Page 262 - DLIS402_INFORMATION_ANALYSIS_AND_REPACKAGING

Unit 12: Content Analysis

• can provide valuable historical/cultural insights over time through analysis of texts Notes
• allows a closeness to text which can alternate between specific categories and relationships
and also statistically analyzes the coded form of the text
• can be used to interpret texts for purposes such as the development of expert systems
(since knowledge and rules can both be coded in terms of explicit statements about the rela-
tionships among concepts)
• is an unobtrusive means of analyzing interactions
• provides insight into complex models of human thought and language use
• when done well, is considered as a relatively “exact” research method (based on hard facts, as
opposed to Discourse Analysis).

Disadvantages of Content Analysis

Content analysis suffers from several advantages, both theoretical and procedural. In particular, con-
tent analysis:
• can be extremely time consuming
• is subject to increased error, particularly when relational analysis is used to attain a higher
level of interpretation
• is often devoid of theoretical base, or attempts too liberally to draw meaningful inferences
about the relationships and impacts implied in a study
• is inherently reductive, particularly when dealing with complex texts
• tends too often to simply consist of word counts

• often disregards the context that produced the text, as well as the state of things after the text
is produced
• can be difficult to automate or computerize
Content analysis of affective issues in library and information science systems work
There is increasing attention to affective issues evident in a wide range of disciplines, including
computing science, marketing, organizational management, health, communication, gender studies,
and political science. Within library and information science (LIS), research recognizes the many
ways in which affect influences human information behaviour. However, it is questionable whether
the systems-oriented literature in our discipline has yet to reflect any serious interest in affect.

Thus, we undertook a content analysis of the top five LIS journals to identify attention to affect. We
identified all articles published in these journals between 1999 and 2003 that were about systems
(N = 716), and by random selection included approximately one-third of those articles in our sample
(n = 242). We found that 14.5% (n = 35) of papers in our sample could be categorized as treating
affect with minimal or peripheral attention. Only 5.0% (n = 12) dealt with affective issues as a major
theme.
Where there was some treatment of affect, this was often not apparent by reading an article title, or
abstract. Worse, no indexing descriptors applied to these papers by Library Literature and
Information Science Full-Text or Library and Information Science Abstracts would provide access
to those aspects of the literature. It seems that our top journals are not encouraging publication of
systems-related work that addresses the full range of issues relevant to that area, but are publishing
papers with a relatively narrow scope of concerns.

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