SOC 201 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Content Analysis
Document Summary
The u. s. government gathers and publishes incredible amounts of data on everything from how many bedrooms people have in their houses to how many people are arrested for robbery. These data are readily available in libraries and through computer searches and are great starting places for researchers. If you are interested in the differences between men"s and women"s salaries, for example, the data have already been collected. If you are interested in prisons their size, their rate of growth, their population. The data are in the library and online. Businesses and other organizations gather and publish data, too. Content analysis involves subjecting some text to careful scrutiny to see what it reveals about its author, the times in which it was written, and so on. The texts that may be studied with content analysis include personal diaries, literature, television shows, radio commercials, magazines and newspapers, and even rock and roll music.
