Reveal international differences in communication content Identify the intentions, focus or communication trends of an individual, group or institutionĭescribe attitudinal and behavioral responses to communicationsĭetermine the psychological or emotional state of persons or groups It is both observational and narrative in nature and relies less on the experimental elements normally associated with scientific research (reliability, validity, and generalizability) (from Ethnography, Observational Research, and Narrative Inquiry, 1994-2012).ĭefinition 3: “A research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication.” (from Berelson, 1952)

Three different definitions of content analysis are provided below.ĭefinition 1: “Any technique for making inferences by systematically and objectively identifying special characteristics of messages.” (from Holsti, 1968)ĭefinition 2: “An interpretive and naturalistic approach. Once the text is coded into code categories, the codes can then be further categorized into “code categories” to summarize data even further. To analyze the text using content analysis, the text must be coded, or broken down, into manageable code categories for analysis (i.e. A single study may analyze various forms of text in its analysis. Sources of data could be from interviews, open-ended questions, field research notes, conversations, or literally any occurrence of communicative language (such as books, essays, discussions, newspaper headlines, speeches, media, historical documents).

Researchers can then make inferences about the messages within the texts, the writer(s), the audience, and even the culture and time of surrounding the text.

As an example, researchers can evaluate language used within a news article to search for bias or partiality. Using content analysis, researchers can quantify and analyze the presence, meanings, and relationships of such certain words, themes, or concepts. Content analysis is a research tool used to determine the presence of certain words, themes, or concepts within some given qualitative data (i.e.

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