Sample Size: 100 people (80 men)
Problems: High N on the qualitative side; small N on the quantitative side; Should have been 50/50 on gender or 100 men, no women or vice versa. Otherwise, you have a gender bias in the research. 20 women are supposed to tell us what women in general go through due to pornography now?

Type of research: Mixture of Qualitative and Quantitative, but mostly qualitative
Problems: Worst yet most popular kind of social research imaginable is qualitative. It's engaging and entertaining, but far too often it is thought to be generalizable when it it's not. On top of that, it doesn't control for any factors. How do we know that some of these men's view of women and their failures in relationships is not casued my other media sources beside pornography? Definitely shouldn't be used to encourage government litigation and censorship of the industry, but this is the type of thing the DoJ (federal and state) would point to in justifying prioritzing obsencity prosecutions over more pressing matters.

I rented a book from the library last semester that was very similar to Pornified . It was qualitative research as well, but at least the author implied as much in the intro. and warned against viewing his research as indicative of any thing other than the facts about the people in his sample. I also appreciated that this particular book included homosexuals in its sample population thus acknowledging the existence of pornography for homosexuals whereas Pornified appears as if couldn't care less.

Porn is an interesting social issue to look at, and I can see why it is getting so much attention. However, it is difficult for discussions to keep from devolving into strict civil rights activism speech or staunch conservatism/religious rhetoric. It's stated in the Amazon review that Paul did her best to stay away from either spectrum. It would be interesting to see how well she pulled it off.

Of course, I say all of this having never read a single page of Paul's book. What kind of researcher does that make me? (thanks for bringing it to our attention willywilly)

That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Edited by - tscfan317 on 9/7/2005 3:06:51 PM

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From a technical standpoint, No. Right on both counts.

If we are to hold social research to similar standards as scientific research, qualitative research has little to no exteranal validity and it's internal validity is suspect as well. Spurious variables all over the place. At that point, it doesn't matter how good or bad it's internal validity is. With no external, the results are only applicable to the members of the sample size. It can't be legitimately generalized.

However, it often is. After all, sitting down to read qualitative research is a lot more enjoyable than reading quantitative.

But, you, Walter Burns are one smart cookie (I mean that legitimately; when you get going on certain threads I usually learn something) and I've only got a couple semesters of sociology classes to go off of. Did you get me on a technicality? Something like me ignoring other kinds of social research outside of sociology? Or was I just flat out wrong? In other words, why was I wrong on both counts?

To anyone other than Walter-sorry for derailing the thread. We're still kind of talking about Pornified. It does appear that Paul's book, despite the fact that several of the links described the work as investigative journalism over social research, is a mixture of quantitative and qualitative.

Edited by - tscfan317 on 9/8/2005 12:10:40 AM

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I would like to add:

1) Doing 'good' qualitative research is generally harder than doing 'good' quantitative research.

2) Since quantitative research within social sciences resembles established methods of exact sciences more than qualititative methods do, the general public accepts quantitative research more easily as being 'scientific' than qualitative research. I would have hoped that the quality of the research would determine its 'scientific' worth.

3) Despite the claim from Durkheim, social reality -- or what he called 'social fact(s)' -- does not let itself be reduced to statistical numbers all that well, not in its fullest and most richest. That is because unlike the natural world, the cultural world is man-made and thus already a construction -- or a text, if you like.

4) The divide between quantitative and qualitative research methods is becoming more and more problematic. 'Good' quantitative research can't exist without qualitative answers being asked first, and vice versa.

In fact, there are three distinct positions being taken vis-à-vis the quantitative-qualitative debate.

1) There those who believe that qualitative research must answer to the exact same criteria as quantitative research to be called 'scientific', e.g. objectivity, reliability, validity and hypothesis-testing.

2) There are those who believe that it is nonsense to transfer quantitative criteria to a research method adept at answering fundamentally different questions than can be researched with quantitative methods. These people advocate the formulation of independent and appropriate criteria for qualitative research alone, e.g. validation, triangulation and authenicity.

3) There are those that argue against the possibility of formulating any criteria for qualitative research at all, either from a postmodern perspective (there is no fixed referential system) or from a social-constructivist viewpoint.

It seems to me you belong in camp #1, while I am being caught between camps #2 and #3, with an expressed leaning to camp #2. After all, in the positivist-realist-relativist debate, I place myself fully in the realist camp.

Edited: I just realized that we may be talking about different things when you said that qualitative resaerch is the most popular. I took it as you believed it was the prefered research method within sociology/social sciences -- the most popular within the academic world, so to speak. That is highly debatable. Now I realize that you probably meant it as it being the most popular kind of research outside the academic world -- in a 'pop science' kind of way. Yeah, qualitative research often is a better 'read' than quantitative research.




squirtfan1 said:
“Jazz in the ear is good. Jizz in the ear is NO good.”

Edited by - Walter Burns on 9/8/2005 2:39:41 AM

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