Content Analysis

Content analysis represents the blending of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies focusing on messages. It provides users with an ability to take the qualitative message and quantify it using percentages and frequency counts. Further, content analysis can be used as a measurement tool. Content analysis is used quite extensively in public relations evaluation to better understand messages and how key people (e.g., editors and reporters) react to those messages; that use, however, is typically in a more informal, simple analysis. Hence, content analysis probably is best considered a qualitative public relations research method. Any type of content can be analyzed, including interviews, focus group discussions, editorials, television programming, and news releases, to name a few.

As a method, content analysis provides a way of systematically evaluating message content. If, for example, practitioners were interested in gauging news coverage regarding a promotional event, they might find all newspaper stories relating to that event and subject the stories to a content analysis. They might specifically want to see if the print media picked up a press release and, if published, how it was treated. A content analysis would provide a way to evaluate the release's reach—how many papers published it, which is calculated as a percentage or “score.” If all 10 papers in an area picked up the release, the release would have 100 percent reach. How the release was reported, however, would require additional analysis. The analysis might focus on where the release was printed—which newspaper section, location on the page (above or below the fold, which quarter of the page, and so forth), the tone of the news article (positively reported, negatively reported, or neutrally reported), or the type of article (“straight” news, editorial, or column). Content analysis provides a way of evaluating the press release's impact on the event, albeit in a simplistic way.

Conducting a content analysis requires more than simple counting. The method is the most systematic of all qualitative methodologies and typically requires the practitioner to follow several steps. First, the practitioner must identify the type of content, establish the unit(s) of analysis, create a category system, obtain the messages, code the data in such a way as to quantify it, and establish coding reliability and validity. Each of these phases is critical in conducting and evaluating based on content analysis, especially since the creation of computer programs that conduct the mundane and timeconsuming task of coding and counting.