Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jan 1994

Ethnographic Research in Business and Technical Writing: Between Extremes and Margins

GEOFFREY A. CROSS

Abstract

Two widely disseminated approaches impose reductive boundaries on ethnographic research by privileging one context of meaning over other essential contexts. The first, emphasizing statistical validity, privileges the research community by recommending that the ethnographer's data analysis via coding agree with that of other raters from the research community. The second asserts that the ethnographer who comes closest to validity comes closest to presenting only the subject's point of view. Ethnography, however, comprises four essential, overlapping contexts: the phenomenal context (that which is observed/recorded), the site's cultural context (the subjects' outlook), the research community context, and the researcher's interior context, shaped by experience and education. Each of the four vantages has dominating tendencies, but if one does dominate to the exclusion of others, the reductive result is data-centered, thin description; subjects-centered groupthink; research community-centered groupthink; or researchercentered solipsism. Although all contexts of meaning are important, none should fully eclipse the others.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
1994-01-01
DOI
10.1177/1050651994008001005
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
technical communication qualitative research
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (6)

  1. Workman et al. (2021)
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  4. Cross (2009)
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  5. Cross (2004)
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  1. Blakeslee et al. (1996)
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CrossRef global citation count: 9 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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