content analysis Flashcards
(8 cards)
intro
• A form of observational research.
• People are studied indirectly via communications they have produced.
• Spoken
• Written
• Media
• The aim is to summarise, in a systematic way, so that conclusions can be drawn.
coding and quantitative data
• Initial stage of content analysis
• Some data sets may be very large so info needs to be categorized into meaningful units.
• How often does X appear?
• Particular terms or descriptions.
• How often something is shown.
• Eg. How often men and women are depicted in professional / familial roles.
content analysis
Content analysis: an indirect observational method that is used to analyse human behaviour, investigating through studying human artefacts (the things people make).
Content analysis is often on the written word (non-numerical/qualitative data), or write-ups of spoken words (transcripts). This is transformed into quantitative data
1 - Decide a research question
2 - Select a sample - (e.g. randomly/systematically) from a larger quantity of all possible data (e.g. diary entries, tweets, children’s books).
3 - Coding - The researcher decides on categories/coding units to be recorded (e.g. occurrences of particular words), these are based on the research question.
4 - Work through the data - Read the sample, and tally the number of times the predetermined categories appear.
5 - Data analysis - can be performed on the quantitative data to look for patterns
The coding units/ categories should be operationalised, meaning they are as clearly defined as possible to try to reduce subjective interpretation. For example “directly threatening physical violence” rather than “aggressive statements”
testing for reliability/assessing for consistency
Test-retest reliability. Run the content analysis again on the same sample and compare the two sets of data.
Inter-rater reliability. A second rater also performs the content analysis, with the same set of data and the same behavioural categories. Compare the two sets of data.
How closely the two sets of data match is assessed with a test of correlation such as spearman’s rho. A correlation of 0.8 or stronger is usually accepted as showing the data is reliable.
strength
The “artefacts” are usually not created for research but are taken from the real world. This means content analysis has high external validity, and findings should be generalisable to other real-world situations.
As the artefacts come from the real world it is often easy to gather a sample.
Other researchers should be able to replicate a content analysis using the same coding units/ behavioural categories and an easy to access sample.
limitation
As the researcher will often need to interpret subjective text, this may lead to researcher/observer bias, when researchers tend to interpret the text in a way that supports their pre-existing views.
• The data is created for purposes other than the research as the data was not created under controlled conditions it may lack validity. For example, written historical records such as diaries may not contain an accurate record of the past but contain inaccuracies, and not all diaries have an equal chance of surviving into the present to be selected in a sample.
thematic analysis
Thematic analysis: Researchers start by attempting to identify the deeper meaning of the text by reading it first, and allowing themes to emerge.
To perform a thematic analysis
• Collect text/turn recordings into text through transcription (writing it down)
• Read text/transcripts first to spot patterns that can be coded and collected.
• Re-read the transcriptions/codes looking for emergent themes.
It is important when writing about thematic analysis that you make clear the themes are not pre-determined by the researcher but come from/emerge from the text.
strength-As theories come after the discovery of themes, it can be argued thematic analysis stops the researcher imposing their own bias on the analysis by only looking for what they want to see.
strengths-High external validity
Easy to get a sample
Easy to replicate
limitations-• Subjective interpretation.
• Data not created in controlled conditions
from book
Content analysis is a type of observational research in which people are studied indirectly via the communications they have produced. The forms of communication that may be subject to content analysis are wide-ranging and may include spoken interaction (such as a conversation or speech/presentation), written forms (such as texts or emails) or broader examples from the media (such as books, magazines, TV programmes or films).
The aim is to summarise and describe this communication in a systematic way so overall conclusions can be drawn.
Coding and quantitative data
Coding is the initial stage of content analysis. Some data sets to be analysed may be extremely large (such as the transcripts of several dozen lengthy interviews) and so there is a need to categorise this information into meaningful units. This may involve simply counting up the number of times a particular word or phrase appears in the text to produce a form of quantitative data. For instance, newspaper reports may be analysed for the number of times derogatory terms for people with mental health issues are used, such as ‘crazy’ or ‘mad. Another example would be TV adverts which may be examined to see how often men and women are depicted in ‘professional roles’ (at work) or ‘familial roles’ (at home) (which is similar to a study carried out by Adrian Furnham and Elena Farragher (2000) - see page 164 for more details).
Thematic analysis is a form of content analysis but the outcome is qualitative. The main process involves the identification of themes. A theme in content analysis refers to any idea, explicit or implicit, that is recurrent - in other words, which keeps cropping up’ as part of the communication being studied. These are likely to be more descriptive than the coding units described above. For instance, people with mental health issues may be misrepresented in newspapers as a threat to the well-being of our children’ or as ‘a drain on the resources of the NHS. Such themes may then be developed into broader categories, such as ‘control’, ‘stereotyping’ or ‘treatment’ of people with mental health issues.
Once the researcher is satisfied that the themes 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. Assuming these explain the new data adequately,the researcher will write up the final report, typically using direct quotes from the data to illustrate each theme.
illustrate each theme.
