6 - Content Analysis

Question 1

content analysis

Answer 1

qualitative description of characteristics of communication

Question 2

what is counted in content analysis?

Answer 2

words (frequency and word pairings), subjects/themes (interpretivist, looking beyond manifest to latent), value positions (ideologies, beliefs, principles)

Question 3

coding involves _____ and ______.

Answer 3

coding schedule (the form onto which data are entered) and the coding manual (the set of instructions that includes all possible categories for each dimension to be coded)

Question 4

potential pitfalls in devising coding schemes

Answer 4

• mutually exclusive categories
• exhaustive
• clear instructions (what factors to take into account when assigning codes)
• clear unit of analysis
• intra-coding reliability

Question 5

ECA

Answer 5

ethnographic content analysis follows recursive/reflesive movement between concept development, sampling data, data collection, coding data, and analysis
involves constant discovery and constant comparison

Question 6

semiotics

Answer 6

science of signs that seeks to uncover hidden meanings. sign/signifier, denotative meaning (manifest) and connotative (yellow light = speed up to beat red light)

Question 7

hermeneutics

Answer 7

analysis of text must seek meanings from perspectives of author, considering the social and historical context within which text was product.

Question 8

hermeneutics was influential in the formation of ____ and has much in common with ______.

Answer 8

interpretivism, Weber’s verstehen.

Question 9

conversation analysis

Answer 9

cause-and-effect, generalizations that allow people to perform everyday tasks. naturalism, positivism

Question 10

indexality

Answer 10

meaning of words, utterances, pauses, etc

Question 11

reflexivity

Answer 11

how words relate to one another

Question 12

assumptions of CA

Answer 12

• talk is structured
• talk is forged contextually
• analysis of grounded theory

Question 13

features of conversations

Answer 13

turn taking (shared codes) 
adjacency pairs (first pair assumes other part of pair is forthcoming)

Question 14

preference organization

Answer 14

some responses are clearly preferred to others

Question 15

discourse analysis

Answer 15

emphasizes the way versions of the world, of society, events, and inner psychological worlds are produced in discourse. puts less emphasis on naturally occurring talk.

Question 16

how is DA generally realist?

Answer 16

it denies the existence of an external reality

Question 17

how is DA constructionist?

Answer 17

gives priority to the versions of reality propounded by members of social settings. entails a selection of many possible interpretations of a given solution.

Question 18

advantages of content analysis

Answer 18

+in most quantitative focus, it is a very transparent research method
+replication is thus relatively easy
+allows for longitudinal analysis
+unobtrusive, non-reactive method
+highly flexible method, applicable to several different kinds of unstructured information
+permits the study of social groups that are difficult to access

Question 19

disadvantages of content analysis

Answer 19

• can only be as good as the documents it explores
• almost impossible to devise coding manuals that doesn’t require at least a little interpretation by researcher
• problems of interpretation, especially with identifying latent meanings
• not as useful in answering “why questions”
• accused of being atheoretical

Question 20

chapter 17: writing up social research

Components of an Article

Answer 20

1. Introduction
2. Theory
3. Data
4. Measurements
5. Methods and models
6. Results
7. Conclusions