400012 SE Manual and Computer-assisted Content Analysis (2016W)

The seminar offers an in-depth introduction to quantitative content analysis application for social science research, focusing on traditional, manual content analysis techniques as well as on developments in automated, computer assisted content analysis of digital material. It discusses the application of these approaches to different types or materials, from traditional newspapers to online multimedia stories, from party manifestos to election broadcasts, from purely textual to audio-visual material. The seminar reviews theoretical approaches and applies the practical steps in doing content analysis, from research question and hypothesis to codebook development, coder training, dictionary development, software handling, and reliability assessments. As a final assignment students will write a research proposal, ideally linked to their PhD project, focusing on methodological aspects and data collection instruments.