QUANTMEDCOMMGEO · New approaches in media and communication geography: Quantitative methods for analyzing geographical mobility

This study uses as a starting point the current call for a fundamental restructuring of research paradigms in geography and media & communication (Adams 2010, Adams and Jansson 2012). I aim to contribute to this restructuring mainly methodologically – to find the link between the disciplines through the analysis of geographical mobility and using quantitative methods. I originate from the current studies in the field of mobility (Giddens 1990, Castells 2001, Urry 2012) and from the critics (Castles 2010) to mobility studies as being unable to embrace the complex nature of mobility. The social transformation approach has been offered theoretically as a solution (Castles 2012), but there are still no methodologies for empirical analysis of mobility through the prism of social changes. The methodology in the social sciences has also been often criticised (Taagepera 2008), often being too descriptive and not enabling ‘theoretical generalisations and finding the “social laws”. The present project mainly uses the interpretative quantitative approach as a tool, the quantitative approach being rather innovative in the media and communication studies, and the interpretative approach (see, e.g. Glaser 2008) being rather innovative in the field of geography. This project aims to implement the quantitative methods for analysing mobility, within the following three subfields: (1) geographical mobility and ICT (analysis of individual mobility, based on national census (2011) and mobile positioning data (2012), and using interpretative structural methods); (2) communication geography (analysis of mobility practices and wishes, based on survey data collected in 2002-2014 in Estonia and using modelling methods for enabling micro- and macro-level analysis); (3) media geography (analysis of geographical character of spatial mobility and media usage habits using spatial analysis methods and based on European Social Survey data collected in 2014).