Mass Media Research: Quantitative Research Vs. Qualitative Research

Mass media research helps us understand all forms of mass communication. Why we watch the same news programs as people from similar backgrounds, what about social media is so addicting, and everything in between can be answered through mass media research.

But there’s two different versions of mass media research. quantitative research and qualitative Research both give separate methods for researchers to work with and process their data. Quantitative research focuses primarily on numbers. It involves several methods of data collection like telephone surveys, mail surveys, and Internet surveys. In these methods, the questioning is static or standardized — all respondents are asked the same questions and there is no opportunity for follow-up questions. Qualitative research, on the other hand, involves several methods of data collection, such as focus groups, field observation, in-depth interviews, and case studies.

So this is probably kind of confusing right?

Let’s break it down.

Let’s first take a look at a qualitative research example.

Qualitative research is primarily used in this study meant to better understand the most effective messaging for underserved populations. As someone who works in health care and health insurance, this study was an extremely interesting study to understand. And I was even able to give myself takeaways! But what makes this impactful and qualitative?

Well, the study used interviews with older Hispanic women to understand what kind of messages best reach that audience when conveying specific information about health care and insurance.

But how was this qualitative?

Well the study used interviews, as well as visual queues from the participants to best understand their answers. Both of these are qualitative as they don’t rely on numbers, but more the human experience.

If that makes sense…

Think of it as numbers versus interaction!

Quantitative data refers to any information given a numerical value. Qualitative data is descriptive.

So what sort of contribution did this study have to overall mass communication and mass media research?

With the pandemic raging on and underserved populations lacking key knowledge to understand health literacy, this study helps people like me and others in health care marketing understand how to best provide messaging to populations like older Hispanic women!

Now let’s move onto quantitative.

In this study researchers looked again at health messaging for a 20 year time span. (1985–2005) The study examined health messages in the mass media through over 12,000 articles (not including articles posted on the internet). The study then used media methods versus forms of media to understand what was being analyzed the most in health messaging.

This study was able to contribute to mass communication through understanding content analysis so that health messaging is better catered to its audiences.

So what kind of research do you like the best? And what is the easiest for you to understand?

For me, quantitative is always the easiest to spot and easiest to understand. Sure, the answer isn’t always straight forward because it relies on interpretations of data that can’t be put into numbers. But I always find quantitative data and studies to be more relatable and easier to understand!

Let me know what research method is easier for you to understand!