What is content analysis?
A secondary source of data. A way of extracting the main messages, ideas, themes, or biases in a document
KEY STUDY: Cohen (1972)
Looked at media representations of two youth subcultures of the time: the Mods and the Rockers. There was an initial minor conflict between the groups, but Cohen found that the media exaggerated and distorted events to make it seem much worse than it was (an example of a moral panic)
KEY STUDY: Lobban & Tuchman (1978)
Analysed gender roles in children’s reading schemes and TV shows. Found that females were portrayed in a set of roles that was both limited and stereotyped, typically performing domestic roles
What are some practical strengths of content analysis?
- Easy access; there is plenty of material to be analysed, such as newspapers, TV, radio, etc
- Cheap to use as sources already exist
- Allows the discovery of things that may not be obvious, e.g. whether gender role stereotypes really occur across children’s books
What are some practical weaknesses of content analysis?
- Can be time consuming to go through lots of content, especially if it is qualitative
What are some ethical strengths of content analysis?
- Serves public interest to help them understand how manipulative the media can be
- No participants means no harm can be caused
What are some ethical weaknesses of content analysis?
- If researcher bias takes place, this could be used to justify certain questionable viewpoints
What are some theoretical strengths of content analysis?
- Interpretivists like qualitative content analyses thanks to the depth of the data
- Positivists like quantiative content analyses as they are based on objective, scientific data, which is highly reliable (there are only a fixed number of each word/phrase in a particular document)
- Qualitative content analysis can be used to gain verstehen in certain situations
- No participants, removing some of the subjectivity involved with, for example, the Hawthorne Effect
What are some theoretical weaknesses of content analysis?
- Positivists dislike qualitatitive content analyses as they are based on the researcher’s personal interpretation
- Based on subjective interpretations of research, reducing validity
- Interpretvists argue that simpy counting up the number of times something appears in a document tells us nothing about its meaning
What is qualitative content analysis?
This looks for the underlying descriptions, meanings, and messages in content. What is the content trying to convince the reader of?
What is quantiative content analysis?
This looks for how many times certain words or phrases appear in content. What is the overall tone of the content?
