Comparer des méthodes

	Analyse documentaire	Ethnographie
Domaine	Recherche qualitative	Qualitatif
Famille	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Année d'origine	1920	c. 1922 (Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific)
Auteur d'origine	Max Weber and Karl Mannheim	Bronisław Malinowski (modern ethnography); rooted in 19th-century anthropology
Type	Method	Qualitative fieldwork tradition
Source fondatrice	Scott, J. (1990). A Matter of Record: Documentary Sources in Social Research. Polity Press. ISBN: 978-0745608419	Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. (2019). Ethnography: Principles in Practice (4th ed.). Routledge. ISBN: 978-1138504462
Alias	documentary analysis, textual analysis, content analysis of documents, archival research	Etnografi, participant observation, fieldwork, ethnographic research
Apparentées	4	5
Résumé	Document analysis is a systematic qualitative research method for examining written, visual, or audiovisual sources—such as policy documents, historical records, organizational records, media reports, emails, social media posts, photographs, or videos—to extract meaning, identify patterns, and understand social phenomena. Developed by Weber and Mannheim in early 20th-century sociology, the method bridges historical research, content analysis, and textual interpretation. Document analysis is used across disciplines to understand organizational change, policy evolution, media representation, historical events, and cultural meaning. Documents provide evidence of what organizations, institutions, or societies value, decide, and communicate, often revealing contradictions between policy and practice.	Ethnography is a qualitative research tradition in which a researcher immerses themselves in a social group or community over an extended period — typically three to six months or longer — to study its culture, values, and behaviours in their natural setting. Originating in social and cultural anthropology, and consolidated as a rigorous method by Bronisław Malinowski in the early twentieth century, ethnography produces rich, contextualised accounts of how people live, work, and make meaning together.