Page 259 - DLIS402_INFORMATION_ANALYSIS_AND_REPACKAGING

Information Analysis and Repackaging

Notes 12.1 Process of Content Analysis

In 1931, Alfred R Lindesmith developed a methodology to refute existing hypotheses, which became
known as a content analysis technique, and it gained popularity in the 1960s by Glaser and is referred
to as “The Constant Comparative Method of Qualitative Analysis” in an article published in 1964-65.
Glaser and Strauss (1967) referred to their adaptation of it as “Grounded Theory.” The method of
content analysis enables the researcher to include large amounts of textual information and system-
atically identify its properties, e.g. the frequencies of most used keywords (KWIC meaning “Key
Word in Context”) by locating the more important structures of its communication content.
Yet such amounts of textual information must be categorised analysis, providing at the end a
meaningful reading of content under scrutiny. David Robertson (1976:73-75) for example created a
coding frame for a comparison of modes of party competition between British and American parties.
It was developed further in 1979 by the Manifesto Research Group aiming at a comparative content-
analytic approach on the policy positions of political parties.
Since the 1980s, content analysis has become an increasingly important tool in the measurement of
success in public relations (notably media relations) programs and the assessment of media profiles.
In these circumstances, content analysis is an element of media evaluation or media analysis. In
analyses of this type, data from content analysis is usually combined with media data (circulation,
readership, number of viewers and listeners, frequency of publication). It has also been used by
futurists to identify trends. In 1982, John Naisbitt published his popular Megatrends, based on
content analysis in the US media.

Bernard Berelson defined Content Analysis as “a research technique for the objective, systematic,
and quantitative description of manifest content of communications” .
Content analysis is a research tool focused on the actual content and internal features of media. It is
used to determine the presence of certain words, concepts, themes, phrases, characters, or sentences
within texts or sets of texts and to quantify this presence in an objective manner. Texts can be defined
broadly as books, book chapters, essays, interviews, discussions, newspaper headlines and articles,
historical documents, speeches, conversations, advertising, theatre, informal conversation, or really
any occurrence of communicative language.
To conduct a content analysis on a text, the text is coded, or broken down, into manageable categories
on a variety of levels—word, word sense, phrase, sentence, or theme—and then examined using
one of content analysis’ basic methods: conceptual analysis or relational analysis. The results are
then used to make inferences about the messages within the text(s), the writer(s), the audience, and
even the culture and time of which these are a part. For example, Content Analysis can indicate
pertinent features such as comprehensiveness of coverage or the intentions, biases, prejudices, and
oversights of authors, publishers, as well as all other persons responsible for the content of materials.
Content analysis is a product of the electronic age. Though content analysis was regularly performed
in the 1940s, it became a more credible and frequently used research method since the mid-1950’s,
as researchers started to focus on concepts rather than simply words, and on semantic relationships
rather than just presence.

12.2 Application of Content Analysis

Due to the fact that it can be applied to examine any piece of writing or occurrence of recorded
communication, content analysis is used in large number of fields, ranging from marketing and media
studies, to literature and rhetoric, ethnography and cultural studies, gender and age issues, sociology
and political science, psychology and cognitive science, as well as other fields of inquiry. Additionally,
content analysis reflects a close relationship with socio—and psycholinguistics, and is playing an

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