Research methodologies on television drama: a diachronic study of the research methodologies and techniques used by Observatório Ibero-Americano da Ficção Televisiva (OBITEL)

Progressively, and within the Iberian-American communications field, OBITEL has grown as a network for international research which produces and compares both quantitatively- and qualitatively-collected data, in order to identify similarities and particularities, adaptations and reappropriations between different national television narratives produced and presented in each country. It is thus an intercultural comparative study that enables us to become aware of each country’s representation of its own society and of others through scripted television productions, or of indicators of their daily construction and reconstruction of elements of their cultural identity. Based on these results, OBITEL is able to assemble a broad, in-depth image of the economic power of television drama over time. This research project aims to produce a diachronic historical analysis of the methodologies used in each of the annual reports published by OBITEL for the study of the field, particularly from 2007 to 2020. Its main question is: which are the research methodologies and techniques most used by countries to generate the immense amount of data available on television drama? From this, the next goal is to understand whether the cultural production of drama has had an influence, for each specific year, over methodological choices. In general, the research hypothesis is that there is a close connection between how the televised product is presented and the researchers’ methodological choices.