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ContentAnalysis.pptx

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Content Analysis

Content Analysis Defined

Systematically examining the content of communication

It is used to:

Describe how much or what kind of certain messages exist

E.g., sex on TV

Compare media content to the “real world”

E.g., how many criminals in prime‐time dramas are minorities vs. actual U.S. convicts that are minorities

Comparison between FBI crime statistics and violent crime as portrayed on TV

Content Analysis

It is also used to:

Assess the “image” of a particular group

E.g., are Islamic people often shown as terrorists

Examine content trends over time

E.g., portrayals of women in the ‘50s vs. today

To get a starting point for effects research

E.g., if lots of sex on TV, then what effects might this cause?

Later use an experiment to study this

Limitations of Content Analysis

Cannot serve as basis for making statements about the effects of content

E.g. 90% of primetime commercials contain ads on alcohol… so, those who watch TV this time must be high in alcohol drinking. No!

You need an additional study of the viewers

Lack of messages relevant to research

Many topics or characters receive little exposure in mass media

Time consuming and expensive!

What Type of Questions?

What proportion of TV characters are women?

Does the proportion change between daytime and primetime?

What about by genre?

How about proportions by age, race, etc.?

How are cops portrayed on TV? Lawyers?

What kinds of arguments do hate groups use when trying to recruit new members?

How is love portrayed in rap vs. in country music?

Content Analysis Steps

Formulate a research question or hypothesis

Define the population

Select a sample

Define the unit of analysis

Construct the categories of interest

Train the coders

Assess reliability

Analyze the data

2. Defining the Population

What do you want to generalize to?

RQ: How is drunk driving portrayed in primetime television shows?

Need to define:

Drunk driving

Implied or explicit

Primetime

What hours?

Television shows

Cable, broadcast?

3. Select a Sample

Census or sample

Determine sampling method

Same techniques used for surveys applied here

Cluster, stratification, quota, etc.

Goal: “representativeness”

3. Select a Sample

Often multi-stage

Selecting communication sources

E.g., broadcast TV networks

Picking a sample of content of a workable size

Five weeks of primetime crime drama

Sampling shows

Every 3rd show

Sampling within shows

Code every 3 minutes, or every relevant scene

And so on—you get the idea

4. Define the Unit of Analysis

What you count & categorize

Products advertised during children’s TV

Individual ads

Time; words

Sex on TV

Program

Scene

Gender-biased language in editorials

Articles

Sentences

Examples

Topic	Population	Sample	Unit of Analysis
Advertising in Ebony magazine	All issues of Ebony, 1957-1989	Randomly chosen issues from the period	All full and one-quarter page ads
Network TV news bias in the 1992 campaign	All weeknight newscasts from Aug. 24-Oct 30, 1992 on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN	99 newscasts chosen at random	Statements made on air by news source
Portrayal of crime and aggression in reality-based TV shows	All episodes of five reality-based police shows in 1999 and 2000	76 programs recorded from Fall 1999 to Spring 2000	Characters portrayed as either police officer or criminal
Gender differences in children’s ads	Network children’s Saturday programming in 2000	All ads broadcast in one week of Feb 2000 on Disney channel and Nickelodeon	Each character with a name and speaking role

Examples

Topic	Population	Sample	Unit of Analysis
Advertising in Ebony magazine	All issues of Ebony, 1957-1989	Randomly chosen issues from the period	All full and one-quarter page ads
Network TV news bias in the 1992 campaign	All weeknight newscasts from Aug. 24-Oct 30, 1992 on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN	99 newscasts chosen at random	Statements made on air by news source
Portrayal of crime and aggression in reality-based TV shows	All episodes of five reality-based police shows in 1999 and 2000	76 programs recorded from Fall 1999 to Spring 2000	Characters portrayed as either police officer or criminal
Gender differences in children’s ads	Network children’s Saturday programming in 2000	All ads broadcast in one week of Feb 2000 on Disney channel and Nickelodeon	Each character with a name and speaking role

Examples

Topic	Population	Sample	Unit of Analysis
Advertising in Ebony magazine	All issues of Ebony, 1957-1989	Randomly chosen issues from the period	All full and one-quarter page ads
Network TV news bias in the 1992 campaign	All weeknight newscasts from Aug. 24-Oct 30, 1992 on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN	99 newscasts chosen at random	Statements made on air by news source
Portrayal of crime and aggression in reality-based TV shows	All episodes of five reality-based police shows in 1999 and 2000	76 programs recorded from Fall 1999 to Spring 2000	Characters portrayed as either police officer or criminal
Gender differences in children’s ads	Network children’s Saturday programming in 2000	All ads broadcast in one week of Feb 2000 on Disney channel and Nickelodeon	Each character with a name and speaking role

Examples

Topic	Population	Sample	Unit of Analysis
Advertising in Ebony magazine	All issues of Ebony, 1957-1989	Randomly chosen issues from the period	All full and one-quarter page ads
Network TV news bias in the 1992 campaign	All weeknight newscasts from Aug. 24-Oct 30, 1992 on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN	99 newscasts chosen at random	Statements made on air by news source
Portrayal of crime and aggression in reality-based TV shows	All episodes of five reality-based police shows in 1999 and 2000	76 programs recorded from Fall 1999 to Spring 2000	Characters portrayed as either police officer or criminal
Gender differences in children’s ads	Network children’s Saturday programming in 2000	All ads broadcast in one week of Feb 2000 on Disney channel and Nickelodeon	Each character with a name and speaking role

5. Develop Content Categories

Constructs of interest must be measureable

Content categories are the empirical indicators you think reflect them

Categories should:

Reflect the purpose of the research

Allow for independence

Exhaustive

Mutually exclusive

Reliable – coders must agree on majority of instances about categorization for each unit of analysis

6. Code Data

Applying coding scheme and generate data

Coding scheme/codebook provides rules for assigning to categories

Individuals must be trained to use codebook

Problems can result from:

Poor definition of the categories

Unclear instruction given to the coders

Unanticipated content that is difficult to code

Example Coding Sheet

7. Compute Reliability

Coders should agree in what they see. If not, that’s a problem

To ensure that the coding scheme is reliable we have to test it

Coders score identical content

Results are compared using statistical tests for reliability

Intercoder reliability vs. intracoder reliability

8. Analyze the Data

Various ways, based on level of measurement and research question