Theoretical Framework And Research Methodology

By Author: endeavor
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Reading here is defined as a practice that is socially and ideologically situated (Street, 1995). As such, it is intimately tied up in people's "arts of existence" (Foucault, 1984/1985), as have been practiced for millennia in western culture.

Reading has long been promoted as part of the regimen for producing sound minds and sound bodies, as the transferring of information and development of mental acuity have been involved in the development of an able and informed citizenry. In this conception, reading is very much related to identity, and how reading comes to be practiced is an important part of one's "identity kit" (Gee, 1996).

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... At the same time, however, reading practices are not just accepted indiscriminately from authoritative institutions. Individuals are capable of finding ways to navigate their worlds by using texts, objects, and situations to their advantage. Foucault (1975/1979) acknowledged that institutions discipline individuals but that individuals could find spaces to gain their own advantages, de Certeau (1984) referred to such actions as tactics, and he detailed how reading is an activity that encourages people to "poach" (p. 174) ideas or beliefs from texts and use them to gain advantages.

Jenkins (1992) applied this concept of poaching in his study of media fans and found that texts are often used in ways that their producers do not intend. Media fans write alternate versions of stories, form social networks, mobilize activism, or explore personal, political, and philosophical matters through their interactions with television and movies. This study similarly explores what uses adults who read comic books poach from the texts they choose to read.

My research questions are (a) why do people read when it isn't required of them? and (b) How have their reading choices affected their lives socially and academically?

Using a combination of purposeful sampling and snowballing (Patton, 2002), I recruited participants from local comic-book stores and from recruits' acquaintances. Participants for this study ranged in age from 26 to 37 years old. In total, I selected 12 people for this study. Eleven were self-identified Caucasian males, and the one female participant identified herself as Asian American. All of these participants had been reading comic books, some on and off, for at least 17 years.

Data collection centered on interviews, field notes a researcher's log, and artifacts (postcards, comic-book images, written notes) collected from my participants I analyzed their interview data using Kvale's (1996 meaning interpretation method, where the researcher worked from a "theoretical stance, recontextualizing what [was] said in a specific conceptual context" (p 201).

This research project was an example of poaching where I took ideas, theories, and practices from the variety of texts and used them to analyze the statements in an interview. Using discursive practice; such as arts of existence (Foucault, 1984/1985) and strategies and tactics (de Certeau, 1984) to examine the links between utterances (Bakhtin, 1986), I connected the reading practices of adults who read comic books to larger conceptions of literacy.