Ontological Assumptions and Generalizations in Qualitative (Audience) Research

Abstract

In media and communication studies, a number of social science and humanistic perspectives converge. As a multidisciplinary field, however, it tends to borrow methods from diverse disciplines and theoretical schools quite eclectically, without taking into consideration the fact that they may be based on various basic implicit assumptions. Underlying the methods, there are quite different suppositions about the nature of reality, and about the nature of knowledge and how to gain knowledge. We rarely make that explicit when using specific methods or combinations of methods. The aim of this article is to discuss qualitative research and focus on ontological assumptions behind our methodological arguments and choices. Generalization, often seen as the Achilles heel of qualitative research, is also discussed and its relation to ontological positions clarified. Qualitative audience research is used to substantiate the discussion, but the problems discussed are of a more general nature and valid for qualitative research in general.