Backroom Research

My first thought when I read about image based research (Knight), especially in the context of newspaper articles is that an image captures a "truth" within the frame of the camera, at a certain point in time. For example, in 2011 this couple became famous for kissing during the Vancouver riots:


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/06/17/vancouver-kissing-couple.html

Knight cautions that: "Framing: all data capture frames reality, abstracting pieces for further study. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, it is helpful to have another thousand words of notes that fill in some of the context that the camera or sketch misses" (Knight, 2002, p. 112/113?.) My scepticism of image based research is lessened considerably by the supplementation of additional notes that contextualize an image. My overall impression from both Knight and Thomas articles is that content/document analysis is a good way to take advantage of many interesting/rich sources of data, and that re-using historical data may be a good alternative to traditional methods I was previously considering. While content analysis is undoubtedly very time consuming, at the initial stage it may provide an opportunity to do some pre-testing and get a better grasp on a proposed research project.