Representations of data are all around us - in advertisements and newspaper articles, infographics and Facebook 'likes'. But these numbers, quotes, or graphics often communicate only a small selection of the information that has been gathered about social life. The information we receive has already been filtered by the analysis of others - including advertisers, journalists, market researchers, graphic designers and computer programmers - and reflects what they deem important or relevant for us to know. While the types of data, processes of analysis and aims of representations vary between different professions, they draw in different ways upon basic principles of analysis and representation that are found in social scientific research.
This module builds upon the basic methodological principles discussed in SOCL 201 to look more closely at the process of analysis within social research, focusing on how through making selections, finding patterns, and crafting arguments researchers make sense of the social world. It will focus on a series of workshops where you are able to try analysing visual, quantitative and qualitative data yourself. By undertaking hands-on exercises, this module will help you to develop skills for dealing with complex sets of data, and will provide you with tools for justifying your analytic choices and critically examining those of others