Foundations of Sociological Inquiry

Content Analysis

Today’s Objectives What is Content Analysis? Units of Analysis Sampling & Coding Strengths and Weaknesses of content analysis Questions?

Content Analysis the study of recorded human communications (i.e.,

books, websites, paintings, laws).

“Who says what, to whom, why, how, and with what effect?”

Which of the following can be studied with content analysis?

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1. books

2. magazines

3. websites

4. all of the above

Identify the Unit of Analysis: You are interested in how children’s literature

portrays gender roles.

You are interested in popular film’s use of drugs and alcohol.

You are interested in sociology textbook definitions of race.

You are interested in the content of Internet Blogs.

Units of Analysis

_____ are the individual units that we make descriptive and explanatory statements about.

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1. Units of analysis

2. Artifacts

3. Groups

4. All of the above

Being clear on the unit of analysis in content analysis has particular implications for

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1. measuring latent content.

2. measuring manifest content.

3. determining the ideal types.

4. selecting a sampling strategy.

5. coding the data

What type of sampling is used in content analysis?

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1. simple

2. random

3. stratified

4. all of the above

5. none of the above

Sampling Conventional sampling techniques may be used for

content analysis.

Random Sampling

Stratified Sampling

In the content analysis of ______ , sampling may occur at any or all of several levels.

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1. written prose

2. television

3. the internet

Coding the process whereby raw data are transformed into a

standardized form suitable for machine processing and analysis.

Manifest Content – the concrete terms contained in a communication.

Latent Content – the underlying meaning of communication

Gigi did a content analysis of school board meeting minutes to determine who was the most influential. She developed an initial hypothesis that men carried more power, but she then searched her data to find all the cases that would contradict her initial hypothesis. This process is

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1. systematic reduction.

2. analytic induction.

3. analytic deduction.

4. corroboration.

5. systematic deduction

known as

Strengths and Weaknesses of Content Analysis Strengths

Economy of time and money Allowing for the correction of errors Permits the study of processes occurring over time Research has little (if any) effect on subjects Reliability

Strengths and Weaknesses of Content Analysis Strengths

Economy of time and money Allowing for the correction of errors Permits the study of processes occurring over time Research has little (if any) effect on subjects Reliability

Weaknesses Limited to recorded communications Validity

Content analysis is not appropriate for

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1. evaluating census data.

2. want ads.

3. diary entries.

4. email messages.

5. newspapers.

In conducting content analysis research, ethical issues can arise from

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1. how we collect the data.

2. protecting the privacy of individuals/organizations.

3. analyzing the data.

4. a and b

5. all of the above

Questions?