Interpretive Inquiry as Qualitative Communication Research

Abstract

Qualitative communication research approaches vary from grounded theory and participant-observation to Q-sort, content analysis, and ethnographic inquiry—to name but a few. What often rests outside the qualitative rubric is the hermeneutic tradition of interpretive scholarship. This essay unites interpretive inquiry and qualitative research in summary fashion by outlining a macro understanding of qualitative communication inquiry, an interpretive approach to communication scholarship within a philosophical tradition entitled philosophical hermeneutics, and finally a public roadmap of how to understand and engage interpretive inquiry as a form of qualitative research in communication. This essay advocates interpretive inquiry as an additional contributor to the ongoing tradition of qualitative research in communication.