Content Analysis

Content analysis is a method used by researchers to analyze or scrutinize messages. The content can come from traditional mass media channels (e.g., TV programs, books, newspaper/magazine articles, or billboards), traditional interpersonal communication channels (e.g., mails, diaries, interview transcripts), or it can come from new media channels (e.g., Twitter, Web sites, or YouTube videos). The content can be public information presented to a mass audience (e.g., Facebook pages open to the public), or the content can be private information available only to a single individual (e.g., e-mail messages). All types of recorded content can be analyzed using this method.

“Analysis” refers to what the researcher does with the content. Typically, what the researcher does is to count instances of signs and symbols that occur within the content. For example, researchers could identify the frequency of illness portrayals on TV. This would allow them to determine what TV audiences are shown about illness and could then be used to see if illness portrayals impact audience perceptions of the likelihood of illness occurrence. Similarly, researchers could examine the way TV physicians interact with patients, how organ donation is portrayed in prime time programming, or how supplements are described in infomercials. All of these studies allow the researchers to describe how a subject is portrayed in the media. With that description in hand, researchers could then make comparisons between TV portrayals and reality (e.g., the number of strokes on daytime serial programs versus the number of strokes that actually occur in the United States relative to other illnesses). Or the researchers could also use their knowledge about media portrayals to make comparisons with what audience members actually believe (e.g., Do audiences believe more people have amnesia or suffer strokes?).

Finally, content analysis can also be used in interpersonal or even intrapersonal communication as long as it is recorded in a diary or sent as a letter or e-mail to someone. Health communication researchers might look at the recorded interactions between patients and physicians to see what is said, who talks the most, and/or what types of messages are being sent.

Bernard Berelson is generally considered the father of content analysis, although the work of Ole Holsti, Klaus Krippendorf, and Kimberly Neuendorf is also commonly cited by researchers using this method. Researchers determine an area of content that they want to study, select a sample of content to actually examine, and then analyze that content using a coding scheme. For example, a researcher could use content analysis to determine which men's health issues were most commonly included within the story line of daytime serial programming. The researcher would make a list of daytime programs, record those programs for analysis, and then identify all instances or occurrences of illness within those programs.