1. A case study is an in-depth analysis of a person, group or event that uses multiple sources of evidence to investigate a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context. Case studies can be prospective or retrospective and are useful for understanding why something occurred. 2. The key characteristics of a case study are that they are particularistic, descriptive, heuristic, and inductive. Case studies focus on a specific topic, provide detailed descriptions, help people understand the phenomenon being studied, and principles emerge from the data rather than being predetermined. 3. The process of a case study involves designing appropriate research questions, determining what constitutes the case or unit of analysis, conducting a pilot study and literature review, collecting data through documents

1. Introduction Of Case Study
Media Research
Practical work-2070
SAGARMATHA COLLEGE
FOR HIGHER STUDIES
Affilated to Tribhuvan University
Dillbazar, Kathmandu, Nepal
Submitted by: Submitted to:
Meetum Bantawa Rai Tribhuwan University
BA 2nd
year
Symbolno: 4680004

2. Case study
A case study is a descriptive or explanatory analysis of a person, group or event. Case studies
may be prospective, in which criteria are established and cases fitting the criteria are included
as they become available, or retrospective, in which criteria are established for selecting cases
from historical records for inclusion in the study.
The case study method is a common qualitative research technique. Case studies are conducted
to understand or explain a phenomenon by using as many data sources as possible. The case
study method is useful for suggesting why something has occurred. A wealth of information and
tremendous detail of information are advantages of case studies. It uses as many data sources
as possible to systematically investigate individuals, groups, organizations, or events. Case
studies are conducted when a researcher needs to understand or explain a phenomenon.
Yin (1994) defines “a case study as an empirical inquiry that uses multiple sources of evidence
to investigate a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, in which the boundaries
between the phenomenon and its context are not clearly evident ”.
This definition highlights how a case study differs from other research strategies. For example,
an experiment separates a phenomenon from its real-life context. The survey technique tries to
define the phenomenon under study narrowly enough to limit the number of variables to be
examined.
Merriam (1988) lists four essential characteristics of case study research:
1. Particularistic: That is, it focuses on a particular situation, event, program or
phenomenon. Focuses on particular topic/case.
2. Descriptive: The final product of a case study is a detailed description of the topic under
study. Case study describes based on its particular topic in details, interviews related persons,
does field observation to find out the truth etc.
3. Heuristic: A case study helps people to understand what is being studied. New
interpretations, new perspectives, new meaning, and fresh insights are all goals of a case
study.
4. Inductive: Depend on inductive reasoning. Principles and generalizations emerge from the
data. Case study totally describes its topic being based on its findings and reasoning.
Example of the method: Crabtree and Malhotra (2000) studied the introduction of commercial
television in India. In their case study, they interviewed business personnel, observed practices
at a commercial TV operation, monitored the content of commercial TV, and examined
organizational documents.

3. Process of Case study Methods:
1. Design:
IN design we mostly concern for appropriate why and how questions for our topic. We
make ready related questions for why and how did the certain event happened. In
design we prepare questions that help us to find out the truth about our case topic and
meet our research objective.
2. What to analyse, that is, what constitutes a case.
In this step we fix our topic as in which we are going to ask why and how questions as
per our first step. Here we fix our case and move for our third step following first step.
3. Rough guide is to find unit of analysis with help of available literature
Early after we fix our study topic we need to go for secondary data sources to find out
what findings have been found out about our research topic . We need to visit library,
online sites in over all we need to do literature review to know whether our case is a
novel topic or not.
Pilot study:
Construct a study protocol describing the procedures and data-gathering instruments. It
contains the schedule for data collection, addresses logistical problems, gaining access to
people and records. A pilot study is used to refine both the research design and the field
procedures.
Data collection:
In data collection we collect various documents-letters, memos, minutes, agendas, historical
records, brochures, pamphlets, posters etc. whatever is related to our topic.
Interview:
After data collection we go for intensive survey. We go to field where a case / event has
happened and try to find out the truth about why the event had happened and how did that
happen. We find out the reason behind happening such event / case. We observe the site and
also participate the peoples sayings about that happened event.
Data analysis:
After we finally finish our data collection part we stay for data analysis .We edit data, we
interpret data, we do pattern matching ,we explain the ideas that we have collected and we file
data as per out time series and process.
Report writing:
Last step after our editing, series keeping is report writing. Where we mention our findings,
what methods we applied our discussions, what problems we faced during our research periods.
This is the final part of case study.

4. Advantages of Case Study
 Case studies allow a lot of detail to be. The data collected is normally more in depth than can
be found through other experimental designs.
 Case studies tend to be conducted on rare cases where large samples of similar participants are
not available. Within the case study, scientific experiments can be conducted.
 Case studies can help experimenters adapt ideas and produce novel hypotheses which can be
used for later testing.
.
Disadvantages of Case Study
One of the main criticisms is that the data collected cannot necessarily be
generalised to the wider population. This leads to data being not always relevant or particularly
useful.
 Some case studies are not scientific.
 Case studies are generally on one person, group or event. This can lead to bias in data
collection, which can influence results more than in different designs.
 Often time consuming with massive amount of data that are hard to summarize
 It is also very difficult to draw a definite cause/effect from case studies, also tend to
collect mainly qualitative data
Conclusion
Overall, case studies are an important and useful method of data collection, especially in
cases of rare phenomena. It would be extremely unethical to go taking parts of peoples
brains out just to make a larger sample size to use a different experimental design
method. However, as data is collected on new cases I think it is important to always
refer back to previous data in order to build on existing knowledge and ensure findings
are as applicable to real life as possible.
Refrences:
Sites.google.com/site/croopjp
Wikipedia.com
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