Content Analysis

Content analysis is an approach to the analysis of documents and texts (which may be printed or visual) that seeks to quantify content in terms of predetermined categories and in a systematic and replicable manner. It is a very fl exible method that can be applied to a variety of media. In a sense, it is not a research method, in that it is an approach to the analysis of documents and texts rather than a means of generating data. However, it is usually treated as a research method because of its distinctive approach to analysis. This chapter explores: • the kinds of research question to which content analysis is suited; • how to approach the sampling of documents to be analysed; • what kinds of features of documents or texts are counted; • how to go about coding, which is probably the central and most distinctive stage of doing a content analysis; • the advantages and disadvantages of content analysis.