Research Methods in Politics Chapter 18 1 Research Methods in Politics 18 Content Analysis

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 182 Teaching and Learning Objectives 1. to consider alternative definitions of content analysis 2. to compare qualitative and quantitative content analysis 3. to consider the sub-types of content analysis 4. to learn how to carry out content analysis using latest available software.

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 183 Content Analysis textual analysis textual analysis text mining text mining longstanding method longstanding method Cold War application, CIA, GCHQ Cold War application, CIA, GCHQ text, video, phone cons, s text, video, phone cons, s many advantages – plenty of it many advantages – plenty of it disadvantages disadvantages new technology new technology

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 184 Content Analysis qualitative qualitative –highly interpretative –detecting bias –Democracy quantitative quantitative

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 185 BUSH fear tyranny taxes fromcensorship FREEDOM tochoose raise families vote assemble worship GOD + DEMOCRACY + LIBERTY opposite of communismresponsibilityto defend vigilance, security military action sacrifice intervention pre-emption cant be neutral BLAIR co-operation human rights peace and prosperity peace and development hope rule of law respect for others liberty rather than freedom stability partnership tolerance justice H hard work asylum merit worth CHIRAC liberty responsibility freedom with dignity multilateralism state sovereignty rule of law under UN equal dignity of all cultures respect for diversity dialogue SCHROEDER institutions to guarantee human rights popular participation shared trade sustainable development disarmament full state sovereignty social and material security minority rights BURLESCONI freedom and democracy defence of human rights Peace and development freedom from totalitarianism route from poverty PUTIN market economies decent standard of living choice anti-totalitarianism myth of partnership (NATO) caliphate Content Analysis of Post 9/11 on Democracy

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 186 Quantitative Content Analysis Zipfs Law power-law function Pi ~ 1/i a Zipfs Law power-law function Pi ~ 1/i a Key words, e.g. George W Bush, Inaugural 2005 Key words, e.g. George W Bush, Inaugural 2005 Key WordFrequency Key WordFrequency freedom27 freedom27 liberty15 liberty15 hope 8 hope 8 history 7 history 7 tyranny 5 tyranny 5 God 4 God 4

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 187 Structural Content Analysis space (or time) devoted to the text space (or time) devoted to the text volume: headline type and font size volume: headline type and font size position or prominence of the text position or prominence of the text use of accompanying illustrations or photographs use of accompanying illustrations or photographs indications of direction or bias (for example, by stereotyping) indications of direction or bias (for example, by stereotyping) persistence over time (for example, the Daily Mails campaign over asylum seekers and the Daily Express pre-occupation with Princess Diana) persistence over time (for example, the Daily Mails campaign over asylum seekers and the Daily Express pre-occupation with Princess Diana)

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 188 Newspaper Circ (000s)Headline The Times635NHS faces treatment rationing The Guardian36511 government ministers fighting NHS cuts Daily Telegraph899Browns manifesto for Britishness The Independent238Shoot the messenger: Blair blames press for anti-war mood Daily Express773Big new tax on house owners Daily Mail 2,311Now a school bans crucifix The Mirror 1,540Big brother shot my dad dead The Sun 3,026Shoot him, mums anger at beast who raped girl, 3 The Star 750Big Bro on skids TV news (audience for post-watershed news, 000s) BBC News c 5,000Reid moves to quell offender row ITN news c 3,000Boys killed by Tube train Sky News c 2,000Men killed in Tube tragedy National Newspapers, circulation and headlines,

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 189 Substantive Content Analysis British parties ideological movement on a left-right scale (Budge, 1999: 5, Fig 11.1)

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 1810 Content Analysis Software AutoMap, CatPac, General Inquirer, Hamlet II, Leximancer, TACT, Textpack, Texstat, VBPro, Wordsmith, Winmax AutoMap, CatPac, General Inquirer, Hamlet II, Leximancer, TACT, Textpack, Texstat, VBPro, Wordsmith, Winmax The core functions include: The core functions include: –calculating word frequencies –excluding stopwords (the, and, in etc.) automatically –adopting lemmitisation to combine words with the same stem, e.g., go, going, gone, –using synonyms to categorise as one word all others having the same meaning, e.g., gone, quit, departed,etc –recording concordance by showing each word in its context (termed KWIC: key words in context) –using cluster analysis to group together words used in similar contexts –using co-word citation to identify the concurrence of key words. This is used by the US governments Echelon Project to scan s for terrorist activity. So ers using a combination of, say, bomb and Islam are likely to automatically attract the attention of the security services.

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 1811 Hamlet II European design for Politics content analysis European design for Politics content analysis Hamlet offers a number of analytical procedures including: Hamlet offers a number of analytical procedures including: –Joint Frequency Analysis –Jaccard coefficient –simple cluster analysis –multi-dimensional scaling –Procustean Individual Difference Scaling (PINDIS); –KWIC (key words in context) –Wordlist –Compare (to compare two or more texts) –Profile (which displays the distribution of words and sentence lengths)

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 1812 HAMLET - Computer-assisted Text Analysis - 17/01/ :32:57 ======================================== The text is read from the file: State of the Union Address 2005.txt Counting collocations within a span of 50 words - WARNING : No collocates for "freedom" WARNING: some characters were not recognised when reading this file! WORD-SEARCHING IS INSENSITIVE TO CASE. There are 17 main entries in the search list. No synonyms / related items are recognised : CATEGORY/WORD COUNTS VOC.LST. FREQUENCY % VOC.LST. % TEXT CONTEXT UNITS Applause better world budget democracy economy free* God history hope justice liberty sacrifice society tax terror* tyranny

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 1813 Dendogram

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 1814

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 1815 Content Analysis: Pros and Cons the ready availability of texts the ready availability of texts the scope for comparative analysis the scope for comparative analysis easy-to-use (with practice) analytical software easy-to-use (with practice) analytical software good tabulations of results good tabulations of results eye-catching illustrations eye-catching illustrations concurrence of key words does not necessarily indicate causal links concurrence of key words does not necessarily indicate causal links the meanings of key words change over time and can be deliberately changed by political parties who exploit feel good or feel bad words to make their policies more attractive (e.g., community, homeland) the meanings of key words change over time and can be deliberately changed by political parties who exploit feel good or feel bad words to make their policies more attractive (e.g., community, homeland) overall, the analysis is not really conclusive enough to provide sufficiently reliable evidence to confirm your research hypothesis overall, the analysis is not really conclusive enough to provide sufficiently reliable evidence to confirm your research hypothesis

Research Methods in Politics Chapter 1816 Questions for Discussion or Assignments 1. Where and when should content analysis best be used? 2. Compare and contrast two or more of the available software packages 3. Working in teams, complete a structural content analysis of last weeks national TV and print news media accounts of national and international news from Monday to Sunday. What inferences and conclusions can you draw? 4. Complete a content analysis of all President George W. Bushs State of the Union Addresses. Compare the analyses. What are your main conclusions? What are their limitations? Select two quality newspapers. Using CD-ROMs or Internet sources, evaluate their (emergent) bias for or against the Republican and Loyalist movements in N Ireland between the Good Friday Agreement (1998) and the St Andrews Agreement (2006). What conclusions can you draw? What reasons can you suggest for any changes of support?