ARIN2000 Research Methods

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ARIN2000 - Research Methods

• Unobtrusive Research
• Content Analysis

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Content Analysis

• Content analysis is a technique for gathering and
  analysing the content of text - i.e. anything
  that can be communicated
• Content analysis is unobtrusive because you are
  dealing with content that has already been
  created and which you have no influence on
• Content can include words, pictures, symbols,
  meanings, ideas, themes, etc
• Source texts can include books, newspaper or
  magazine articles, advertisements, television
  programs, films, videos, computer games,
  photographs, song lyrics, music videos, official
  documents, letters, diaries, books, clothing,
  speeches, etc

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Content Analysis - quantitative

• Quantitative content analysis typically involves
  random sampling and precise measurement
  (counting) using coding techniques.
• Example
• Measuring racial,gender and age stereotyping in
  computer advertisements
• Pick a sampling frame ? sampling method
• Decide what constructs you are measuring ?
  operationalise (define) the constructs in a
  coding system

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Content Analysis - quantitative

• What is measured?Any or all of the following can
  be measured
• Frequency - how many times does something occur,
  eg. a particular word, theme, stereotype?
• Direction - the direction of the messages, e.g.
  positive or negative supporting or opposed
• Intensity - the strength or power of the
  direction, e.g. strongly supporting ? strongly
  opposed
• Space - how much space does a particular message
  occupy (e.g. paragraphs in an article, duration
  in a film or advertisement)

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Content Analysis - quantitative

• Manifest Content - coding of visible, surface
  content, e.g. how many times a specific word
  occurs, or how many times an action happens
• Coding manifest content does not take into
  account the fact that words may be ambiguous or
  have more than one meaning depending on their
  context
• Latent Content - coding of ideas and themes -
  this type of analysis is inevitably more
  subjective and more difficult to measure
  accurately

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Content Analysis - example
Representations of gender, race and age in
computer advertisements
Age 1(0-12) 2(13-25) 3(26-40) 4(41-60)
5(60)Field 1Domestic Leisure 2Education
3business/workLevel of expertise 1high
expertise 2average expertise 3low expertise
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Content Analysis - quantitative

• Codes need to be clearly defined so categories
  are comprehensive and mutually exclusive
• Pilot studies are useful to check coding
  categories
• If multiple coders are used, coding must be
  cross-checked to ensure consistency

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Content Analysis

• Content analysis can be used to
• Reveal international or cultural differences in
  communication content
• Detect the existence of bias or propaganda in
  communication content
• Identify the intentions, focus or communication
  trends of an individual, group or institution
• Measure attitudinal and behavioral responses to
  communications

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Content Analysis - qualitative

• Content analysis can also be analysed in a
  qualitative way by looking at the meaning making
  process in texts through a process of textual
  analysis or close reading
• Interpretive and Critical Inquiry methodologies
  often make use of structuralism and semiotics in
  their analysis of the content of messages

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Structuralism and Semiotics

• Structuralism and semiotics are concerned with
  the study of sign systems and codes that are used
  in the creation of meaning
• Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
• Langue - language system rules and conventions
• Parole - individual utterances, particular
  instantiations of the language system
• Example chess
• langue rules of the game
• Parole a particular game of chess

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Semiotics

• Signs can include words, pictures, sounds,
  clothes, gestures etc
• Sign signifier (word, picture, sound
  etc) signified (meaning)
• The relationship between signifier and signified
  can be either iconic (e.g. images) or arbitrary
  (e.g. words)
• Meaning is structured through the idea of
  difference

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Semiotic Analysis of Content

• Signs can have denotative and connotative
  meanings
• Denotative meaning - literal meaning - dictionary
  definition
• Connotative meaning - cultural values, attitudes
  and associations attached to a word beyond its
  purely literal or denotative meaning
• Barthes identifies these connotative meanings as
  a 2nd order of signification or meaning (myth)
• Example diamonds and furs - connotes luxury
  and wealth flowers and hearts - connotes love
  and romance

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Semiotic analysis

• How are textual elements put together to make
  meanings?
• Syntagymatic axis - horizontal axis - how
  elements are combined
• Paradigmatic axis - vertical axis - which
  elements are selected
• Example Phillips advertisement

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Semiotic analysis

• Relationship between text and image
• anchorage
• text acts to anchor the images denotative
  meaning and confirm what it is we are looking at,
  e.g. captions on photographs in the newspaper
• text acts to help us interpret the connotative or
  symbolic content of the image
• relay
• text adds meaning not evident in the image
  itself, e.g. dialogue in films, text bubbles in
  cartoons

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Semiotic analysis
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Semiotic analysis
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Panzani advertisement

• In The Rhetoric of the Image, Barthes analyses
  the images and text used in a Panzani
  advertisement

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Panzani advertisement

• Text (French)- labels on product
  captionPanzani - brand name (denotation)
  - italianicity(connotation)
• Image packets of pasta, a tin, tomatoes, onions,
  peppers, a mushroom, emerging from a half-open
  string bag (yellows and greens on a red
  background)
• a return from the market - freshness, domestic
  preparation of meal
• Colours (yellow, green, red) another signifier of
  Italianicity
• Visual reference to Still life painting

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TDK advertisement
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Post-structuralism

• Incorporation of Marxism and Freudianism into
  structuralist framework
• For the post-structuralist the individual is
  shaped by sociological, psychological and
  linguistic structures
• Post-structuralism focuses on how social
  relations, identity, knowledge and power are
  constructed through written,spoken and visual
  texts
• Michel Foucault - archaeology of knowledge
  analysis of discursive practices
• Example In History of Sexuality Foucault
  investigates how our ideas of sexuality are
  shaped by medical and psychiatric discourses of
  sexuality

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Post-structuralism

• Jacques Derrida - texts have multiple meanings -
  idea of difference, multiple interpretations -
  there is no one objective true meaning
• Pierre Bourdieu - critical discourse analysis -
  investigates the socio-cultural aspects of texts
  - ideas of habitus (beliefs and dispositons),
  cultural capital, symbolic capital

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Audiences - Reception Theory

• Readers of texts bring their own lexicons
  (cultural knowledge and understanding) to the
  text - different people will make different
  meanings from a text depending on their own
  knowledge, backgrounds, culture, experiences etc.
• Texts can have
• dominant meanings (preferred or intended
  meanings)
• oppositional meanings (alternative meanings read
  into a text by different subcultures)
• Examples
• Clothing - e.g. business suit tie
• Star Trek slashzines, gay fans of Zena Warrior
  Princess