Investigative Research

Investigative research is a name given to a collection of research techniques and methods used by researchers (including journalists, social scientists and others). It is intended to unearth secret, hidden or obscure information that can build a more comprehensive picture of the issue under investigation.

Covert methods

Gunter Walraff is a German investigative journalist who specialises in going undercover to reveal abuses of power. His work is excoriated by corporate lobby groups such as the West German Employers association:

When [Walraff] describes an industry on the basis of his ‘research’, his writing is characterised by a consistent scale of social values which could by fashioned only by a conscious ideologist of class struggle. Each of Walraff’s publications reaches us as a hatefilled social-political campaign aimed at strengthening the machinations of class struggle. His purpose is to arouse among workers by hand and brain a class-consciousness which they will ultimately use to destroy the social system. his methods of investigation and documentation must be categorically condemned; the logical consequence of his point of view is that the end justifies any means and that all sense of responsibility is lost.

See Also

• Power Structure Research | Social Network Analysis |