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Product Description: A succinct and engaging introduction to social research, this book outlines how to study social and cultural phenomena, explains the difference between qualitative and quantitative analysis, and examines the relationship between social research and society...read more

`This clearly written, well-illustrated text satisfies a long-standing need for an authoritative account of the methodology of cultural studies. It will become required reading on many courses' - David Silverman, Goldsmiths College, University of London The growth of interdisciplinary cultural studies poses new challenges for the process of doing research. In this textbook, Pertti Alasuutari introduces the range of approaches and methodological tools available for undertaking critical research, and shows how cultural studies transcend traditional divisions between qualitative and quantitative methods and between social sciences and humanities. He draws upon three main sources: the qualitative

This book is an ethnographic analysis of alcoholism, focusing on the importance of cultural explanations of heavy drinking in modern society. As a starting point, Alasuutari uses a cognitive concept of frames in order to study the social and cultural boundedness of alcohol related problems. The ethnographic narratives concentrate on specific cases, but stress the theoretical level of analysis, and reveal the ways in which the alcoholism frame is linked with Western culture and society. Alasuutari also provides an analysis of the role of the temperance movement and ideology in Finland, and the rise of the distinction between normal and pathological drinking.