Content Analysis (pg 162)



Content Analysis (pg 162)

Non-experimental technique

As with the previous research methods we have learned about, this is a non-experimental technique. In brief, a content analysis is a specific type of observation. However, instead of observing behaviour directly, we observe and analyse the content of things produced by people, such as TV shows, magazines etc.

This is one research method which will be completely new to you. You have not studied it before, and none of the core studies are content analyses. However, content analysis is specifically mentioned on the WJEC specification, but is unlikely that you would be given this as a study in Section C. However, you still need to know about what it is, the strengths and weaknesses, and issues of validity and reliability.

What is a Content Analysis?

A content analysis does what it says: an analysis of the content of something! That “something” is called an artefact (which is just a technical way of saying “something made by people”). This could be magazines, television programmes, websites, advertisements etc. The researcher is aiming to identify patterns and trends, and to describe the content in a systematic way so that conclusions can be drawn. For example, a researcher might want to analyse the content of car adverts, to see if men and women are portrayed differently in the adverts.

A content analysis is a form of indirect observation. It is indirect, because you are not observing people directly, but observing them through the artefacts that they produce. The process is similar to that of an observation.

What happens in a content analysis?

Sample: a content analysis is different from other research methods in that the sample is not a group of people. The sample will be the artefacts that are to be analysed. This needs to be representative. For example, if looking at gender stereotypes in car adverts that appear in magazines, you would need a wide range of different magazines to get a representative sample. If you only used men’s magazines, your sample would be biased, and you may not be able to generalise your results.

Coding System: Similarly to an observation, the researcher has to create a coding system, which breaks down the information into categories. So for the example above, for each advert, you may first identify the gender of person in the car advert, and then tally what they are depicted doing. These behavioural categories might be:

• Driving the car

• Passenger in the car

• Washing the car

• Loading up the boot

• Sitting on the bonnet

• Looking at the car

• Etc.....

The researcher would then tally each time either a man or woman was seen doing a particular behaviour in the advert. This is called a quantitative analysis.

An alternative to having a coding system like above is to do a qualitative analysis. This is where the researcher has categories and chooses a particular example to illustrate this category. So for the category “Driving the car” he might choose the picture above left as a demonstration. Instead of counting the data, it is described (hence qualitative rather than quantitative).

Results: the researcher then looks at the data he has collected, and draws conclusions. For example, he may find that many more men are depicted driving the cars than women, and women are more likely to be seen as passengers. He might conclude from this that there is a gender bias in the way cars are advertised.

Strengths and weaknesses of content analysis

✓ Content analyses tend to have high ecological validity because it is based on observations of what people actually do; real communications that are current and relevant such as recent newspapers or children’s books. Therefore, it also has high mundane realism.

✓ Also, as the artefacts that are being analyzed already exist, there is no chance of demand characteristics. The person who created the artefact did not know that what they created would be used in a content analysis, and therefore, this could not have affected them.

✓ Unlike other methods of observation, content analysis can be replicated by others. So long as the artefacts that are being analysed are available for others (the same magazines, TV shows etc), the analysis could be repeated and reliability assessed.

✓ Reliability can also be assessed using inter-observer reliability (see below)

← A big weakness in a content analysis, as in all observations, is observer bias. This can affect both the objectivity and validity of findings as different observers might interpret the meanings of the categories in the coding system differently.

← There can be a big culture bias as the interpretation of verbal or written content will be affected by the language and culture of the observer and the coding system used.

← Similarly to other non-experimental methods, we cannot draw cause and effect relationships

Practice questions: Bear in mind that it is highly unlikely that you would be given a study in Section C which was a content analysis. However, the knowledge still may come in useful for other questions, so it is still worth doing these questions as revision.

1: A researcher wants to investigate the difference in the roles played by “mother” and “father” characters in children’s books by using a content analysis. He chooses a sample of 150 children’s picture books from a local library, and creates a coding system to record how many instances there are of both mother and father characters displaying the following behaviour:

a) Interacting with the children in the story

b) Going to work/earning money

His results are below

(a) Identify one advantage and one disadvantage of using a content analysis in this study. [3]

(b) Identify one issue of reliability in this research, and describe how you could deal with it. [3]

(c) Identify one issue of validity in this research, and describe how you could deal with it. [3]

(d) Identify one advantage and one disadvantage of using opportunity sampling in this research [3]

(f) State one conclusion which can be drawn from the results in this research [3]

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Dealing with validity in content analyses

• As in other research methods, validity can be affected by having an unrepresentative sample. Remember, in a content analysis, the sample is not a group of people, but the artefacts that you decide to analyse.

o To deal with this, the researcher needs to ensure that the sample is representative. For example, if looking for racial stereotypes in TV adverts, you would need a range of adverts, for a range of different products, which are shown at different times of the day and on different channels.

• The coding system could also be an issue with regards to validity. The coding system may not actually be measuring what you intend to measure. We can assess how valid our measuring system by:

o Content validity: are we measuring what we intent to measure? We could ask a panel of experts of assess our coding system.

• In a content analysis, there may be an observer bias. The observer doing the analysis may have an idea of what they hope to find, and so have a bias to only record those bits of information that fit their theory.

o One way to overcome this is to use a double blind technique, where the person doing the observing does not know that aim of the study, and so will not have a bias.

Dealing with reliability in content analyses

• The reliability of a content analysis refers to how consistent we would expect the results to be. In other words, the same results should be gained if repeated. The coding system should therefore be clear and easy to use. It should be objective so that a particular behaviour will only be recorded in one category. There are a number of ways to assess reliability in a content analysis:

o Test-retest: another researcher (or even the same researcher) can repeat the analysis using the same coding system and the same artefacts. If the analysis is reliable, the same results should be gained.

o Inter-observer reliability: Two or more observers can analyse the same artefacts. Their results are correlated. If the coding system is reliable, there should be more than 80% agreement.

o Reliability can also be increased by training the observers in the use of the coding system through practice.

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