Sisällöanalyysiä

Sisällöanalyysiä, or content analysis, is a research method used to determine the presence of certain words, themes, or concepts within a qualitative dataset, such as written text, spoken words, or images. It's a systematic, objective, and, in its quantitative form, reproducible method used to analyze the content of communication. The goal is to transform qualitative data into quantitative data, allowing for statistical analysis.

The process typically involves several steps. First, the researcher defines the research question and the data to be analyzed. Next, a coding scheme is developed, which is a set of rules for categorizing the content. This scheme can be deductive, based on existing theories, or inductive, emerging from the data itself. Coders then systematically go through the data, assigning codes to relevant segments. Inter-coder reliability is often assessed to ensure consistency in coding. Finally, the coded data is analyzed, often using statistical techniques, to draw conclusions related to the research question.

Content analysis can be used in various fields, including communication studies, marketing, sociology, and psychology. It can be employed to analyze media portrayals, public opinion expressed in social media, historical documents, or interview transcripts. The method can be either qualitative, focusing on interpretation and understanding of meaning, or quantitative, focusing on frequency and patterns of specific elements.