How ‘Qualitable’ Is Qualitative Research in Communication Studies? Examining the Pragmatic Use and Acceptance in Media Studies

The aim of this study is two-fold: It first replicates previous studies on methods used in communication research, and then textually analyses each article in the five high ranking Communication journals of the United States published in the year 2016. A total of 160 articles were analyzed for their use in qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods, as well as the particular type of design qualitative or quantitative used. Findings indicate that most journals prefer quantitative articles as opposed to qualitative or mixed methods research. 59.37% of the articles were quantitative, while qualitative and mixed methods recorded 38.75 and 1.87% respectively. Further, findings also indicated that descriptive quantitative methods (53.68%) were mostly preferred over correlations, quasi-experiments, and experiments. Similarly, findings over qualitative research suggested that the grounding theory method (31%) was the most preferred over the four other qualitative research designs. The study, therefore, concludes that quantitative research articles with a focus on descriptive methods had a higher chance of being published in the US Communication Journals than qualitative methods. The lowest chances of publication were in mixed methods and ethnographic qualitative methods that recorded less than 2% probability of being published.