On The Qualitative Tradion Of Audience Research

Qualitative and quantitative researches are two methodology orientations in the field of west social science. In essence, both of them study the "quality" of things. But in the last twenty years, they have been into opposition for the differences of philosophy and methods on operation. This situation affects the field of audience research. In the territory of west(especially America) communication study, quantitative research was mainstream methodology. But qualitative orientation of audience research has been booming since 1980s.This is a new development on methodology of audience research. And it transfers the focus of study from the effect of mass communication and the uses of media to the relation of audience, text and producing process, so it fundamentally disproves the views of audience and the research methods in the tradition of quantitative research. In this tradition, the audience becomes the active reader of texts, and "text analysis", "ethnography" which are characterized by the "qualitative" research methods are introduced to the audience research.The statement of "qualitative research" has not permeated in China yet, let alone prospered in the field of audience research. So this thesis will introduce a lot about how the west scholars use qualitative methods to study audience, in order to enrich the single audience study in China. For this, my thesis will be divided into five parts to discuss.The first part is preface, which introduces the current survey for the qualitative audience research of home and abroad, the scholars' discourse about it and the purpose of this thesis.Part II interprets two traditions of the field of audience research: the qualitative and quantitative researches. This chapter first discriminates the two methodologies and then introduces their development in the territory of audience research.Part III discusses the relation of audience and text in the tradition of...