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Qualitative content analysis

Study section 9.3

Content analysis as a research method and as a way of analysing data

Content analysis can be used as a research method on its own where this method is used to
analyse available information, for example news articles, policy frameworks, radio
programmes, TV ads or any other type of content.

Content analysis can also be used as a method of analysing data you gathered through other
research methods, for example, you can use this method to analyse the transcriptions you
made after doing interviews or focus groups.

Content analysis can be done quantitatively as well as qualitatively

Through quantitative content analysis one want to gather quantitative information that can
be statistically processed. For example, how of often does different newspapers place stories
on different political leaders, or how often are specific topics being addressed in radio
programmes? We can also analyse the content of TV programmes, for instance by
determining how often they use sarcasm, or how much of the humour has sexual
connotations. Quantitative content analysis can also be used to examine an organisation's
social media usage. Here the researcher can determine how many of the organisation's
messages are focused on encouraging people to buy the organisation's products, how many
messages are trying to enhance the organisation's reputation, how many messages creates
the opportunity for conversation between the organisation and the public etc.

This research method can also be used to analyse clients' reactions on messages on social
media platforms, for example how many liked a message, how many loved the message, how
many was amused by the message, how many was saddened by the message, how many was
shocked and how many was angry.

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Qualitative content analysis on the other hand is being used to gather qualitative information
that is not statistical data, but rather descriptive information that gives a deeper insight on
what is being analysed. Qualitative content analysis as research method and as way of
analysing information is discussed below.

Introduction to qualitative content analysis

Qualitative content analysis can be used as a research method on its own when the researcher
wants to analyse content in a qualitative way, this can include written content, sound, image
etc. Qualitative content analysis is also often used as a way to analyse content that has been
gathered in a qualitative way. Studies in communication other use qualitative content analysis
to analyse transcriptions of interviews or focus groups. A transcription is created by recording
the whole conversation during an interview or focus group and then typing it out word for
word. This typed draft of the interview is called a transcript.

Qualitative content analysis is one of the methods we can use to make sense of what was
being said in different interviews or focus groups and to integrate the information with one
another.

Inductive vs deductive qualitative content analysis

Qualitative content analysis can be done inductively or deductively.

The most important difference between the two methods is that in deductive content analysis
the researcher has pre-existing information (usually theory) and decides beforehand on the
categories to be used for analysis. Here, the researcher decides beforehand which categories
will be use in the study to sort and compare information.

In inductive content analysis the researcher does not have predetermined categories and
categories are being generated from the work that is being analysed. Here, the researcher
starts reading through the work and makes notes on possible categories that comes from the
work. The process of generating categories is very complex and time consuming, but very
valuable, especially when one wants new information.

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In COMS 322 you are only expected to do deductive content analysis. The steps for inductive
content analysis is however included below for note taking.

Deductive qualitative content analysis

Deductive content analysis has a lot in common with quantitative content analysis as well as
with inductive content analysis, but there are also a few important differences that distinguish
this research method from the others.

The steps discussed below can be used for deductive content analysis of any type of
information, but for examples we are going to work on how this method can be used to
analyse transcriptions of interviews.

Step 1: Make sure your transcriptions (or other material) is complete before you start

Do not start with analysis before you conducted and transcribed all the interviews, of before
you collected all the material you want to analyse.

Make sure that the transcriptions or other material you want to work with is in a format you
can work with ease. Some people choose to print all the documents and work on the hard
copies, others keep the information as Word documents so that they can use colors and
comments in the transcriptions. There are also computer programs available that you can use,
that needs the information is a specific format.

Step 2: Determine your categories

In academic studies your categories will come from the theory you are using.

In is important to break your theory down into concepts and constructs as discussed in Study
unit 2, to make sure you know exactly what information is relevant to your study.

For example, if you want to determine if the communication between two parties are two-
way and symmetric, you need to analyse the theory of two-way symmetric communication.

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You can say, for instance that the two concepts you are studying are two-way communication
and symmetrical communication.

Constructs for two-way communication can be something like: equal opportunity to

participate in conversation, equal opportunity to listen to each other, equal access to
communication channels.

After you identified your categories, you need to write operational definitions for each of
them so that you, when you are doing the analysis as well as other people, when they are
reading your study, understand exactly what information is included in every category.

In quantitative content analysis the categories needs to be mutually exclusive, which means
that information can only fit in one category and therefore you need to formulate your
categories very clear and strict. In qualitative content analysis this is not necessary and
information can, if it makes sense, be placed in more than one category. For example, a
participant can say something in one sentence about the nature of communication and this
information can be relevant for both equal opportunity to participate in conversations as well
as for equal access to communication channels. This happens quite often when complicated
information is being studied, for example, a participant's comment on the nature of
communication can also tell us something about power relations or the way decisions are
being made.

Categories should be exhaustive. This means that all information relevant to your study must
have a category in which it van be placed.

When you are happy with your categories, you can start coding your information.

Step 3: Code the information

Coding refers to the process where you place information in the categories you identified.

Here you are going through the transcriptions (or other material to be analysed) sentence by
sentence to determine if it is relevant for your study and if it is, in which category this
information belongs.

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You can determine the way of sorting the information. For example, you can use colors and
make all information about equal opportunity to participate in conversation blue and all
information relating to accessibility of communication channels green. You can also use the
comment function in Word to label sentences or use computer programs focusing on sorting
information.

The important part of coding is to follow a systematic process and to follow the same process
when analysing each of the transcripts (or other documents).

As discussed in step 2, the ideal is that all relevant information should fit into one of your
categories. However, it can happen that during the coding process you can find information
relevant to your study that does not fit in one of the categories. Luckily qualitative research
is a flexible process. If you find important information that does not fit into a category, you
can create a new category. It is important to make sure that you go through all the
transcriptions again (including the ones you through you were done with), to see if
information that fit in the new category is also present in other transcriptions.

At the end of the coding process, all the information relevant to your study should have been
placed in one or more categories. It is important not to exclude any relevant information.

Step 4: Integrate and interpret the information

When you are getting to this step, all relevant information should be grouped together. For
example, all the information on equal opportunity to participate in conversation should be
grouped together and all information focusing on the accessibility of communication channels
should be grouped together.

Now you need to analyse this information to identify tendencies, similarities and differences.
For example, maybe you see that the majority of the employees think that they do not have
equal opportunity to participate in conversations, while the majority of management beliefs
that everyone has equal opportunity to participate in conversations. It is your job to make
sense of the information. Using your pre-existing knowledge on the theory and the context,
you need to interpret everything you find in the transcriptions. For example, management

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and employees have different ideas on what two-way communication means and
management is content with the current communication, but employees are not.

In this step you need to make sensible inferences and conclusions on what you found in the
interviews (or other material).

Step 5: Write the research report

In the final step of deductive content analysis you need to write a report where you share and
explain your findings.

When writing the report it is important to remember that you are writing a qualitative report,
which means that you need to describe an discuss your finding, not present it in numbers or
statistics. In a qualitative research report one often uses phrases such as "the majority of the
participants indicated that..."or, "about half of the participants felt that..." or, "a few
participants argued that...".

It is important to give the reader a picture of people's opinions (or other information) and
therefore it is important to include direct quotes from the transcriptions (or other documents)
in your discussion. It should be clear to a reader which parts are the participants' precise
words and which parts are your summaries or conclusions. We usually indent a paragraph
with direct quotes and make it one size smaller than the rest of the text. If it is only a short
sentence of two (less than two lines), you can do it in italics.

In academic research it is crucial to interpret the information you gathered by using theory.
One usually uses the concepts and constructs as headings in your report, and one usually
starts every section by providing the definition of that concept or construct before you discuss
the information that falls under it. At the end of the discussion of every section, you need to
come to a conclusion on what you found in the context of the theory. Here you will use your
definition again and show how that you found in practice links or differs from theory.

The research report should be concluded by a conclusion where you integrate the conclusions
on each construct, to answer the research questions.

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Inductive qualitative content analysis

file:///C:/Users/NWUUSER/Downloads/1089-3455-2-PB.pdf

http://libweb.surrey.ac.uk/library/skills/Introduction%20to%20Research%20and%20Managi
ng%20Information%20Leicester/page_74.htm

Ten step of inductive content analysis:

1. Copy and read through the transcript - make brief notes in the margin when
interesting or relevant information is found
2. Go through the notes made in the margins and list the different types of information
found
3. Read through the list and categorise each item in a way that offers a description of
what it is about
4. Identify whether or not the categories can be linked any way and list them as major
categories (or themes) and / or minor categories (or themes)
5. Compare and contrast the various major and minor categories
6. If there is more than one transcript, repeat the first five stages again for each
transcript
7. When you have done the above with all of the transcripts, collect all of the categories
or themes and examine each in detail and consider if it fits and its relevance
8. Once all the transcript data is categorised into minor and major categories/themes,
review in order to ensure that the information is categorised as it should be.
9. Review all of the categories and ascertain whether some categories can be merged or
if some need to them be sub-categorised
10. Return to the original transcripts and ensure that all the information that needs to be
categorised has been so.

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