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Coding of Data
Coding of data refers to the process of transforming collected information or observations to a set of meaningful, cohesive categories. It is a process of summarizing and re-presenting data in order to provide a systematic account of the recorded or observed phenomenon. Data refer to a wide range of empirical objects such as historical documents, newspaper articles, TV programming, field notes, interview or focus group transcripts, pictures, face-to-face conversations, social media messages (e.g., tweets or YouTube comments), and so on. Codes are concepts that link data with theory. They can either be predefined by the researcher or emerge inductively from the coding process. By coding data, researchers classify and attach conceptual labels to empirical objects under study in order to organize and interpret ...
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Content analysis is one of the most important but complex research methodologies in the social sciences. In this thoroughly updated Second Edition
of The Content Analysis Guidebook, author Kimberly Neuendorf draws on examples from across numerous disciplines to clarify the complicated aspects of content analysis through step-by-step instruction and practical advice. Throughout the book, the author also describes a wide range of innovative content analysis projects from both academia and commercial research that provide readers with a deeper understanding of the research process and its many real-world applications.Summary
Contents
Subject index
Chapter 1: Defining Content Analysis
Defining Content Analysis
An Introduction
Content analysis is one of the most popular and rapidly expanding techniques for quantitative research. Advances in computer applications and in digital media have made the organized study of messages quicker and easier . . . but not automatically better. This book explores the current options for quantitative analyses of messages.
Content analysis may be briefly defined as the systematic, objective, quantitative analysis of message characteristics. It includes both human-coded analyses and computer-aided text analysis (CATA). Its applications can include the careful examination of face-to-face human interactions; the analysis of character portrayals in media venues ranging from novels to online videos; the computer-driven analysis of word usage in news media and political speeches, advertising, and blogs; the examination of interactive content ...
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Abstract
This paper describes the research process – from planning to presentation, with the emphasis on credibility throughout the whole process – when the methodology of qualitative content analysis is chosen in a qualitative study. The groundwork for the credibility initiates when the planning of the study begins. External and internal resources have to be identified, and the researcher must consider his or her experience of the phenomenon to be studied in order to minimize any bias of his/her own influence. The purpose of content analysis is to organize and elicit meaning from the data collected and to draw realistic conclusions from it. The researcher must choose whether the analysis should be of a broad surface structure (a manifest analysis) or of a deep structure (a latent analysis). Four distinct main stages are described in this paper: the decontextualisation, the recontextualisation, the categorization, and the compilation. This description of qualitative content analysis offers one approach that shows how the general principles of the method can be used.
Keywords
Content analysis
Credibility
Qualitative design
Research process
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© 2016 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd.