Considerations on conducting and completing your content analysis
Remember throughout creating your content analysis that it is a distinctive method “for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication” (my italics) (cited in Deacon, David, Pickering, Michael, Golding, Peter and Murdock, Graham (1999) Researching Communications: a practical guide to methods in media and cultural analysis, London: Arnold, p. 116).You are trying to avoid imposing any of your own assumptions into that analysis but only finding the real contents of newspaper articles of select papers over a defined time period (or periods).Use the following subheadings- they will aid you in structuring your work. The content analysis as an assignment is a hybrid of a report and the more discursive essay form. It is a research method. You have 1,500 words plus or minus 10%. Please ensure that you use that word allowance wisely to complete this coursework. I suggest broad outlines of the word count for each section. Note these are very broad guidelines to aid you – you do not have to stick to them rigidly.
Introduction (100 words)
All coursework requires you to give us an overview of what you are to present here. You might need three or four sentences to set up what is to come.
Context and ‘hypothesis’ (150 words)
Explain how the issue you are considering in your content analysis has come to public attention and the broad context involved. The hypothesis is your explicit expression of expectation you have concerning of the contents of the newspapers with regard to the topic that you are investigating. That hypothesis might, for instance concern the typical differences between the content of tabloids and broadsheets; differences between progressive (The Guardian; The Independent; perhaps the Daily Mirror) and more conservative national press (the rest); differences between Labour party supporting (Daily Mirror) and Conservative party supporting (The Times; Daily Telegraph; The Sun; Daily Mail; Daily Express) press and those uncommitted to any particular party (The Guardian; The Independent; The New Day; The Financial Times). Your content analysis will probably access around 50-70 articles which is both manageable and will also be adequate to show variations in amounts and types of coverage from paper to paper.
Content Analysis design (300 words)
1. Ensure that you clearly explain the process through which you designed the content analysis in order to explore your ‘hypothesis.’ (You can refer to any CA methods books such as Silverman, David (2006) 3rd ed. Interpreting Qualitative Data, Sage: London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, pp. 159-65; Bauer, Martin W. and Gaskell, George (2002) Qualitative Researching with text, image and sound: a practical handbook, London and New York: Sage; Bertrand, Ina and Hughes, Peter (2005) Media Research Methods: Audiences, Institutions, Texts, London: Palgrave Macmillan.) Please feel free to use actual content analyses such as: Media Reform Coalition (2015) Corbyn’s First Week: Negative Agenda Setting in the Press, MRC: London. www.mediareform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CorbynCoverageUPDATED.pdf [Accessed 27th January 2016]; McMenamin, Iain, Flynn, Roderick, O’Malley, Eoin and Rafter, Kevin (2012) Commercialism and Election Framing: A Content analysis of Twelve newspapers in the 2011 Irish General Election The International Journal of Press/ Politics 18 (2) 167-187; Orgad, Shani and De Benedictis, Sara (2015) The ‘stay-at-home’ mother, postfeminism and neoliberalism: Content analysis of UK news coverage European Journal of Communication 30 (4) 418-36; Samuel-Azran, Tal, Lavie-Dinur, Amit and Karniel, Yuval (2015) Narratives used to portray in-group terrorists: A comparative analysis of the Israeli and Norwegian press Media, War & Conflict 8 (1) 3-19; Villeneuve, Jean-Patrick and Aquilina, Dawn (2016) Who’s fault is it? An analysis of the press coverage of football betting scandals in France and the United Kingdom Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics 19 (2) 187-200; Yaylaci, Filiz Goktuna and Karakus, Mine (2015) Perceptions and newspaper coverage of Syrian refugees in Turkey Migration Letters 12 (3) 238-250
2. Spell out the required search(es) [via Nexis] and broad summary of research design focussed on context / ‘hypothesis’
3. Provide explicit and full details of the search(es) you undertook (which newspapers; what parts of the newspaper [headlines; all the paper]; what time period [and why]
Findings (800 words)
This will be the largest part of the content analysis.
Discuss them (in relation to your ‘hypothesis’)
Feel free to use a variety of ways of representing those quantitative findings such as graphs, pie charts, tables (and percentages) to illuminate your findings and set up the discussion
Ensure that you have explored the full range of content relevant to your concerns.
You may wish to, and benefit from, exploration of COMPARISON of specific papers’ coverage of the topic / issue with which you are concerned.
Include an analysis of the implications of your findings and whether (extent to which) your hypothesis is found to be ‘true’ (the extent to which the quantitative evidence you present and discuss supports it).
Conclusion (summarise implications of findings) (100 words)
Briefly –three or so sentences maximum (if you were clear, precise and explored fully the findings in relation to the hypothesis in the sections above).
Bibliography(necessary but not part of word count of the CA)
Should include all methods sources you cited such as Silverman 2006; Media Reform Coalition’s (2015) analysis of Jeremy Corbyn press coverage; any other content analysis you used to aid design of your own.
You need NOT include full references to all the newspaper articles to which you refer generally in graphs, pie charts etc above so long as you have provided explicit and full details of the search(es) you undertook. If, however, you need to explore further, and individually, some of those articles after full quantitative summary of your findings you will need to give full bibliographical details for those few articles.
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