Methodology memo

Word count: 1577

Case selection

The songs selected for lyrical analysis were chosen based on whether they at first glance
thematize mental health issues. Ryan and Bernard (2003) writes that themes are the
conceptual link between expression and abstract constructs. For my case selection it was
thus important to find songs which contain lyrical phrases that could be read as signifying
deeper mental health issues. Based on this selection criteria the song lyrics chosen for
further coding were Summer Depression (2018), 4 AM (2018), I Need to Be Alone (2019), I’ll
Die Anyway (2019) and Rue (2020). If one of these lyrics had later revealed themselves to be
unrelated to the theme of the study, I would have taken them out of the evaluation.
However, all five songs contained relevant data for this research. During the time frame of
the study Girl in Red released the song Serotonin (2021), which was integrated into the
research design along with the other documents.

Small (2009) writes that the number of cases included in a research design depends on
whether the purpose is to identify generalizable conclusion. The case selection should then
reflect the real-world diversity of the group or phenomena that is described. That is not the
aim here, as I mainly intend to deep dive into the work of a single artist to unravel the
meanings and thematization within her songs. There is thus no need for the case selection to
be representative of a broader spectrum than this one artist. As for whether these songs are
representative of her work in general, she currently has 13 songs publicly released. Having a
sample of 6/13 was thus deemed to be appropriate for drawing conclusions on Girl in Red’s
discography.

Methodology

The methodology used in this study intends to be somewhat heuristic by moving between
the research questions, the data at hand, my own prior knowledge, and theoretical notions
from clinical psychology. The purpose of this study is not so much to construct an
independent theory, but to develop a theoretical interpretation by studying how an
individual, in this case Girl in Red, constructs her own narrative of mental illness in her work.
In the words of Charmaz, narrativization of illness is interesting to study as it “reflects their
[the people living with illness] understandings of their experiences as well as the diverse
situations in which they have them” (1990, p. 1161). Qualitative content analysis (CA) was
chosen as the main method to analyze the song lyrics. As stated by Hsieh and Shannon
“qualitative content analysis focuses on the characteristics of language as communication
with attention to the content or contextual meaning of the text” (2005, p.1277). CA might
take different forms depend on the researcher’s strategy. For this inquiry a more directed
approach was undertaken, meaning that existing theory structures how the data is coded
and analyzed (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). Charmaz (1990) notes that researchers taking such
an approach risk only finding what they are looking for and remaining blind to other aspects
of the data material. Furthermore, in following a Glaserian critique of theory-based
approaches one should be wary of forcing themes upon the data, rather than examining it
for what it is (Kelle, 2007). Glaser was concerned that especially novice researchers, such as
myself, would prioritize theoretical terms over empirical phenomena instead of productively
using theory to grasp a hitherto unknown phenomena (Kelle, 2007, p.141).

Ultimately, I reject the notion of studying my data as detached from previous theoretical
knowledge. The topic at hand, representation of mental illness, is already dependent on the
conception of mental health as something that can be clinically studied and explained. Thus,
theory is already an a priori contingent for this study, and the data and codes were chosen
according to their correspondence to the topic. As noted by Hsieh and Shannon “the main
strength of a directed approach to content analysis is that existing theory can be supported
and extended” (2005, p.1283). For this study I wished to build upon what I already knew of
clinical psychology and see where that could take me in relation to Girl in Red’s lyrics. In
addition to directed CA, my approach is based on what Kelle (2007) refers to as “abductive
interference”, in which “satisfactory explanation of the observed facts” is related to the
researcher’s previous knowledge (p.146). This framework allows the researcher to integrate
their new findings with previous studies, as well as adjust aspects of the previous theory that
might be misleading or incomplete. Regarding the topic of mental illness, the abductive
approach opens up the possibility to view diagnostic criteria as something more than static
labels that are merely put-upon things. As will be further explained in the analysis, mental
health classification is always dynamic, and requires researchers to remain flexible and open
to the complex plasticity of the human psyche (Black & Grant, 2014).
Coding process

Using the described methodology this paper seeks to address the occurrence and valence of
references to negative emotions in the data and contextualize this within notions of mental
illness derived from clinical psychology. For the purpose of this research, the data was first
examined according to what terms and phrases occur in the lyrics. The initial coding process
therefore uses in vivo codes of sentences, words and phrases directly taken from the lyrics
(Charmaz, 2006, p.55). After completing the coding, I was left with 62 codes across my 6
documents. When organizing these codes in sub-groups, the categories were initially derived
according to what can be considered as specific negative emotions, which then later could
be compared with descriptions of mental illness. As Hsieh and Shannon writes “if the goal of
the research is to identify and categorize all instances of a particular phenomenon, such as
emotional reactions, then it might be helpful to read the transcript and highlight all text that
on first impression appears to represent an emotional reaction” (2005, p.1281). The codes
were organized following the typology of negative emotions written by Fokkinga, which
addresses primary and secondary groups of emotions (2019). The typology includes 36
nuances of negative emotion divided by 15 overarching categories (personal provocation,
agitation, antipathy, repulsion, unmotivation, misfortune, social hurt, painful desire, social
failing, self-blame, concrete threat, ambiguous threat, uncertainty of action, helplessness
and overwhelm).

In addition to Fokkinga’s typology I added the groupings: sleep problems, reference to

suicidality, reference to disorder (depression/anxiety). The purpose of these categories is that
they contain the direct references the artist makes to her struggles with mental illness. More
so than the typology of negative emotions, the codes within these groups speak explicitly on
symptoms of mental illness. Since negative emotions are universal in nature, the lyrical bits
simply addressing negative emotions might be quite unimportant if not contextualized
within the work of an artist who openly addresses mental illness. As stated by Hsieh and
Shannon awareness of context is what enables CA researchers to extract certain bits of a
document and attach meaning to them (2005, p.1277). Without awareness of context, the
meanings might become entirely lost. The explicit references to mental illness are therefore
important as a guiding factor through which the remaining codes can be understood.
Furthermore, I added the category hope to highlight the codes that speak of an ongoing
struggle to become well. These bits are important as hope is considered an enabling factor
on the road of recovery (Hayes et al., 2017). Rather than discarding the notions of
hopefulness as being somewhat unrelated to the topic, they should be integrated as part of
the complex reality of upturns and downturns when living with a mental illness.

Theoretical analysis

As discussed in the topic memo, the rudimentary purpose of analyzing these lyrics relates to
how popular culture may function as a platform through which young people learn to share
and recognize their experiences (Hendry, 2020). It is thus important to understand how and
to what degree artists express mental illness, either as implicitly or explicitly stated, in their
lyrics. The first step of the analysis was to compare the codes and sub-groups within the
descriptions of anxiety, depression, and other relevant typologies from the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DMS-5) (2013). The DMS is considered the standard
for international for psychiatric diagnosis and classification. Its main purpose is to construct
a common language for understanding and treating mental disorders (Black & Grant, 2014).
When applying the DMS-5 is must however be noted that using standardized guides for
addressing mental illness is not without its controversies. Most notably, the DMS has been
criticized for reducing complex human emotions to neat labels in “a codified and rigorous
evidence base” (Sepkowitz, 2012). Rather than falling into such harmful habits, I wish to use
the DMS-5 rather transparently, not as a tool to categorize what emotions are right or wrong
to feel, but simply to interpret how emotionally charged lyrics fit within a larger narrative of
mental illness. As noted by Saldaña “writing about the problematic, the ambiguous, and the
complex is no guarantee that crystal clarity will evolve, but the approach is a heuristic that
may lead to deeper awareness of the multifaceted social world, and serve as an initiating
tactic to refocus the blurry” (p.50). Thus, it is not enough just recognizing the problematic
aspects of one’s theory, theoretical reflections must be continuously done throughout the
entire study. To the best of my ability, I have tried to remain reflective of the intricate nature
of the topic.
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