Research Methods for Cultural Studies

84 anneke meyer
included a third level of research into cultural producers by interviewing
editors of self-help books. Given the conceptualisation of the research project
Simonds did not need to engage in a systematic compare and contrast exercise
between different levels of research. Nevertheless, all three levels are interconnected
(for example, the promises of self-help books to bring about positive
changes in readers’ lives will shape consumers’ expectations) and it remains the
researcher’s task to draw out these complex inter-relationships through an integrated
analysis.
conclusion: the suitability of interviews and
focus groups for researching cultural
consumers
Earlier in this chapter several problems associated with researching cultural
consumers were discussed. These included (1) cultural texts simultaneously
generating and reproducing culture, (2) cultural consumers being simultaneously
producers of cultural meanings and texts, (3) cultural consumption being
diffuse and messy, and (4) the diversity of cultural consumers and texts. These
aspects are often identified as problems because they make it difficult to fit cultural
consumer research into positivist conceptions of knowledge as quantifiable
results. The production of neat and statistically generalisable findings is problematic
because complex phenomena are difficult to code into variables in an
equation and to isolate from other ‘variables’.
However, this chapter has hopefully shown that qualitative methods are well
suited to the complexities of cultural consumer research because they are open
and flexible. In interview and focus group situations, participants can reveal
themselves as producers of meanings and texts, as well as consumers who
engage in certain practices and hold certain attitudes. And in this context cultural
texts can emerge as both the products of people as well as constitutive of
their culture. Similarly, the diffuse nature of consumption and the diversity of
cultural consumers are open to be examined in qualitative research situations
which give participants considerable freedom to explore issues in depth and
detail and do not attempt to fit complexity into pre-fixed categories (Gray
1999). Of course in the analysis process making sense of complexity involves
the development of themes and categories, and researchers are concerned to
make some generalised observations and statements to avoid the disintegration
of research into particularism and contextualism (Schroder 1999). But in interviews
and focus groups such categories are not pre-imposed, rather they
emerge from the data and the research framework. Hence, the complexity of
researching cultural consumers is a challenge, but one for which interviews and
focus groups are well-equipped.