Content Analysis

How has the increasing availability of electronic text dramatically enhanced the scope for powerful applications of content analysis? This book offers a concise introduction to the method of content analysis, discusses its many applications, and explains the steps involved in carrying it out.

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What are the key steps and tools involved in the systematic analysis of media and communications content? How has the increasing availability of electronic text dramatically enhanced the scope for powerful applications of content analysis? How can content analysis be combined with other types of analysis to illuminate the construction and interpretation of media content? Widely used in communication research and a range of other disciplines across the social sciences, content analysis is a powerful tool for the systematic and quantitative study of the characteristics and messages of communications and media content. This book offers a concise introduction to the method of content analysis, discusses its many applications, and explains the steps involved in carrying it out. Amongst other uses, content analysis can support the systematic mapping of media vocabularies; comparison of different media, genres, styles and formats; reliable analysis of media representations of a diverse range of issues, phenomena, social processes, events, and characters; and longitudinal analysis of changes over time in media images.
The author demonstrates the ways in which, used in conjunction with other research methods. It enables the examination of how and by whom communication content is constructed, as well as the exploration of the social implications of media images and communication processes.