content analysis

    Cards (4)

    • Content analysis
      Indirectly studying/observing human behaviour through things we produce (books, TV ads, newspaper)
    • Content analysis limitations
      • Deciding on categories and quotations can be subjective therefore researcher bias
      • Difficult to decide whether statement or example fits into particular categories therefore inaccuracies with categories
      • People studied indirectly outside of the context that it occurred therefore unjustified assumptions on original speaker/writer's intentions
      • Categories may not reflect reality therefore meaningless results therefore low mundane realism and low external validity
    • Content analysis strengths
      • Unobtrusive - indirect study therefore can avoid ethical violations
      • Deals with secondary data therefore ethical issues are minimised, low cost and material already in public domain
      • Allows for quantitative/qualitative research therefore is flexible
      • Qualitative into quantitative data therefore can be used for inferential statistics
    • Content analysis: coding
      First stage in which large data sets are categorised into meaningful units to produce quantitative data. eg: counting number of times (event sampling) a word or phrase appears
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