Numbers (Goodbye)

So, I guess it must be clear that I'm not a numbers person.

Had the big meeting with my thesis committee this afternoon at 1. I was asked some hard questions, gave a few lousy answers, but hashed out the remaining bit of research that'll earn me my M.S. To make a long story short, my thesis has become less a content analysis which would entail deep, close counting of paragraphs and sentences with mentions of organic agriculture, and moreso a textual analysis, which would be more "open-ended" and curious as to the types of framing that stories about organic agriculture receive.

I have about five pages of notes that I have to go through, but my project's been streamlined to such an extent that I'll not have a problem with finishing it by my August 1st deadline. Yes, I've been saying similar things for a while now, but this time I'm for real. My lit review and preliminary research is so complete that with just some changes to accommodate the suggestions from today and a citation conversion, it's almost a copy-n-paste jobber into my thesis.

I'm still doing a basic count of articles about organic ag., but I'm looking just at articles with first-order prominence of the topic, i.e. organic ag. is mentioned in the first five paragraphs, in the hed, dek, pull-quotes, or any infographic. Same with if the cover mentions something on the topic – I consider that now, too.

What I'm really excited about is the opportunity to do some close textual analyses of the texts, with discussion paid to the corporate hegemony of the farming industry (including farming magazines), the social and fiscal economies of farming, and so on. I'm thinking out the list, and upon return to Chicago, I'm cracking open my books on social and literary theory in hopes of gleaning some additional insight into these systems.

Yes, it's confusing stuff and mostly theoretical, but it'll all come together. Hopefully.