Media Content Analysis

Media Tenor was founded in 1993 as the first media research institute to focus on continuous 100 percent media analysis* (print, TV, radio, internet). Thanks to this unique approach the institute expanded internationally serving blue chip companies, NGOs, governments, the media and elite universities.

What Media Content Analysis Is*?

Media Content Analysis was introduced in 1927 by Harold Lasswell as a method to study mass media.
Media content analysis is a quantitative and qualitative, systematic, objective and interpersonal method to determine form and content of text and broadcasts. It must be repeatable, so that anybody at any time can verify the results. Both data and codebook must therefore be transparent, and quality checks (e.g. the Inter-Coder-Reliability-Test) must be in place.

Media content analysis contributes real data to the age old debate over whether mass media creates public opinion and perceptions or reflects existing attitudes, perceptions, and culture.

 

What Media Content Analysis Is Not*?

♦ Impressionistic summary of media content is not media content analysis since the analytical =interpersonal and repeatable approach is missing; such summaries reflect only the understanding of the person reading the clippings, without added value.
♦ Looking at and evaluating only one theme of a selected text is neither “reflecting” media content as many relevant aspects are lost.
♦ An approach to analysis dictated by the online availability of media, rather than investing time and resources to analyse media with the highest impact.
♦ Analysis of foreign language media using software translation tools, because such tools generate data inadequate for research.
♦ Applying analysis software to texts - to date there exists no software application or technique that is capable of analysing more than semantics, and even then the failure rate is impressive. Content, however, is more than semantics. In the Media World especially, every word counts. More

How to determine the validity of qualitative data coded by analysts?

♦ Note how many topics, protagonists, and sources were found in one article.

♦ Ask for the proportion of employed analysts to the body of media analysed. With a limited number of analysts, quality suffers!

♦ Ask for the results of the recent Inter-Coder-Reliability test.

In order to ensure highly qualitative data Media Tenor uses professionally trained analysts, not software solutions, for the entire process of media content analysis. Analysts identify and categorize each report, sentence by sentence and issue by issue, according to a set of more than 700 defined criteria. More on methodology & quality assurance

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*For this page following literature was used:

Berelson, B., Content analysis in communication research
Krippendorff, K., Content Analysis – an introduction to its methodology
Lasswell, H.D., Lerner,D., & Pool, I. de Sola. The comparative study of symbol
Lippmann, W., Public Opinion
Neuendorf, K. The content analysis guidebook
Newbold, C., Boyt-Barett, O., & Van Den Bulck,  The media book
Weber, M., The methodology of social science

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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