Qualitative Web Content Analysis, Online Research

Posted by arlene

Qualitative content analysis has a long tradition from analysis of texts (notably the Bible) and more recently mass and multimedia productions. This research is often interpretative in nature and is associated with critical, phenomenological, hermeneutic, semiotic, and other forms of qualitative research. Some of these techniques and the rich tradition that accompanies this form of research can be applied to Net-based interaction and publication.

Qualitative content analysis is usually associated with research on latent variables. In one interpretive form, qualitative content analysis involves the unstructured reading and rereading of the text with the researcher developing a narrative or interpretation that eventually reveals the meanings within the text. A slightly more structured form of qualitative transcript analysis often uses the techniques known as grounded theory. A grounded theory-based content analysis involves the careful study of the artifacts of the investigation (often the transcripts of electronic exchange) and coding the content into categories. Grounded theory tends to concentrate on extracting the categories inductively as they emerge from the data (open coding). These categories are then refined, combined, or differentiated in a process known as axial coding. The categories are then related in some theoretical sense to generate hypotheses that can be tested and that provide deeper understandings and interpretations of the phenomena under investigation. Researchers often find it useful to create network views or other graphical models of the codes that indicate their relationships to each other.

A final example of a more structured, but still qualitative, analysis might consist of identifying variables (especially latent variables) that are coded from the transcripts based on an existing theory originating from within another context. This type of research is often referred to as hypothetic-deductive and is most often associated with quantitative content analysis; however, we argue that a preconceived and formatted set of categories can be used to guide qualitative coding. Nevertheless, the nature of qualitative epistemology compels the researcher to be open to alterations or additions to this preconceived schema. For example, a researcher may seek to identify the different forms of group process in online groups using variables that describe predefined stages of group development identified in face-to-face groups.

Qualitative content analysis techniques are most useful when latent projection variables are the object of study. These variables are complex and not easily categorized or quantified. It allows for the emerging interpretation of the researcher to guide the analysis and gets above the bean-counting type of criticism associated with some forms of quantitative content analysis. In a sense, qualitative content analysis allows us to position, relate, and ultimately understand the abstractly inferred content from higher- level processing of the text and interaction that is not directly revealed by counting or categorizing of the content. Qualitative content analysis thereby allows us to work with the meanings that underlie the content rather than directly with the content we are studying. We are reminded of Karl Popper’s comment that “science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.” Qualitative content analysis is a very useful tool in the task of identifying, understanding, and criticizing these myths. As mentioned, though, the disadvantage of qualitative analysis is its dependence on the interpretation of the researcher, thus there is no guarantee of replicability or reliability among multiple researchers. Although we recognize and appreciate the value of qualitative content analysis in e-research—especially at the exploratory stages of investigation—we focus the bulk of our discussion on the more quantitative application of content analysis.

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