Content Analysis

• Content Analysis

  • Analyses artefacts rather than participants
  • When information is too costly, impractical or impossible
  • Particularly useful in conjunction with other methods
  • Manifest Content: “On surface” e.g. frequency words is used in magazine
  • Latent content: In-depth “beneath surface” e.g. if word is used positively or negatively
  • Quantitative Data: Start with qualitative, content analysis (e.g. 75% superhero films have male lead characters)
  • State aims and hypothesis
  • Researcher identifies “categories” or “coding units” (inductive or deductive), e.g. theme
  • Frequency tally charts
• Content Analysis Evaluation

  Strengths:

  • Ethical: Pre-existing secondary data, no primary data production, also fast and economical
  • Turns qualitative to quantitative, so inferential tests can be used to determine statistical significance
  • Easily applicable; inexpensive, non-invasive

  Weaknesses:

  • Category selection and recognition is subjective
  • Transforming qualitative into quantitative data, you lose some detail; reductionist
  • Objectivity: Transforms qualitative to numbers
  • Appears to scientific
  • System has researcher bias
  • Lack of causality: Not performed in controlled conditions