ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates not on theories or analytic
standpoints but on methods of research, that is how
knowledge is produced in cultural studies. The term
research originates from the French ‘rechercher’,
meaning to search for the facts, to investigate some-
thing thoroughly. Researchers in cultural studies have
used a wide array of methods drawn from the human-
ities and social sciences, and especially those methods
that prize interpretation. Whether cultural studies has
any distinctive methods of its own is a moot point. For
example, Jim McGuigan (1997: 1) observes that ‘still it
remains difficult to see quite what cultural studies
amounts to methodologically’. Often, the metaphor of
bricolage is employed to describe the eclectic, topic and
problem-driven approach of cultural studies. What
seems to matter most is the selection of methods that
treat culture seriously as a topic in its own right, not as
a mere ‘effect’ (Alasuutari, 1995).
