400029 SE Quantitative text analysis of political speech (2022S)

Political scientists and communication scholars increasingly rely on large amounts of political speeches to examine political phenomena. This seminar critically surveys quantitative methods for systematically extracting information from text for social scientific purposes and teaches participants how to apply these methods in practical research using R. We begin by describing the field of quantitative content analysis and by identifying current challenges, specifically for comparative and cross-national research. Subsequently, we focus on methods for classifying documents and for placing them on continuous dimensions or scales. Finally, we will examine how topic models can be integrated into political science research. The seminar will furthermore discuss how social science theories can inform a more valid application of quantitative text analysis methods. Participants of the seminar optionally have the opportunity to present their plans for a text analysis component in their dissertation.