After weeks of gaining new tools to do extensive quantitative analysis, we finally focused our efforts on methods to perform qualitative analysis. Although we discussed it extensively in class, Jim purposefully never told us specifically how to do qualitative analysis. His reasoning behind that was that there is no specific way to perform qualitative analysis; the fact that it’s qualitative inherently implies that there are multiple ways of looking at it and multiple possible outcomes. After sharing the methods and results of our lab on Monday, we basically said that we found evidence that supported our suspicions, but that other people could have analyzed it differently and completely disagreed with us. My understanding of qualitative analysis is that it breaks something subjective down into as many objective categories as possible, and then uses those categories to analyze the thing as a whole. Even then opinions could vary, but there is less of a chance for variance if there are solid categories to check off.
We did one activity in class that was a fun and engaging way to approach qualitative analysis. We watched this Guinness commercial once, discussed it, and then watched it a second time while watching for certain aspects such as 1) what is included/excluded, 2) how are elements presented/arranged, and 3) what morals arise? This commercial was really interesting and somewhat controversial — it is basically a video that depicts strong European men manipulating the environment to promote “positive” environmental impacts. At the end though, it turns out to be a commercial for beer. It perpetuates a lot of stereotypes and assumes a lot about what people value and respect, which makes it an interesting piece to analyze. It made me realize that qualitative analysis depends a lot on who is doing the analysis. I’m sure a white man would get very different message from this video than someone else from a small tribe in Africa or South America.
Towards the end of class, we discussed what environmental analysis means to us. When it came down to it, environmental analysis included a situated approach, a suite of useful tools, various frameworks, and an interdisciplinary approach. Similar to breaking down qualitative analysis, this break down helped me understand the steps needed to approach a huge problem. As mentioned in the Environmental Affairs Symposium, many times people will freeze and become apathetic in the face of an environmental problem. These smaller steps help make big problems more approachable.