The narrative analysis focuses on the stories people tell and the language they use to make sense of them. It is particularly useful for getting a deep understanding of customers’ perspectives on a specific issue. A narrative analysis might enable us to summarize the outcomes of a focused case study.
Discourse analysis is used to get a thorough understanding of the political, cultural and power dynamics that exist in specific situations. The focus here is on the way people express themselves in different social contexts. Discourse analysis is commonly used by brand strategists who hope to understand why a group of people feel the way they do about a brand or product.
Thematic analysis is used to deduce the meaning behind the words people use. This is accomplished by discovering repeating themes in text. These meaningful themes reveal key insights into data and can be quantified, particularly when paired with sentiment analysis. Often, the outcome of thematic analysis is a code frame that captures themes in terms of codes, also called categories. So the process of thematic analysis is also referred to as “coding”. A common use-case for thematic analysis in companies is analysis of customer feedback.
Grounded theory is a useful approach when little is known about a subject. Grounded theory starts by formulating a theory around a single data case. This means that the theory is “grounded”. It’s based on actual data, and not entirely speculative. Then additional cases can be examined to see if they are relevant and can add to the original theory.