Ethnographic Content Analysis

Ethnographic content analysis (ECA) refers to an integrated method, procedure, and technique for locating, identifying, retrieving, and analyzing documents for their relevance, significance, and meaning (Altheide, 1987, 1996). The emphasis is on discovery and description, including search for contexts, underlying meanings, patterns, and processes, rather than mere quantity or numerical relationships between two or more variables (Altheide, 1996).

A document is defined as any symbolic representation and meaning that can be recorded and/or retrieved for analysis. Document analysis will expand as recording technologies improve and become more accessible. These technologies include those of print and electronic media, audio tapes, visuals (e.g., photos, home videos), clothing/fashion, Internet materials, information bases (e.g., Lexis/Nexis), and fieldnotes.

ECA or qualitative document analysis involves emergent and theoretical sampling (Glaser & Strauss 1967) of documents from information bases (including those developed by a researcher, such as FIELDNOTES), development of a protocol for more systematic analysis, and then comparisons to clarify themes, frames, and discourse. For example, if one is interested in studying TV violence, it is not an act of violence per se that is socially significant, but rather how that act is linked to a course of action or a scenario as part of an entertainment emphasis (e.g., “bad guys get shot by good guys in order to achieve justice”). Alternatively, the scenario might be that the use of violence is somehow linked to bravery, cunning, skill, or (of course) sex. The latter are themes or general messages that are reiterated in specific scenarios. The aim, then, is to query how behavior and events are placed in context, and what themes, frames, and discourse are being presented. The basic steps include:

• Pursuing a specific problem to be investigated
• Becoming familiar with the process and context of the information source (e.g., ethnographic studies of newspapers or television stations) and exploring possible sources (perhaps documents) of information
• Becoming familiar with several (6–10) examples of relevant documents, noting particularly the format, and selecting a unit of analysis (e.g., each article), recognizing that the unit of analysis may change
• Listing several items or categories (variables) to guide data collection and drafting a protocol (data collection sheet)
• Testing the protocol by collecting data from several documents
• Revising the protocol and selecting several additional cases to further refine the protocol

A dynamic use of ECA involves “tracking discourse,” or following certain issues, words, themes, [Page 326]and frames over a period of time, across different issues, and across different news media. Initial manifest coding incorporates emergent coding and theoretical sampling in order to monitor changes in coverage and emphasis over time and across topics. For example, in a study of “fear” (Altheide, 2002), a protocol was constructed to obtain data about date, location, author, format, topic, sources, theme, emphasis, and grammatical use of fear (as noun, verb, or adverb). The contexts for using the word “fear” were clarified through theoretical sampling and CONSTANT COMPARISON to delineate patterns and thematic emphases. Materials were enumerated, charted, and analyzed qualitatively using a word processor and a qualitative data analysis program—NUD*IST—as well as quantitatively.