The Danish academic journal “Mediekultur” just published a Special Issue on “Researching cross-media communication: Methodological approaches”
In six contributions, communication and media scholars discuss with which different and triangulated methods cross-media communication can be researched. Among the authors are Kim Christian Schrøder, Christian Kobbernagel, Kristian Møller Jørgensen, Cristina Miguel, Anne Mette Thorhauge, Stine Lomborg, Susana Tosca and Lisbeth Klastrup.
The Special Issue also includes a contribution by Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp, Cindy Roitsch and Dr. Matthias Berg (ZeMKI, University of Bremen) on “Investigating communication networks contextually: Qualitative network analysis as cross-media research”. Their article introduces the approach of contextualised communication network analysis as a qualitative procedure for researching communicative relationships realised through the media. It combines qualitative interviews on media appropriation, egocentric network maps, and media diaries. Through the triangulation of these methods of data collection, it is possible to gain a differentiated insight into the specific meanings, structures and processes of communication networks across a variety of media. The approach is illustrated using a recent study dealing with the mediatisation of community building among young people. In this context, the qualitative communication network analysis has been applied to distinguish “localists” from “centrists”, “multilocalists”, and “pluralists”. These different “horizons of mediatised communitisation” are connected to distinct communication networks. Since this involves today a variety of different media, the contextual analysis of communication networks necessarily has to imply a cross-media perspective.
Further information on the Special Issue and its full texts can be accessed here.