Abstract
This article interrogates the assumption that media content analyses based on mixed-method research are free of contradictions. We argue that when qualitative and quantitative methods are used simultaneously, the different research paradigms applied in the process cannot be reconciled in a bid to produce consistency. In order to do this, we review in this paper the findings and methodology of a project funded by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency on the coverage of migrants and minorities in the UK press. Focusing more specifically on the codification and interpretation of the Appraisal variable used in the project, we investigate how its subjective
 definition and challenging quantification are indicative of some of the problems of consistency accompanying the intersection of qualitative and quantitative approaches to content analysis. In this sense, we do not dismiss the potential of mixedmethod research to deliver insightful findings, but warn against the mechanical application of
 cross-paradigmatic approaches, and argue that the gaps and inconsistencies exposed by different paradigms can reveal more about the ambivalence of media representation than their uncritical synchronisation can.
 
 Keywords
 Mixed methods. Content analysis. Journalism. Human rights.
Highlights
Revista da Associação Nacional dos Programas de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação | E-compós, Brasília, v.16, n.2, maio/ago. 2013.Handbooks and sourcebooks of Political Communication research methods offer a wide range of methods, measures and analytical techniques to generate and evaluate findings in the field (BUCY; HOLBERT, 2011; CHADWICK; HOWARD, 2009; MORAN; MARTIN; GOODIN, 2007)
Comprehensive sources for Political Communication Research cover the major analytical techniques such as surveys, experiments, content analysis, discourse analysis, network and deliberation analysis, comparative study designs, statistical analysis, and others. What such contributions fail to address is how the combination of different research paradigms of methodological research affects the study of political communication
Our comparative quantitative tests have proven that the Overall Appraisal in an article is not a cumulative value of the appraisals at the micro level
Summary
Revista da Associação Nacional dos Programas de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação | E-compós, Brasília, v.16, n.2, maio/ago. 2013. Its design and migrants (which is related to the normative has been left deliberately open for input from direction in policy analysis); instead, our objective different country teams so as to accommodate is much simpler: to discuss the validity of the the inevitable subjective element of the media findings of the FRA project and the viability of research process, reflecting the cognitive maps its methodology in view of the complexity of the and public imaginaries of the participating. Our contribution aims to interpret the findings of this project as much as to contribute productively to future discussions about the applicability and reliability of mixed-method research in the analysis of media representations of migrants and minorities
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