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The Method is the Message

On the Meaning of Methods as Ideologies

University Of Sussex

In this paper I use a cultural studies framework in order to draw an analogy between methods and systems of representation. I then argue from Marxist and structuralist perspectives that method, like any coding practice, is ideological in that it defines the terms through which we experience and explain the world. Further, I identify ideological analysis in psychology as dealing mostly with ideology as a set of meanings, not as a set of practices, and treating method as derived from theory. I propose the reverse argument that regards method as creating and not as reflecting the phenomena, and argue that all methods are ideological. Finally, I illustrate the argument by an example which shows how a structured scale and an unstructured questionnaire construct different models of self-presentational behaviour, and different notions of reality.

Theory & Psychology, Vol. 1, No. 3, 299-316 (1991)
DOI: 10.1177/0959354391013002


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