Multiple Correspondence Analysis

Correspondence analysis is a method for interpreting tabular data visually in the form of spatial maps in which the rows and columns of the table are depicted as points. The basic form of the method visualizes cross-tabulations found typically in the social sciences, for example, education groups cross-tabulated

with political party voted for or a table of counts of the number of consumers that associate each of a set of brands with a set of attributes. Multiple correspondence analysis generalizes this method to many variables, typically questions in a survey, showing how the response categories interrelate.

As a first example, we use data from Tawnya Covert's article “Consumption and Citizenship during World War II: Product Advertisements in Women's Magazines,” a study in the Journal of Consumer Culture ...