Content Analysis

MCOM 5364
Content Analysis
 Which type of research questions can be
addressed by content analysis?

 How to conduct a content analysis research?

 Advantages and disadvantages of content

analysis
Content Analysis Defined
 Systematic, objective and quantitative
analysis of the content of communication
 Systematic – consistent rules applicable

 Objective – personal biases should be avoided

 Quantitative – ensures accurate

count/representation of phenomenon.
What Type of Questions?
 What proportion of TV characters are minorities?
 Does the proportion change between daytime and
primetime?
 What about by genre?
 How about proportions by age, race, etc.?

 What kinds of arguments have been used to

promote healthy lifestyle among college students?
 Message argument (How is love portrayed in rap
vs. in country music?)
Uses of content analysis
 Examine content trends over time.
 E.g., portrayals of women in the ‘50s vs. today

 Describe how much or what kind of messages

exist.
 E.g., Keiser Family Foundation (sexual content).
 Key messages in a candidate’s press releases
Uses continued…
 Compare media content to the “real world”
 E.g., how many criminals in prime‐time dramas are
minorities vs. actual U.S. convicts that are
minorities
 Comparison between FBI crime statistics and
violent crime as portrayed on TV

 Assess the “image” of a particular group

 E.g., are Muslims often shown as terrorists?
Examine Media Coverage
 How does media portrayal different issues?
 Not media effect.
 To get a starting point for effects research
 E.g., if lots of sex on TV, then what effects
might this cause?
 Lateruse an experiment to study media effect
 Co-branding..
 Limitations of Content Analysis
 Content analysis CANNOT serve as basis for
making statements about the effects of content.
 E.g. 90% of primetime commercials contain sexual
content… so, those who watch TV this time must love
erotic content. No!
 You need an additional study of the viewers

 Time consuming and expensive!

 Lack of messages relevant to research
 Many topics or characters receive little exposure
in mass media

 Royal baby George v. Indian election

Recap
 What is content analysis?
 Systematic, objective, and quantitative
 Which types of questions can be addressed by
content analysis?
 Media content existence
 Compare media world and real world
 Content trend
 Media Portrayal of a particular phenomenon
Drawback
Time consuming, lack of content, and cannot serve as basic for
media effect analysis
Content Analysis Steps
1. Formulate a research question or hypothesis
2. Define the population
3. Select a sample
4. Define the unit of analysis
5. Construct the categories of interest
6. Train the coders
7. Assess reliability
8. Analyze the data
Defining the Population
 What do you want to generalize to?
 RQ: How is drunk driving portrayed in
primetime television shows?
 Need to conceptualize the unit of analysis
 Drunk driving
 Implied or explicit
 Primetime
 What hours?
 Television shows
 Cable, broadcast?
Select a Sample
 You can do census or sample
 Determine sampling method
 Same techniques used for surveys applied here
 Systematic random, stratification, quota, etc.
 Goal: “representativeness”
 Note: You don’t need to sample all of the
messages.
 Often multi-stage
 Selecting communication sources
 E.g., Broadcast TV networks
 Picking a sample of content of a workable size
 Five weeks of primetime crime drama
 Sampling shows
 Every 3 show
rd

 Sampling within shows

 Code every 3 minutes, or every relevant scene
 And so on
Activity
 This article mentioned the offender _____
times.

 The article portrayed the offender is a _____

way.
 Positive
 Negative
 Neutral
Here is the article.
 https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/c
rime/article/Man-arrested-in-17-year-old-Lub
bock-cold-case-15543446.php
The Importance of
Conceptualization

 “Most disrespectful plays in NFL/NBA.”

transitive verb
 1: to lack special regard or respect.

 2: to show or express disrespect or contempt

3. low regard or esteem for someone or

something, insult.
 Define Unit of Analysis
 What you count & categorize.
 Children’s products advertised on TV
 Individual ads
 Time; words; theme
 Inappropriate content in TV shows
 What is your definition of inappropriate content?

 Gender biased language in editorials

 What is gender biased.
 Positive v negative?
Examples
Topic Population Sample Unit of Analysis
Advertising in All issues of Vogue, Randomly chosen All full and one-
Vogue magazine 1957-2020 issues from the quarter page ads
period
Network TV news All weeknight 99 newscasts chosen Statements made on
bias in the 1992 newscasts from Aug. at random air by news source
campaign 24-Oct 30, 1992 on
ABC, CBS, NBC, and
CNN
Portrayal of crime All episodes of five 76 programs Characters
and aggression in reality-based police recorded from Fall portrayed as either
reality-based TV shows in 1999 and 1999 to Spring 2000 police officer or
shows 2000 criminal
Gender differences Network children’s All ads broadcast in Each character with
in children’s ads Saturday one week of Feb a name and
programming in 2000 on Disney speaking role
2000 channel and
Nickelodeon
Develop Content Categories
 The content must be measurable.
 Content categories are the empirical indicators
you think reflect them

 Categories should:
 Exhaustive
 Mutually exclusive
 Reliable – coders must agree on majority of
instances about categorization for each unit of
analysis
Code data
 Applying coding scheme and generate data
 Coding scheme/codebook – provides rules for
assigning to categories
 Individuals must be trained to use codebook
 Problems can result from:
 Poor definition of the categories
 Unclear instruction given to the coders
 Unanticipated content that is difficult to code
Example coding sheet
Compute Reliability
 Coders should agree in what they see. If not,
there’s a problem.
 To ensure that the coding scheme is reliable
we have to test it.
 Coders score identical content
 Results are compared using statistical tests for
reliability

 Inter-coder reliability vs. intra-coder reliability