, are together? How is it that they were in the same space? And this is not any space,
