In general, the personal/political perspective of an
individual researcher has a significant influence upon the research process – from the choice of
topic, to the selection of method, to the collection, coding, analysis, and presentation of data.
With specific regard to the analysis of cultural artifacts, such as television programs, “the themes
extracted from the data represent the discourse of those who created the products (including the
social context in which that discourse lives) versus the personal/political discourse of the
individual researcher” (Leavy, 2000, ¶14).