400008 SE Methodological Approaches to Qualitative Social Research (2020W)

The course aims at PhD students who are (at least partly) applying qualitative methodological approaches to data collection and analysis within the scope of their dissertation project.
The interdisciplinary perspective of the course - drawing from political science, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, cultural studies and visual studies - combines methods of data collection, analysis and interpretation such as
- semi-structured and open interviews (expert interviews, problem centered interviews, and narrative interviews),
- focus groups,
- observation techniques,
- qualitative content analysis,
- frame analysis
- critical discourse analysis,
- visual analysis (especially of images, video clips and documentary films) including political iconography, visual content analysis, image type analysis, visual context analysis, visual framing)
- multimodal approaches to the analysis of Social Media
The course attempts to provide tailored support in order to consolidate/advance the methodological design of the individual PhD projects and discuss relevant methods of data collection and analysis.
Hence, the course focuses on PhD students' concrete project-related interests and needs.
Participants are encouraged to briefly present their PhD project (5min max.) and indicate their particular methods related interest during the first meeting.
The following meetings will be planned according to the information gathered during these presentations. Individual interests will be matched and relevant reading for the particular seminar units will be indicated on Moodle.
Moreover, individual consultations (45min per student) with the lecturer intend to discuss the methodological part of the thesis in more detail and provide additional advice. Appointments will be arranged on individual basis.