Definition
The careful examination of documents and their content in order to draw con- clusions about the social circumstances in which the documents are produced and read. Documentary analysis does not display a clear-cut methodology but rather encompasses a variety of approaches to documentary sources. A document may be defined as an artefact that has a written text regardless of its physical embod- iment. Researchers may use a wide variety of documents including letters, official reports, administrative records, web pages, diaries and newspaper articles.
Distinctive Features
Writing is an important activity within society and accordingly documents should be important resources to social researchers. However, documents are often considered to be the preserve of historical researchers and consequently contemporary documentary materials are rarely given the attention they deserve (Platt, 1981; Prior, 2003; Scott, 1990). Documents are social products (Prior, 2003) constructed according to specific conventions, reflecting specific discourses and are dependent on collective production and consumption.
Although documentary analysis can be a research method used in isola- tion, it is often used in conjunction with other research methods, for example
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as a component within an ethnographic study of a professional group or to supplement interview data.
A number of typologies of documents have been developed. For example Scott (1990) reviews documents according to authorship (personal or official) and access (closed, restricted or open). Documents can also be distinguished by whether they are primary or secondary sources (a primary source being material that came into existence during the study period and a secondary source being interpreta- tions of material that came into existence during the study period). Primary sources can also be divided into deliberate sources (produced for the attention of researchers) and inadvertent sources (produced for purposes other than research). Newspaper reports have been a key source of data for researchers working within journalism and media studies. Research in this field might, for instance, examine how categories of people (doctors, teachers, criminals) are constructed and amplified. Researchers may analyse official documents and reports pro- duced by national governments or official documents produced at the local or institutional level, such as minutes of schools’ parent and teacher meetings. Administrative records can also be a rich source of data for the researcher who is lucky enough to negotiate access to them. Such records are regularly com- piled by a variety of institutions (hospitals, schools, prisons) and are used by these organizations to record factual information about their populations as well as the activities and decisions made by the institution. Documents such as these are crucial to the study of organizations as they are produced and used in social settings and are often loaded with the organization’s cultural values or concerned with the organization’s self-image (Atkinson and Coffey, 2004).
Jupp and Norris (1993) have reviewed three different approaches to doc- umentary analysis. The first of these, content analysis, is really an interloper to a text on qualitative methods as it is primarily a quantitative technique using a positivistic approach. The purpose of content analysis is to describe the characteristics of the document’s content by examining who says what, to whom and with what effect. The method is performed by counting occurrences of themes, words or phrases within one or more documents. The approach is objective, systematic and concerned with the surface meaning of the document rather than hidden agendas. The purpose of the second, interpretative approach to documentary data is to explore the meaning within the content. Unlike the positivist approach, the interpretative approach takes the stance that social phenomena are not objective but are actively constructed by indi- viduals. The purpose is therefore to examine the way meaning is assigned by authors and consumers of the document, perhaps through rhetorical devices. Finally, the critical approach focuses on the relationship between the docu- ment and aspects of social structure (class, social control, power). Thus the researcher is less interested in what the text says about the biography of the
author but rather in how the text exerts social control. Researchers who use this approach may use discourse analysis to examine the role of official documents and how they regulate social order.
Examples
There are many examples of research studies that have analysed newspaper media to explore public understanding of science and medicine. For example Conrad (2001) examined a sample of 110 stories from major US newspapers arguing that newspapers reflect an overly optimistic stance of the capabilities of genetic developments for psychiatric health. Within the articles he found three major themes, namely: that a gene for psychiatric illness exists, that it will be found and that the outcome will be good. Conrad concludes that the overly optimistic reporting stance is likely to contribute to the perpetuation of public confidence in genetic science leaving little opportunity for critical eval- uation of the potential impacts. Seale (2001) explored the media portrayal of people with cancer. His article shows how media cancer stories portray a dom- inant struggle narrative whereby individuals demonstrate self-willed victory over the cancer. However Seale argues that the articles also reflected gender- specific behaviour which emphasized women’s skills in emotional labour and self-transformation, and men’s testing of pre-existing character.
Ethnographies of science, such as those by Latour and Woolgar (1986), demonstrate how scientists (like academics and policy makers) conduct much of their work through the written form. By analysing scientific documents the authors show how scientists transform opinions into facts through the selective use of vocabulary, as the scientific claim progresses from laboratory bench notebook to peer-reviewed publication.
Cicourel’s (1968) classic study of the social organization of youth justice is a good example of an interpretative approach to documentary data. Cicourel examined the working practices of a range of professionals involved in youth justice (police, probation officers and court officials) and the documents pro- duced by these agencies. In doing so he argued that the documents were vital to the process of labelling and confirming young people as ‘delinquents’.
Evaluation
As with other social science methods, researchers engaged in documentary methods need to be concerned with the quality of data that are available for analysis. Scott (1990) suggests four criteria on which the validity of any doc- ument is dependent: authenticity (is the document original and genuine?), credibility (is it accurate?), representativeness (is it typical of its kind?), and meaning (is its intention clear?).
Documentary Methods
In addition to these problems of validity, researchers are also faced with problems of access. One cannot assume that just because a document exists it will be available for research purposes. Where access is restricted researchers may be left with a shortage of data or poor quality data. Conversely, if multi- ple documents exist of the same type, then the researcher may need to develop a sampling strategy in order to examine a number of typical documents.
Different types of document may possess their own conventions, special- ized vocabulary and style that are often associated with professional groups. These conventions define who produced the document and who can read and share it (Atkinson and Coffey, 1997). Platt (1981) also makes the point that in order to understand a document’s meaning one needs to be familiar with the ‘genre’ of document types (contracts, letters, adverts) so that one can under- stand what interpretation is implied.
Atkinson and Coffey (1997) have raised the issue of ‘intertextuality’, that is, documents are dependent on their relationship with other documents. For example minutes of a committee meeting will typically refer to previous minutes or a legal letter may refer to a previous letter. If taken out of context, researchers may run the risk of misinterpreting the intention of the document.