Counting how often defined categories appear across a body of texts or images, using explicit coding rules.
- +Fits Positivist Epistemology, Critical Realist Epistemology
- –Tension with Phenomenological Epistemology, Post-structuralist Epistemology
Key thinkers: Klaus Krippendorff, Kimberly Neuendorf, Bernard Berelson
The longer story
Content analysis systematically categorises material—textual, visual, or audio. Define categories, develop a coding scheme, apply it consistently, quantify. How many times does X appear? How is Y represented compared to Z? The advantage is reliability: others can check your coding. The limitation is that counting doesn't equal understanding. Quantitative content analysis tells you what's there; qualitative content analysis interprets what it means. Either way, you're making the implicit explicit through systematic categorisation.