Addressing the Ideational Turn

How the Resources of Qualitative Content Analysis and Idea Analysis Can Together Strengthen the Study of Ideas

Abstract

Broadly speaking, the study of ideas can be based on assumptions that are in line with either the process model of communication or semiotic (or structural) approaches to communication (Fiske 1990:40; Thompson 2003:12–20; cf. Cobley & Schultz 2013:vi).1 The process communication model (or models more or less in line with this model) assumes “that communication is the transfer of a message from A to B” (Fiske 1990: 39). In this model, it is thus assumed that communication contains messages whose meanings can be discovered. That means, in turn, that the meaning of ideas – which is one form in which messages in communication can manifest themselves – can be discovered and then described.2 In contrast, according to semiotic approaches, communication is conceptualized in terms of “how messages, or texts, interact with people in order to produce meanings” (Fiske 1990: 2).