Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research: Which is the best method when researching Social Media?
When doing research for a project or a paper, I have noticed the many different ways that research can be recorded, such as surveys, group studies, and more. However, there are two common types of research, which are qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative research is the descriptive data, which includes group studies, interviews, and experiences while quantitative research is more focused on numerical data, such as measurements, surveys, and statistics.
As a masters student working towards a social media masters degree, I was curious to learn more about how quantitative and qualitative data contributes to the mass communication field in social media studies. The first journal article I read is “I don’t need people to tell me I’m pretty on social media:” A qualitative study of social media and body image in early adolescent girls” by C.Blair Burnette, Melissa A. Kwitowski, and Suzanne E. Mazzeo. This journal article did have both quantitative and qualitative research, otherwise known as a mixed method approach, but mainly focused on qualitative research. In the study, the authors mentioned they used focus groups as their main research method as well as reasons towards why they chose this method (Burnette et al.,2017). The reasons they chose were to include peers for helping decrease self-consciousness, having outgoing individuals to help break the ice with a very tough topic, and since social media is an interactive space, they wanted the environment to be similar with sharing experiences together rather than individual interviews (Burnette et al.,2017). This article provides a valid contribution towards the mass communication field because besides the way that the authors gathered research, they also focused on using thematic analysis to identify themes within the data they received. Additionally, this study did not focus on proving a point, but instead focused on supporting or challenging theories that are currently present.
The second journal article I read was “Examining the self-reported advantages and disadvantages of socially networking about body image and eating disorders,” by Patricia A Cavazos‐Rehg and many other authors. While this article also used a mixed method approach, this article focused mostly on quantitative research. The authors focused on using surveys with various answering types, such as yes/no, multiple choice, and the likert scale, which includes the respondent to answer on a scale of 1–5 with 1 being strongly disagree to 5 being strongly agree (Cavazos et al., 2020). This article supports the mass communication field because the data being researched is supporting previous findings rather than trying to prove any points. Similar to the first article, they are not trying to prove anything new, but use the quantitative data to either support previous findings or display new findings.
After looking at two articles using both research methods, I have definitely discovered that I prefer the mixed-method approach for several reasons. I am usually a math/numbers person, which led me to think that I would be more into quantitative data. However, these articles helped me realize that using both kinds of data can help bring new ideas to light as well as continue to support current theories that are present.
References:
Burnette, C., Kwitowski, M., and Mazzeo, S. (2017). “I don’t need people to tell me I’m pretty on social media:” A qualitative study of social media and body image in early adolescent girls. Body Image, 23, 114–125, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2017.09.001.
Cavazos, R. P. A., Fitzsimmons, C. E. E., Krauss, M. J., Anako, N., Xu, C., Kasson, E., Costello, S. J., & Wilfley, D. E. (2020). Examining the self‐reported advantages and disadvantages of socially networking about body image and eating disorders. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 53(6), 852–863. https://doi-org.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/10.1002/eat.23282
