My first semester as a graduate student is winding down right about now. Sure, I still need to write two papers and give two presentations on my research, but at least I know where I'm headed with things. For the curious, my research this semester centers on three topics:

1. New York Times' coverage of state terrorism in Colombia. This is a quantitative research study, still in its formative stage for the most part. I'm working on a content analysis of coverage of the conflict in Colombia, and specifically three aspects of it: drugs, the perpetrators and victims of violence, and U.S. involvement in the region. The period looked at spans from 1997 to 2007. I intend to conduct most of the research for this (coding of articles culled from a LexisNexis search) over the winter break. Data analysis will occur next semester, and then by March/April I should have a completed research paper to present at AEJMC. Hopefully. This work is probably the most important stuff I'm doing.
   
2. Participant-observer study of Portside Books. This is a qualitative study of Portside Books and its collapse, based on interviews, personal observation, meeting notes and emails, and other primary sources. A telling of Portside's story, basically, coupled with thoughts on its relation to the broader movement against capitalism and moving forward with other radical projects. Most of this will be done (hopefully) within a couple weeks. This study is probably the most fun for me.
3. Propaganda and public education. I suppose this is also a qualitative study. The idea is to map propaganda theory onto another institutional setting, in this case public education. At least a rough draft of this will be completed in a couple weeks. This is probably the one where I'll have the most original thought of the three, since it deals with themes I've been playing with since I was 17-years-old or so.

So that's what I'm up to, in terms of coursework. Some thoughts on the nature of the difference between qualitative and quantitative studies:

First, I still wince every time I hear the names Derrida and Baudrillard. In other words, I think postmodernism is a complete load. This is due to my understanding of how social forces work and belief that social sciences should be as scientific as possible, but can also be explained at least in part by my training in philosophy, which is heavily biased against continental philosophy and in favor of analytic (i.e., serious) philosophy. I'm an elitist in that sense. All the same, I have more of an appreciation for the qualitative research tradition after taking Gene Burd's course. And in fact, I question whether the participant-observer research tradition goes far enough. I would say that qualitative studies should also embrace the idea that researchers should be working on praxis, insofar as their studies are concerned with criticism of things. Absolutely no pretense of so-called objectivity is fine with me in this vein. (I don't think the same of quantitative research, obviously.)

Second, I've noticed that the qualitative studies are generally looked down upon in mass communication, even though the qualitative tradition has its origins well before the quantitative folk really took off. (By a couple decades, in fact.) Contempt for qualitative studies--including studies of gender, race, etc.--reflects subservience to power structures, I think, deeply entrenched in our society, committed to social control and profit maximization.

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