Disruptive Meaning-Making: Qualitative Data Analysis Software and Postmodern Pastiche

Abstract

This article examines the use of qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) as a means of disrupting conventional research practices. It is based on a study that used NVivo 10 toward the construction of a “postmodern pastiche” of research narratives. Although QDAS has frequently been touted as a means to assuage concerns that qualitative research lacks transparency, rigor, and validity by permitting such inquiry to be codified, quantified, and confined, this research used the tool toward the construction of counter-narratives. This study aimed to transform the digital tool via the use of “mutated dominant practices.” NVivo 10’s hypertextual environment subverted the authority of any one privileged telling and allowed for the creation of research narratives that were fluid, fragmented, and resisted closure. Underpinned by a postmodern theoretical perspective and using an alternative multicase methodology, this study explored the narratives of three self-identified female gamers.