Kvalitativni pristup u medijskim istraživanjima

The authors treat Ihe media as a very significant component of contemporary life demanding to be studied. They actualize different and newer methodological approaches in media research for which they find inspiration in the general social situation at the beginning of the 21st century. This is a time of enormous technologies and a controversial time of large social changes. While in existing media research public communication has been generally evaluated by way of quantitative methods, the authors seek to affirm a qualitative paradigm as a wholly new and as yet unapplied methodological strategy, Contemporary social developments presuppose the investigation of media as a market phenomenon. Convergence as the basic symbol of communication in the future is affirmed within this context. Within it the broadly spread telecommunication services are joined together to form the new media world of the future. Most researchers deal with television as the most powerful media of the contemporary world but they also deal with cable services. In such am manner the research results come closer to determining the needs and the interests of the consumers. In addition the authors discuss a series of characteristics of the social processes of communication. They undertake a special analysis of some newer theoretical- methodological approaches in media research, such as ethno- meihodological investigations, symbolic interactionism, the ethnography of communication and cultural studies. The critique of earlier media studies has been directed at their exclusive interest in studying the emergence, development, genres and the use of the media. The speedy expansion of media has motivated researchers to deal with its effects and the possibilities. Because of this the authors anticipate that future methodological strategies in media studies will find their place in the application of qualitative investigations. It is precisely this type of investigation which signalizes contemporary trends in the development of modern methodology within the field of the social sciences. The qualitative researcher is especially endowed with the capacity to think about the lives of others. The authors conclude that the validity of media studies will be greater if research methods are modernized and in such a fashion accommodate themselves to existing societies and to the ways media are transformed within them. In the future, man, as the creator of information and as a social being, will continue to create social processes amongst which communication is one of the basic ones. However, the fate of qualitative media research will depend on the tempo of development of media within democratic societies.