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In this article we will discuss about the techniques used in content analysis of a book.
Berelson defines ‘content analysis’ as a “research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication.” Content analysis is a methodologically sophisticated version of the commonsense technique of finding out how an author of a book has treated a particular subject.
This can be found out easily enough by the commonplace practice of looking at the index of the book.
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Content analysis is a formalization of techniques that have long been used informally. As the number of references and the space devoted to a particular subject give a fair indication of the importance attached to it by the author.
This commonsense technique was gradually improved upon and in 1930 the first full analysis along these lines was published (New York). The topic happened to be the amount of space devoted to foreign news in American morning newspapers.
Early examples of formal content analysis are afforded by military intelligence agencies during wartime. Enemy newspapers and radio stations were monitored exhaustively and counts were made of various kinds of references to transportation, obituaries and so forth.
Variations in the numbers of such references from week to week generally signified troop movements and other changes that suggested what the intentions of the enemy could be.
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The value of this technique a few years later, was enhanced and confirmed in Hornell Hart’s analysis of trends in the space devoted to various subjects in American periodicals and books. The next important step was the adaptation in 1973 by Harold Lasswell of the technique of content analysis for the systematic study of recorded psychoanalytical interviews.
Subjects covered in these interviews were systematically classified and as a result, much of the same scheme of categories could be used in a variety of other context.
With the outbreak of war in Europe, Lasswell took over the directorship of an officially sponsored World Attention Survey based on content analysis of foreign newspapers. Apart from certain immediate functions, this technique was found to provide an intellectual weapon of substantial consequence.
For example, the content analysis indicated that Germany was clearing the path for a sudden change in diplomatic orientation. This surmise came out to be true, subsequently.
Later, Leites and Pool used a similar technique to study changes in the Comintern policy and throughout the war, students of Lasswell and Leties undertook analyses of United State foreign language press on behalf of the U. S. Department of Justice.
Over the years, internal propaganda, the speeches of politicians, the content of radio programmes, films, popular magazines, etc., have been subjected to content analysis. Content analysis was used during the initial interviewing programme in the ‘Hawthorne Electrical Company Studies’ and also included in the preparatory technique for the ‘focused interviews’ undertaken by Merton and Kendall.
R.K. White content analysed to public speeches of Hitler and Roosevelt with a view to identifying the propaganda techniques and describing the appeals of political leaders to their followers. White systematically ascertained the Values’ to which the two leaders appealed in their public speeches.
In the main, he identified three values on which he compared the two leaders, one authoritarian and the other democratic, i.e., strength values, moral values and economic values.
Content analysis has been used extensively on studies of mass media to determine changes in either the media themselves or in society and culture with the passage of time. A survey of the field by Berelson brings to light the specific purposes for which documents or communication-contents have been analysed.
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These are as detailed below:
One of the more exciting uses to which content analysis has been put is exemplified by D. McClelland’s study of the historical relationship between the motivation to achieve among the members of a society and the economic development of the society.
McClelland and his associates measured the frequency of “achievement imagery” in the popular literature of society at various periods and related these frequencies to economic indication. For example, they found a close correspondence between the content analysis of data and coal imports into London from 1550 to 1850.
Considering the multiple obstacles present in such investigations the closeness of the correspondence has been acclaimed to be starting. Pitrim A. Sorokin used content analysis to analyze the ground cultural changes over millennium. He clearly brought out how the proportion of philosophers of different outlooks has changed from century as a proxy for the way held by the various systems of truth.
The content of art has also been analysed systematically and the techniques has been acknowledged as a source of much of our understanding of the contacts among cultures, diffusions and the transmission of knowledge among them.
Anthropologist A. L. Kroeber traced the travels of the flying gallop (an invention of artists) as a way of representing a running horse in art and established a sequence of transmission of knowledge amongst cultures. Berelson specifically mentions, schematically, the major purpose for which content analysis has been employed.
(a) Purpose of Ascertaining the Characteristics of Content:
1. To audit communication-content against objectives;
2. To construct and apply communication standards;
3. To aid technical research operations;
4. To expose propaganda techniques;
5. To measure ‘readability’ of communication materials;
6. To identify stylistic features.
(b) Purpose of Ascertaining Effects of Content:
1. To identify intentions and other characteristic of the communicators;
2. To detect the existence of propaganda;
3. To determine the psychological state of persons and groups;
4. To secure political and military intelligence;
(c) Purpose of Ascertaining Effects of Content:
1. To reflect attitudes, interests, values of populations;
2. To reveal focus of attention;
3. To describe attitudinal and behavioural response to varied items of communication.
It should be remembered that any single study may have one or more of these three broad purpose.
The research procedures involved in the content analysis generally, of books, magazines, newspapers, radio programmes, T. V. serials and films etc. consist in utilizing a system or scheme of categorization on which basis the communication or documentary content is analysed from a quantitative angle and this in turn is geared to test hypotheses the investigator sets before himself.
Hence, content analysis may be used to test hypotheses about the treatment of minority groups in magazine articles or in films etc., or to enquire into propaganda techniques. Communication through the media or radio, films, public speeches, etc., has been subjected to content analysis.
The important point about content analysis is that content of communication is analysed by means of systematic predetermined categories based on themes, value intents and style, etc., as the need may be, which often yield quantitative results.
A simple instance would be to hypothesize that a certain newspaper has changed hands, say, a couple of years ago. Rather than leaving this as an impression of the readers, content analysis would test the impression systematically and see if it conforms to reality.
Due largely to the work of Lasswell and associates, the technique of content analysis has registered a tremendous improvement. The analysis of content proceeds under certain controls that render it systematic and objective in comparison to the conventional impressionistic review of communication content.
Firstly, the categories of analysis used to classify the content are clearly and explicitly defined so that other individuals can apply them to the same content to verify the earlier conclusions.
Secondly, the analyst is not free to select and report merely what strikes him as interesting but must methodologically classify all the relevant materials in his sample (which is of course, selected as a representative of the ‘universe’).
Thirdly, a quantitative procedure is used in order to provide a measure of the dominance and emphasis in the material of certain ideas or themes found and to make a possible comparison with other samples of material.
For example, if we took a systematic sample of newspaper editorials and counted the relative numbers of editorials expressing favourable, un-favourable and neutral attitudes toward a certain international issue, we would be carrying out a simple form of quantification that has proved feasible and reliable.
We can on this basis come out with a more exact picture of the situation than would be possible if simply the general impressions or memory were relied upon. In the absence of some sort of mathematical aid, there is a limit to the amount of materials that can be digested and recalled in detail by the human mind.
Let us give some thought now, to a few inadequacies or limitations that the technique of content analysis with its characteristic emphasis on quantification typically suffers from.
Firstly, definitions of content analysis tend to emphasize the procedure of analysis rather than the character of data available in communication. In addition, they imply a somewhat arbitrary limitation of the field by excluding from it, all accounts of communication that are not cut out in the form of the number of item, various ideas or themes (or other elements) appear in the material being analysed.
Secondly, concern with quantification in practice, seems to have become so dominant that it often over shadows concern with the unique content of communication.
It is indeed difficult to be convinced as to why quantification should be regarded as an essential requirement in content analysis when it is not so in the customary analysis of data obtained by interviews or observation.
Granted that quantification is a more precise procedure, yet it is not always feasible. It hardly needs to be stressed that both quantified as well as qualitative data have their legitimate place in the contemporary social science. Besides, the stress on measurement in content analysis often implies that one indulges in an exercise of measuring the un-measurable, i.e., qualities.
The problem of drawing a sample of the material to be content analysed, poses its own brand of problems. Suppose a researcher was interested in analysing the concern of the national press with the issue of ceiling on urban property.
The first task of the analyst will be to define his universe, i.e., the national press. For his purpose, it may not be satisfactory to list all the newspaper published in the country and to draw a systematic sample (every fifteenth or twentieth newspaper) even if he were to ensure that newspapers representing different geographical areas, political orientations, economic policies, etc., are included in the list of the newspapers.
The fact is that the newspapers vary greatly in size and influence and, therefore, a realistic sample should not weigh some obscure journal with an influential metropolitan daily. Thus, it would be proper to divide the newspapers into a series of classes according to their circulation and then draw from each class a ‘random’ sample covering a given volume of readers.
So far as the issue of ceiling on urban property is concerned, it may not be judicious to assume the volume of circulation. To overcome such problems, the researcher may more properly choose the procedure of a ‘Popularity sample.’ He may, for instance, choose a sample comprising the write-ups from ten largest newspapers in the country.
Another problem related to sampling of the mass media contents relates to the time order. The researcher may get a distorted impression of the general policy of newspapers if the editions for only a single day or even a single month were studied.
On the other hand, if the researcher were to cover a period of several months, the task would plainly become unmanageable. Before he knows how many issues he can handle, the researcher/ analyst will have to decide on the nature and size of the units that are to comprise his sample.
Frequently then, the sampling procedure in communication research consists of three stages:
(a) Sampling of sources (which newspapers, radio stations, etc. are to be analysed);
(b) Sampling of dates (which period is to be covered by the study);
(c) Sampling of units (which aspects of communication are to be analyzed).
Now we need to ponder over the problem of establishing categories for analysis. Suppose, our researcher has decided to choose a sample of editorials. His next task will be to establish categories in terms of which the editorials could be classified.
The researcher has two major bases for establishment of relevant categories:
(a) The research purpose or hypotheses; and
(b) The material itself.
The newspaper’s concern with say, ceiling on urban property can find expression in a variety of ways. The paper may emphasize it or it may ignore the issue. It may confine itself to straight non-committed or informative reporting or it may generate much editorial comments on it.
It might use certain key words such as socialism, welfare, etc., frequently or rarely. It can treat the matter lightly or seriously. It may appeal to commonly accepted values or refrain from expressing moral implications of the issue. Each of these categories of analysis and many others can be used in content analysis depending on the purpose of the study.
Lastly, we turn to consider the problem of reliability of responses and classification should be so clearly analysed. Ideally, the methods of analysis and quantification should be so clearly defined that different judges would arrive at the same results when analysing the same materials.
But perfect reliability suggested above, at the present time is something that can only be realized at the cost of a deeper interpretative understanding of the material.
Merely counting the number of times a word turns up in a given volume of material does ensure reliability, but this cannot but be an analysis of a very superficial type, because the same word carried different meanings or messages in different contexts arising from its relationship with other words and the theme.
The primary method of increasing reliability of classification to specify clearly the characteristics of statements (rather than words) that are assigned to a given category and to use many examples drawn from the materials being analyzed to illustrate what kind of statements are to be considered as representing a given category.
In concluding the discussion on the documentary sources of data, we would do well to remind ourselves that the rich human material which quite a few documents contains is very fertile source of ideas. Spontaneous personal documents, newspaper reports, business or official files, etc. typically provide an invaluable preliminary to direct observation.
“They also supplement observation and participation in social processes by broadening the base of experience. But by themselves they tell an incomplete story and it is clearly unwise to stretch their adoption into contexts in which they can offer neither economy nor satisfaction.”