David Altheide

David L. Altheide (born August 9, 1945) is an American-born sociologist and Emeritus Regents' Professor in the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University.

Educational background

David Altheide received his B.A. in 1967 from Central Washington State College, with a distinction in Sociology and a minor in Philosophy. After receiving his bachelor's degree, he was awarded a Title IV National Defense Education Act (NDEA) Fellowship to attend the University of Washington, where he graduated in 1969 with an M.A. in Sociology. Altheide continued his graduate studies in Sociology, receiving a fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health (N.I.M.H) to attend the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). In 1974, he graduated from UCSD with a Doctoral Degree in Sociology.[1]

Appointments and positions

While studying toward his doctorate at the University of California, San Diego, Altheide held several teaching positions as well as administrative appointments. From 1968 to 1970, he was an instructor at Southern Colorado State College (now Colorado State University-Pueblo); he was a tenured assistant professor from 1970 to 1971 at Southern Colorado State College, where he also served as the Sociology Department's chairman in 1971. From 1971 to 1973, Altheide was a part-time instructor and a teaching assistant (T.A.) at the following colleges and universities throughout San Diego: San Diego State University, Chapman College, Grossmont College, and UCSD.[1]

After receiving his PhD in Sociology in 1974 from UCSD, Altheide began his career at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona as a visiting professor. From 1975 to 1982, he became an associate professor of Sociology; from 1982 to 1983, he served as an associate professor at Arizona State's Center for the Study of Justice. In 1983, Altheide was promoted the position of full professor, and for the next seven years (until 1990), he was a professor in the School of Justice Studies. In 1991, while on the faculty of the School of Justice Studies, Altheide was awarded the title of Regents' Professor, Arizona State University's highest faculty honor. The Regents' Professor title "is conferred on ASU faculty who have made pioneering contributions in their areas of expertise, who have achieved a sustained level of distinction, and who enjoy national and international recognition for these accomplishments." [2]

Altheide has served as resource faculty at Evergreen State College from 2008 to 2009, and has also held faculty positions abroad. In the spring of 1981, he was a visiting professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Lund in Lund, Sweden. In the spring of 1988 he was named an honorary research fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Lancaster in Lancaster, England.[1]

Areas of research

Altheide's research broadly focuses on qualitative methodology and the media's impact on society. More specifically, on his website, Altheide reflects on his more than 43-year career, defining his expertise as falling within five research areas: Mass Communication, Qualitative Research Methods, Deviant Behavior, Propaganda and Official Information, and Social Control.[3] More recently, Altheide's work has focused on three areas of research. The first explores the relationship between the media and fear. Altheide's second research focus examines the media as a form of social control. And, lastly, Altheide devotes his research to the development of qualitative methodology, specifically Ethnographic Content Analysis (ECA). These three areas of research are defined and analyzed here.

Mediated society and fear

Altheide's first book, Creating Reality: How TV News Distort Events (1976), was the first monograph of a TV news station, and inspired similar studies in several countries. It received Italy's Premio Diego Fabbri Award in 1986. Insights about the news process and use of institutional news sources contributed to significant discoveries about a "mediated society," or the nature and impact of "media logic" (Media Logic-1979-developed with collaborator Robert P. Snow). Part of media logic is "format,or the way in which information is recognized, organized, presented, and interpreted by audience members, who use this logic. The argument that major social institutions incorporated media logic into their activities became the foundation for international research on "mediation" in society. Bureaucratic Propaganda (1980), written with John M. Johnson, documented the official control of information. These insights were further integrated with the publication of An Ecology of Communication: Cultural Formats of Control (1995), which argued that events and activities are influenced by changes in information technology and communication formats. More recent work on study of the concept of fear focuses on the relationship between the public, the media, social, political, and economic institutions, and the ways in which these institutions construct, ascribe meaning, and use the concept of fear to influence public perceptions. In his study of this area of research, Altheide uses qualitative approaches such as textual analysis, discourse analysis, and ethnographic content analysis (see the Ethnographic Content Analysis (ECA) section below). Several of Altheide's recent books have focused on how the media constructs fear, using it as a form of entertainment, propaganda, and a form of social control (see Social Control section below). In his 2004 book, Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis,[4] examines how the meaning and employment of the term fear has fluctuated throughout history. He investigates the range of issues that the media has aligned with fear, such as race, crime, sexual orientation, and how different media ad social organizations have used fear to benefit their own agendas. In his 2006 book, Terrorism and the Politics of Fear,,[5] Altheide argues that following the September 11 attacks, "the U.S. government used the news media to promote fear and a sense of insecurity."[6] And in Altheide's most recent book, Terror Post 9/11 and the Media, Altheide explores the relationship between the media, the public, social and political institutions, and the ways in which fear is constructed by these institutions. According to Altheide, "We have more media and less information today ... Both the media and the information are increasingly complicit in promoting fear that has been nurtured by an expansive information technology as well as entertaining formats that draw users/audiences" (p. 1).[7] Altheide's study of fear is closely related to his research in the next area of research described here: Social Control.

Social control

Main article: Social control

Social control is the process through which social groups maintain and reinforce norms, values, and behaviors within a population. The mechanisms through which this control is exerted vary, from informal social pressure to formal laws and sanctions. Altheide has focused his research on how media logics often intersect with the mechanism of social control. For example, he investigated the 1991 release of the AZSCAM tapes. These tapes showed members of the Arizona State Legislature accepting bribes, and were released pre-trial to wide media circulation. Altheide concludes that the agents of social control (the authorities conducting the sting operation) were able to manipulate the media's need to show entertaining crime oriented news, and were therefore able to try the alleged corrupt officials in the court of public opinion prior to their appointed due process.[8] In a more recent study, Altheid examined the role of surveillance in internet technology. Altheide argues that the internet's many-to-many communication structure predicates an awareness of surveillance by its users. This knowledge of surveillance has led internet users to accept as inevitable the lack of privacy online. This in turn has led to an acceptance of the invasive tactics used by agents of social control, namely law enforcement, in their prosecution of sexual predators and assumed terrorist threats.[9]

Ethnographic content analysis (ECA)

This technique was first developed by Altheide's in an article in Qualitative Sociology.[10]

ECA is a qualitative technique for finding and analyzing symbolic texts that emphasizes the "search for contexts, underlying meanings, patterns, and processes, rather than mere quantity or numerical relationships between two or more variables."[10] Through this method, which utilizes theoretical sampling and emergent data analysis, one can discover and identify the complex frames in which concept are employed. One way in which ECA has been deployed in the research literature is through "tracking discourse," in which frames are examined across time. For example, this method has been used to examine how the Columbine massacre was subsumed into the larger discourse surrounding terrorism in the years after the 9/11 attacks.[11]

ECA follows a six-step process:[10]

  1. The researcher formulates the problem he wishes to investigate.
  2. An exploratory phase, where the researcher familiarizes himself with the information source under investigation.
  3. An initial examination of 6–10 specific documents relevant to the problem area. In this phase, particular interest is paid to the form and format of the source, and to the selection of a unit of analysis.
  4. The development of a data collection sheet that includes themes and variables drawn from the initial examination phase.
  5. An expansion of the sample under analysis, in which the validity of the proposed themes and variables are tested.
  6. A refinement process in which the researcher alternates between the previous two steps, amending the sample and code sheet to reflect the emergent data.

Major publications

Books

Journal articles and book chapters

Altheide has published and/or presented more than 160 papers (i.e.., journal articles and book chapters).[3] The following list of publications is just a sample of his more recent work:

Selected journal articles

Selected book chapters

Notable awards and honors

Throughout his career, Altheide has received a multitude of awards and honors for his scholarly work, research, and teaching. Highlighted here are just a sample of these accolades.

Awards

Titles and fellowships

Addresses

Grants

Professional affiliations

Altheide is affiliated with the following Associations and Societies:[1]

In popular culture

Altheide is the inspiration for the character "Professor Hoffman" in the Michael Chrichton novel, State of Fear.[12] In it, Professor Hoffman illustrates the media's "discourse of fear" using Altheide's ethnographic content analysis method.

Works cited/references

  1. 1 2 3 4 David L. Altheide, February 2009, Curriculum Vitae.
  2. ↑ Arizona Board of Regents (2010). "Regents' Professors". Arizona State University. Retrieved Nov 14, 2011.
  3. 1 2 Altheide, D. L. (n.d.). "Dr. David L. Altheide". Arizona State University. Retrieved Nov 14, 2011.
  4. ↑ Altheide, D. (2002). Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
  5. ↑ Altheide, D. (2006). Terrorism and the Politics of Fear. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.
  6. ↑ Keeler, S. (June 26, 2006). "Book details use of fear to support war on terror". ASU Insight. Retrieved Nov 14, 2011.
  7. ↑ Altheide, D. (2009). Terror Post 9/11 and the Media. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.
  8. ↑ Altheide, D. L. (1993). Electronic Media and State Control: The Case of Azscam. The Sociological Quarterly, 43(1), 53-69.
  9. ↑ Altheide, D. L. (2004). The Control Narrative of the Internet. Symbolic Interaction, 27(2), 223–245.
  10. 1 2 3 Altheide, D. L. (1987). Ethnographic content analysis. 'Qualitative Sociology'. 10(1), 65-77.
  11. ↑ Altheide, D. L. (2009). The Columbine shootings and the discourse of fear. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(10), 1354–1370.
  12. ↑ Campbell, G. (2005). "Altheide says media driving 'discourse of fear.'". ASU News [Now]. Retrieved Nov 14, 2011.
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