Content Analysis Flashcards
What is content analysis?
A research tool used to indirectly study behaviour by examining the communications they produce
What do researchers doing content analysis do?
Analyse the presence, meanings and relationship of words and concepts, then make inferences about the messages within the media, the writers, the audience , and even the culture and time of which these are a part
What is coding?
This is where something that is being analysed is coded or broken down, into manageable categories and then examines. This may involve simple counting up the number of times a word or a phrase appears in the text to produce a form of quantitative data
What is thematic analysis?
This summarises qualitative data by looking for emergent themes in data, codes them and the interprets their meaning.
What are the strengths of content analysis? (4)
- Fewer ethical issues as much of the material already exists - meaning there will be no issues with obtaining permision
- Some sensitive communications (eg texts) are high in external validity
- They produce both qualitative and quantitative data meaning it is a flexible method and can be used to suit the aims of the research
- When resources can be accessed by others, they can be replicated and tested for reliability
What are the limitations of content analysis? (4)
- People are studied indirectly so the communcation they produce is usually analyses outside of the context in which it occurred - they may interpret the meaning of stuff wrong
- Lack of objectivity
- Likely to be culture biases
- May suffer from observer bias
How do you conduct a content analysis?
SAMPLING METHOD - decide how the material should be sampled (time or event)
RECORDING THE DATA - decide how the data should be recorded (videod? transcribed?)
decide who should collect the data (an individual or a team?)
ANALYSING THE DATA - how should the material be categorized or coded? (no of times something is mentioned or should it be described using themes?)
