content analysis

• content analysis is a type of observational research technique in which people are studied indirectly via the communications they have produced.
• forms of communications that may be subject to content analysis are wide-ranging and may include spoken interactions, written communications or from the media.
• The aim of content analysis is to summarise and describe this communication in a systematic way so overall conclusions can be drawn.
• coding is an initial stage of content analysis.
• Coding involves the categorising of information into meaningful units. This needs to be done because often the data set to be analysed can be extremely large
• content analysis may also involve generating qualitative data-thematic analysis
• a theme in content analysis refers to any ideas that is recurrent

  -likely to be more descriptive than the coding units
• once the researcher is satisfied that the themes that they have developed cover most aspects of the data they are analysing, they may collect a new set of data to test the validity of the themes and categories
• strengths of content analysis

  high external validity because the data is obtained from real life experience

  flexible in the sense that it may produce quantitative data and qualitative data depending on the aims of the study.
• weakness of content analysis

  -communication that people produce is normally outside of the context within which it occurred- researcher may attribute opinions and motivations to the speaker/writer that were not originally intended

  -can be difficult to decide on appropriate categories/codes/themes and time-consuming to carry out

  -may suffer from lack of objectivity, esp when more descriptive forms of thematic analysis are employed