The Qualitative Style of Distant Reading in Qualitative Data Analysis
Qualitative data analysis is one of steps for developing sociological imagination.There is still lack of full methodological discussions on the issue of how to do this well.Franco Moretti’s(2005)concept of"dis⁃tant reading"gives us an inspiration for solving this problem.However,his ideas on distant reading take researchers to the road of quantitative style of distant reading,which departs from the scope of traditional qualitative research.But distant reading can also be employed in traditional qualitative research,not in a quantitative style,but in a qualitative style.The latter differs from the former in the fact that it is neither necessary to take massive texts or big data for analysis,nor necessary to reduce the variables or indicators for analysis.Qualitative style of distant reading is characterized by opening up psychological distance be⁃tween researchers and texts of data,which allows researchers to look from a height down to the data in a more holistic way.Despite for the fact that in both traditional qualitative research and qualitative style of distant reading the abstract thinking and theoretical generalization are emphasized,both differ from each other in the timing and functioning of abstract thinking and theoretical generalization.There are three strat⁃egies in qualitative style of distant reading:enhancing the level of abstraction as early as possible,adopt⁃ing abduction logic as early as possible and using memo writing for help.
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