Talk:Content analysis

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 27 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): SarahS3898. Peer reviewers: Rt12moretto.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 September 2019 and 10 January 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sean0524.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:23, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Reference Needed
Please provide a reference for the sentence that reads In 1931, Alfred R. Lindesmith developed a methodology to refute existing hypotheses, which became known as a content analysis technique. I have researched a number of credible sources such as Blackwell's Encyclopedia of Sociology and have not found a reference to Lindesmith being credited with a methodology that directly relates to the content analysis method. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Knbrennan (talk • contribs) 17:38, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

The whole first set of sentences about Lindesmith and grounded theory don't make much sense. Maybe someone meant to put them in another article. You could use a grounded theory approach in content analysis but it's not a defining characteristic. Mcsmom (talk) 01:13, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Since no one ever responded, I've removed this. It really looks like copy and paste from somewhere. Mcsmom (talk) 17:52, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Misc comments
Content Analysis and Textual Analysis are totally different research methods. Content analysis is quantitative while Textual Analysis is qualitative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.95.191.59 (talk) 20:48, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Is generalizability a real word!? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lukebacon (talk • contribs) 12:00, 9 February 2008 (UTC)  Yes it is.

I followed your link to Zipf's Law on the Content Analysis page and the law doesn't say anything about the importance of words being proportional to their frequency as the article suggests (which would have been a preposterous claim given that the most frequent words are preposiitons and such). help I removed the use of Zipf's law to justify the assumption linking word frequency to conceptual importance; it is not supported by the Wikipedia article linked to or by any of the published authorities (e.g. Krippendorff, Neuendorf). Good point about prepositions etc. but these will generally be omitted; they are "stop-words" --Keir h 13:00, 22 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Keir h (talk • contribs)

Should this be integrated with text analysis or text mining or natural language processing? I see a lot of redundant information here. How is this any different other than a different wording? Josh Froelich 03:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
 * No. The above are computational techniques. Content analysis is a research method that is not conventionally automated.

I'm actually quite dismayed to see my search for textual analysis shortcut straight to the content analysis page. It is not in the least a simple byword: content analysis describes a quantitative, empirical approach to texts that operates as a kind of foil to the individualised, personal reasonings required of textual analysis. The two are obviously deeply linked (and most usually used in conjunction with one another during analysis), but this does not in itself constitute justification for a merging. - Tim (not registered, just concerned) 27/3/07
 * I agree the redirect is bad.hhhh — Preceding unsigned comment added by Groceryheist (talk • contribs) 04:36, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Urgent Simplification Suggested
Can anyone who understands the area make this article a little simpler? I am from a science background (not humanities) and find the language very difficult to understand. 22:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that the text needs to be simplified. I would also suggest that this can be a very powerful tool. It mentions that Public relations uses the same tools to evaluate results of campaigns. The article is one dimensional in that it does not discuss early uses of the media in the 20th century. It does not discuss the converse if you can track what is being said you also can track what isn't said. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wsv123456 (talk • contribs) 01:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Simplifiaction doesn't make much sense here. The method may not be that complicated in itself, but the hermeneutical implications of qualitative research certainly are very important. And as you hopefully all know, there is no easy way to talk accurately about hermeneutics. This is a domain where mathematical formulas and the like fall short of being able to explain anything. By the way, the article is quite substantial and mentions some of the most important researchers of this field: Berelson, Holsti and Krippendorff. The only one of the critisized aspects I agree upon is that the article could be a bit more structured. By the way: The often heard call of mathematicians and natural scientists for simpler explanations of the matters of the humanities or social sciences is about as sensible as a (hardly ever heard) call of humanists or social scientists for mathematics and natural sciences without formulas. See also the famous comments of Albert Einstein on Occam's razor cited here in Wikipedia. Bottom line: Make it simple, not simpler. --Benutzer:Botisa_Tesar 13:17, 29 June 2008 (CEST)

Looks to me like it needs cleaning up; I may try this. I'm a Physics graduate using content analysis for my first piece of social science research and don't think the terminology is impossible to grasp; some links to explanations of generalisability / reliability would be useful though! They are analagous to physical sciences concepts but do need explaining. --Keir h 13:10, 22 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Keir h (talk • contribs)

Stustu12's external links
Because this is first an issue of spamming a number of links where the original editor has a clear WP:COI, it might be best to try to centralize the discussions at User talk:Piotrus and Talk:Qualitative research --Ronz 19:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

External link cleanup
The external links need cleanup per WP:EL, WP:SPAM, and WP:NOT. If editors feel a list of tools would be useful, it would need to meet WP:LIST and especially have a inclusion criteria so the list can be managed from growing uncontrollably. The normal inclusion criteria is for the list to only include items that already have their own wikipedia articles. Because none of these do, they should probably all be removed. It would be nice to find and include a link that actually lists such tools though. --Ronz (talk) 23:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Simplified?
Simplified? you want to simplify the text because the language seems far more complex than it really needs to be? sorry but try reading books on researching communications in the media idustry... i had to keep checking my thesauras just to decifer what i was reading as i went along. To simplify the text would make it irrelevant (sadly) as this page on content analysis actually uses all the correct termanology..........please excuse my bad spelling, my brain is mashed from doing an assignment and reading all this unesscesary complex lingo...i've learnt a new language it seems--Liz K, not registerd either UK —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.17.101.243 (talk • contribs) 04:33, 20 February 2008


 * I had content analysis drilled into me in various research methods classes and it's really not that complex a method in reality: what makes it complex is the terminology you're referring to. This article should be written in simple easy to understand language that anybody can comprehend as far as I'm concerned. Articles of this nature are my pet hate, it's clearly been written primarily by someone who wants to demonstrate his/her knowledge of the subject and as a result it's become unreadable for those not acquainted with the terminology. Blankfrackis (talk) 00:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Terminology can be used - should be used - but should also be clearly explained. Thus a reader should take away both the understanding of the clearly explained concept, and of the terminology he will encounter when dealing with more specialized literature.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:45, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

One problem refers not so much to the language but to the structure of the article particularly in the description section. Some paragraphs appear rather out of place and some sentences are badly worded and confused. See in particular the final paragraph of the description section in the context of the rest of that section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.243.220.41 (talk) 15:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

philology, hermenutics, & semiotics
This article fails to take account of textual analysis in the humanities, as is done in the above three fields, for example.
 * It's too stlanted towards science. For example, the scholarly study of the Bible, concerning its historical compilation, is omitted. --Ludvikus (talk) 16:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we need a disambiguation page to distinguish textual analysis? --Ludvikus (talk) 16:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Those things would not really be content analysis. This article is kind of a mess because it is trying to combine too many things. It makes it really hard to organize if it is going to include every single way scholars study texts. Textual analysis and hermenutics should be their own articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcsmom (talk • contribs) 19:28, 4 October 2014 (UTC)


 * So should it also be in WikiProject Linguistics where an expert could take it on? Maybe someone there could figure it all out. I myself was interested in how it's used to discover plagarism and writing styles, including through computer programs. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:54, 4 October 2014 (UTC)


 * No content analysis as a research method is mainly found in communications/media research, consumer research, education research and sociology research. If you put "content analysis" into Google Scholar that is the kind of work you will see.  It has nothing really to do with typical linguistics or with the issue you are talking about (identifying authors).  That is about individual writing patterns not the content of the writing.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcsmom (talk • contribs) 13:59, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

The Polish Peasant in Europe and America
I'd think this classic work should be discussed here. Thoughts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:15, 7 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Fancy meeting you here. It's surprising there's nothing about using such programs to determine who an "anonymous" author is, comparing anonymous writings with suspected authors. Particularly good for private eyes out to find libelers, etc. (Or govts out to find anti-government types.) Anyway, your article is interesting and it's one of several examples that could be used, including the anonymous author of the 1992 novel Primary Colors, who was proven to be Joe Klein. I added it to See also, as evidently did you. Right now article reads like a very boring tech page. Carolmooredc  (Talkie-Talkie) 00:10, 19 June 2014 (UTC)


 * What about making a section of prominent examples of the use of content analysis in different fields? E.g. Sociology (Thomas and Zaniecki and some others), attribution research (the Primary Colors example is relatively unimportant but well known so should be there if there is a valid link for it, but the Mosteller and Wallace work on the Fedralist papers, and some others. And some examples from other fields.Mcsmom (talk) 14:23, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Reorganization and clean up
This article has quite a number of problems. For example, as noted above, there is the whole section on Lindesmith that doesn't make sense. There are also a lot of kind of implied references for example it says "the original classification by Krippendorf" as though that was a formative document rather than an integration of a body of work. Also most of the links to Tipaldo are broken, and the tone there seems not in the right style. Also statements such as "Every content analysis should depart from a hypothesis." definitely have a POV. Part of the confusion of the article is that it is mixing together in a messy way content from separate disciplines and some qualitative/quantitative arguments. I would propose adding some discussion of how the term is used in different disciplines (sociology, anthropology, media studies, political science, humanities) and industries (public relations etc) and a list of prominent examples of content analysis from specific areas. If you read this article you would think that "Memetic convergence" is an important content analysis topic ... it's just totally confusing. I'm not sure if it should start over again or just have a bit by bit clean up.Mcsmom (talk) 15:38, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Someone else was cleaning up while I was, which is great. One suggestion I would have is to move a lot of the introduction to later in the article. That material only makes sense if you actually know what content analysis is. Also there could be a history section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcsmom (talk • contribs) 17:44, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

hi, i've completely re-arranged the first part, trying to give an abstract of the essential issues related to content analysis. used only academic-proven handbooks known at the international level. i'm a sociologist and content analysis scholar. hope it can help improve.--NachiNachele (talk) 00:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Intro
The intro seems incomprehensible to the general reader, and in style reads somewhat like a rather pretentious student essay. Ben Finn (talk) 14:18, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Proposed restructuring
I have made some small edits, but I am new to editing Wikipedia so am hesitant to make the larger structural changes that I think this article needs. I would appreciate feedback on the following proposed structural changes:
 * Move 'Uses' section up to follow the 'Goals of Content Analysis' section; these two seem closely related
 * Move 'History' away from the 'Reliability' section, to follow directly after the 'Uses' section
 * Add a new heading below "Uses" entitled something like "Methodological concerns", under which would be subheadings including:
 * Quantitative and qualitative approaches [note: I really think a dedicated discussion of this 'divide' would be helpful to readers]
 * Types of text
 * Reliability
 * Computational tools

To me, the "More elaborate description" section is unnecessary, and has a disproportionate focus on one interpretation of content analysis that is not universal to the method. To make the article useable, I argue that each piece of content within that section should either be relocated to a briefer section elsewhere, or should be discarded. Cpgla (talk) 14:19, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I realised that the "More elaborate description" section was entirely plagiarised from a textbook, and have removed it.Cpgla (talk) 14:32, 25 April 2018 (UTC)