Content analysis

Question 1

What is content analysis?

Answer 1

• A technique for analysing qualitative data according to themes or categories, turning it into quantitative data
• Researcher observes human produced media
• Sampling and conding of data is considered

Question 2

What is thematic analysis?

Answer 2

• Repeated themes are indentified in the material that is being alaysed and data is organised accordingly
• Takes a very long time
• Done in order to summarise huge amounts of data

Question 3

What are the steps to content analysis?

Answer 3

1. Data is collected
2. Researcher reads through the data and familiarises themselves with it
3. The researcher identifies coding units (behavioural categories)
4. Data is analysed by applying the coding units
5. A tally is made of the number of times that a coding unit has appeared

Question 4

What are the strengths of content analysis?

Answer 4

• High ecological validity
• Sources can also be analysed by other researchers

Question 5

What are the weaknesses of content analysis?

Answer 5

• Observer bias
• Cultural bias due to interpretation of verbal or written content