6 / Myanmar's media from an audience perspective Methodology Doing an audience study with a qualitative approach naturally sets some limitations in terms of the number of participants and the representability of the study. It is therefore important to emphasize that the research effort does not claim to provide statistically representative results reflecting the media habits and media literacy levels of the entire Myanmar population. The research is designed to give indicative insights into these topics and generalize on more broad levels. In qualitative studies, the research participants play an important role. Given that qualitative research typically focuses on fewer cases than quantitative research, cases and/or research participants are commonly selected purposefully. Whereas the logic and power of sampling in quantitative research lies in randomization and representativeness, the logic and power of purposeful sampling “lies in selecting information-rich cases for study in-depth”6. Thus, to ensure a high level of generalizability, participants in the research were therefore selected based on a stratified purposive sampling strategy to make sure that they reflected different media habit types (heavy, medium and light as well as social media users versus non-social media users7) and that the sample was stratified according to location (urban/rural), gender and age. With such a sampling approach, the research strived to include several different stereotypical media consumers in Myanmar without having a full representative sample. This provided indications of media use and media understandings across different groups in Myanmar and used to identify trends and phenomena among Myanmar media audiences. As described in the introduction, four states/regions were selected for the research: Yangon, Mandalay, Rakhine and Kachin. Six focus groups and six in-depth interviews took place in each state/region. Of the 24 focus group discussions, 10 were female-only and 10 were maleonly. The four remaining were mixed. The gender disaggregated groups ensured participating women were able to voice their opinions without any constraints due to male presence. As focus group discussions are all about equal participation and debate, it was a natural choice to carry out the research in this way. For the 24 in-depth interviews, the gender distribution was 50/50 with 12 interviews with women and 12 with men. In each state/region, focus groups and in-depth interviews were evenly distributed according to rural and urban locations as well as being stratified according to gender, age and other demographic parameters. Although it was not possible in all cases, most focus group discussions reflected various levels of diversity. 6 Patton, Michael Q. 1990. Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. London; New York: Sage Publications. 7 When it comes to media user types, the literature typically distinguishes between light, medium and heavy media users. What constitute a light, medium and heavy media user will depend on context and culture. As very little is known about the news and media habits of people in Myanmar, the study worked with the assumption that light media users rarely seek news and information on their own initia- tive, medium media users seek out news and information at least once a week and heavy media users seek out news and information on a daily basis or several times a day. The study also distinguished between social media users and non-social media users.