How do films & TV shows influence our level of tolerance and respect towards cultural diversity and ethnicity? Analyze at least 5 TV shows and films

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Content & Textual analysis

Abeer AlNajjar

http://www.audiencedialogue.net/kya16b.html

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=a679b843-01a3-4893-a56d-2f08c97673ce%40sessionmgr4003&vid=1&hid=4201How Arab is Al-Jazeera English?

Extracting meanings, and ideology

Both TA and CA focus on media messages

One for Quantitative and the other for a Qualitative approach

In both we examine

frequencies (the extent to which),

Meanings and ideology (TA)what does, how does etc.,

Berelson (1952) suggested five main purposes of content analysis as follows:

To describe substance characteristics of message content;

To describe form characteristics of message content;

To make inferences to producers of content;

To make inferences to audiences of content;

To predict the effects of content on audiences.

CA Answers Questions like:

How often are older adults shown in TV commercials?

How much sex are children between 6-9 years are exposed to in Television programming?

How often are female with color shown in beauty product magazine Ads?

Content Analysis

A Research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication”

(Berelson, 1952)

“Content analysis refers to a general set of techniques useful for analyzing and understanding collections of text.”

Eric T. Meyer

http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/tidsr/kb/54/what-content-analysis

Modern content analysis was developed primarily as a way of analyzing mass communication messages. Certainly its evolution as a scientific method of inquiry was accelerated by the propaganda analysis projects of Laswell and his colleagues in 1940s.

Today’s researchers not only adhere to well-defined procedures, but they pursue an expanded realm of questions

Spurred by the

Development of new conceptual frameworks

Advances in statistical tools,

Great variety of available communication content

And the use of computers

Content analysis now is one of the most frequently used communication research methodologies

Centrality of content analysis in media research

Content analysis now is one of the most frequently used communication research methodologies

Characteristics

Objective

Systematic

Generality

Systematic: to apply consistent criteria in a rigorous/accurate/precise and careful way

Holsti adds the need for GENERALITY, arguing that simple descriptions of content are of limited worth without comparisons and relationships drawn from theoretical concerns

Challenges:

Going behind the manifest content and the challenge of objectivity

The question of whether or not content analysis must be a quantitative undertaking. Holsti (1969) argues that the “case for content analysis based on exact counts of frequency is a powerful one” because quantification increases the degree of precision of one’s conclusions and permits a more accurate description of covariance between elements

There is no easy resolution of this problem, the content analyst must decide the extent to which the questions being asked require quantitative or qualitative analysis or perhaps some combination.

Procedures

Formulating a research question

Sampling

Defining categories

Outlining the coding process

Implementing the coding process

Determining reliability and validity

Analyzing the results of the coding process

Any application of content analytic procedure includes at least 7 steps:

Formulate the hypothesis or research questions to be answered

Select the sample to be analyzed

Define the categories to be applied

Outline the coding process and train the coders who will implement it

Implement the coding process

Determine reliability and validity

Analyze the results of the coding process

How Arab is Al-Jazeera English? Comparative Study of Al-Jazeera Arabic and Al-Jazeera English News Channels

This paper aims to identify the similarities and differences between Al-Jazeera English (AJE) and Al-Jazeera Arabic (AJA) according to their representation by country and region on the one hand and story placement and story type on the other. Particular attention is given to the Arab countries and the region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The study analyzes the content of the main evening (KSA time) news bulletins of the two channels over a six-month period (November 2006 – May 2007), in which 477 news stories are examined. The newscasts of AJE and AJA are analyzed over two rolling weeks and two constructed weeks.

Hypotheses

are generated from sound theoretical perspectives

are suggested by previous research in an area of interest to the researcher

Ideally, hypotheses are generated from sound theoretical perspectives or are suggested by previous research in an area of interest to the researcher.

In content analysis , many research hypotheses simply suggest a particular description of a message. For instance, a researcher might hypothize that persuasive speeches contain substantial amounts of emotional proof or that women occupy low status positions in TV dramas

A good research formulation suggests a relationship between communication variables. Examples of such hypotheses include:

Editorials in national newspapers are more favorable to Democratic than to Republican candidates

The amount of violence in prime-time TV programming has increased during the past 2 decades

Conversational patterns of mentally disturbed children differ from patterns of normal children

Propaganda messages of Arab countries contain more appeals to religious values than do propaganda messages of Soviet Union

Such hypotheses imply straightforward descriptions of communication context from which researchers may draw inferences ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN content of a message and intentions of the source or effects on receivers

To what extent do AJE and AJA resemble each other or are sisters in their representation of countries and regions in their news broadcasts, in particular, the frequency and duration of news stories, topic preferences, and story placement?

Selecting the sample

Representative of the universe from which it comes

Of sufficient size to adequately represent that universe

The researcher must identify the universe of content to which the hypotheses apply. Usually, the hypothesis suggests in general terms what the universe of communication content would be –prime-time television programming, newspaper advertising, job interview dialogues, etc.

Representative of the universe from which it comes

Of sufficient size to adequately represent that universe

Random sample

Systematic sampling

Throughout the sampling process, the researcher must take care to avoid any selection process that might introduce bias or jeopardize representativeness.

Overall, probably the most frequent misuse of sampling in content analysis is the use of what are sometimes called “convenience” samples, which means that the sample consists of materials readily available to the researcher

There is no clear-cut guideline for sample size selection in content analysis. It has become generally established in content analysis that larger is not necessarily better.

A total of 477 news stories were analyzed over six months. Of this total, 237 news stories were broadcast by AJE and 240 by AJA. The newscasts of the two news channels were video recorded from November 15, 2006 to April 30, 2007. The sample included two rolling weeks and two constructed weeks, based on a strategy that ensured the maximum representativeness of the broadcasts. A sampling strategy often used for obtaining a representative sample of television coverage is that one continuous week – Monday to Sunday – [is] followed by a “rolling” or composite week, that is, Monday of one week, Tuesday of the following week, Wednesday of the following week, and so on. (Hansen, Cottle, Negrine, & Newbold, 1998, p. 103)

The two rolling weeks began on the first day of AJE broadcasting, November 15, 2006, and ended on November 28, 2006. The two constructed weeks included broadcasts from January 4 to April 30, 2007. A KSA prime-time evening newscast was recorded and coded from the two channels each day. The constructed weeks includes newscasts provided by AJA and AJE on the following dates: Thursday, January 4; Friday, January 12; Saturday, January 20; Sunday, January 28; Monday, February 5; Tuesday, February 13; Wednesday, February 21; Thursday, March 1; Friday, March 9; Saturday, March 17; Sunday, March 25; Monday, April 2; Tuesday, April 10; and Wednesday, April 18, 2007.

The newscasts were recorded live and then coded. A researcher was trained to code the news stories according to a number of predetermined dimensions, including country frequency, region frequency, country duration, region duration, North/South position, story placement, and story type. These aspects were examined and differences and similarities identified between the two channels. The unit of analysis was the individual news story. Each story was coded first according to the news channel and then the nation first mentioned in it. The frequency with which individual nations were mentioned in the news stories determined the score that they were given for content analysis.

News items were coded according to country frequency. The subject of each news item was coded as the country first mentioned in it. Other countries mentioned later in the same news item were not counted. Therefore, for each news story, only one country was counted.

News stories were coded for region frequency, covering six regions. The regions were coded according to the coded country and consisted of the following: the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Europe including Scandinavia, North America, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. This scheme was based on Horvit’s categorization, which defines the world’s regions as follows: Western Europe, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, and Africa (Horvit, 2003). In this study, North and Latin America are treated separately because of

All-Najjar How Arab is Al Jazeera English? GMJ

the huge gap in the coverage of these regions by AJE and AJA, for the United States is the most reported country globally (Wu, Denis, 2000). Both Western and Eastern Europe are treated as one entity here as they are physically. The Middle East and North Africa were coded in one category because they include all the Arab countries.

The duration of each news story was coded according to the country, and its duration according to each region was calculated. Each story was monitored for up to 10 minutes, even if it ran for longer.

Concerning the story placement, each news story was coded first according to the country and its placement in the newscast. Each story was coded as Story 1, Story 2, and Story 3 up to Story 10. Many of the newscasts consisted of fewer than ten news stories, and none exceeded this number.

Each news item was coded according to the position of the country that was the subject of the report. If the country was in the northern half of the planet, then the story was coded as North, and if it was in the southern half, then the story was coded as South.

The story type was coded according to Hess’s six categories: accident/disaster, combat, crime, culture, diplomacy, domestic government, business, environment/science, human interest, human rights, sports and others (Hess, 1996, p. 127).

The duration of each news story was coded according to the country, and its duration according to each region was calculated. Each story was monitored for up to 10 minutes, even if it ran for longer.

Defining categories

The crucial phase

2 basic types of categories

Substance

Form

The crucial phase: formulation of categories and their units of analysis

The categories formulated must be carefully devised/ planned to represent the concepts of embodied in the research hypothesis/ questions. Ideally categories should be exhaustive/comprehensive and mutually exclusive

However, in practice , the necessity for exhaustive or exclusive categories may not always be essential to answer the particular research question

Berelson (1952) divides categories for content analysis into 2 basic types

Substance: what is said

And form categories: how it is said

The substance category is often a subject matter category in which the reesearcher organizes the content according to the specific nature of of the topics contained in the communication

For instance agenda-setting studies categorise the issue content in the media into foreign policy, law and order, fiscal policy, public welfare and civil rights

Categories that describe the form of communication might differentiate among tv news, game shows , draamatic programs and sports shows

Unit of analysis

For every category or set of categories a researcher must select the appropriate unit of analysis

A unit of analysis may range from a word to phrase to an entire item such as a book, a speech, a news story, a conversational exchange , a film

Outlining coding and training coders

Coding instrument

Training of coders

Content analysis is designed to be systematic and objective, and to this end the training of coders is usually outlined by researchers

Usually a written coding instrument containing the categories to be used in analyzing the communication is constructed for coders

Coders may be asked to asses the content according to sets of categories and subcategories or to respond to open ended questions regarding their judgment of some aspect of a message or to tally the appearance of some category

Even if coders are responding to open ended questions it is better if they have a structured guide to assist in their open ended answers

Whatever the type of coder used, the researcgher should provide a structured training session for coders where procedures are outlined and the coding instrument is explained

Implementing the coding process

Straightforward

coders work individually

use the codebook strictly

adhering to its definitions and not to their own definition of categories

Implementing the coding process should be straight forward

Usually the researcher asks the coders to work individually and

To use the codebook strictly

Adhering to its definitions and not to their own definition of categories

Some researchers believe that discussion between coders should be reduce to the minimum

Assessing reliability and validity

Reliability of the coders and reliability of the categories

different coders should come up with the same data using the same instrument

Validity is not easily assessed

We ask if the instrument used was measuring what it was intended to measure

Reliability answers the question is to what extent data is independent from of the measurement instrument (objectivity)

Typically the researchers ask if different coders would come up with the same data using the same instrument

In validity assessment we need to compare the data to an outside evidence

There is no problem if we really intend to describe a partciular sample

Analyzing the results

Hypothesis

Research question

This step is dictated by the hypothesis and research question

For example a researcher might have posed a research question about the occurrence of a particular persuasive strategy used by a group leader

In this case frequencies are obtained to show the occurrence of this and other phenomena

He might be interested in looking at the association between the type of persuasive messages used and the leadership style of the communicator.