content analysis - what is it?
content analysis is a research method that is used to analyze social life by interpreting words and images contained in documents, films, art, music, and other cultural products and media. content analysis has been used extensively, for example, to examine the place of women in society. studies of school textbooks find that characters in stories or examples tend to be male, especially when the character is dominant, active, or heroic. in advertising, women tend to be portrayed as subordinate, often through their lower physical positioning in relation to males or the tentative, unassertive nature of their posture or gestures.
although content analysis can take a relatively objective quantitative form (as in counting the number of female and male characters in a book or the percentage of front-page news stories that focus on women), in general practice it tends to be more subjective than other research methods unless done very carefully. researchers, for example, must specify what they are looking for and establish clear categories in which to sort their observations.
content analysis. (2000). in a. johnson, the blackwell dictionary of sociology. oxford, united kingdom: blackwell publishers. retrieved from http://ezproxy.lakeheadu.ca/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/bksoc/content_analysis/0