7 July 2008 - Content Analysis

I'm reading about content analysis... something about categories... do i need my conceptual framework now?... can i derive it from data... is that grounded theory... how do the two differ... holsti stays objectivity, system and generality are common to most definitions of content analysis... objectivity means clear rules and procedures... if others can follow my path and have similar findings, well, that is a test of objectivity.

Objectivity
I'm thinking of a content analysis of the educators and researchers mailing lists. why them? interlinked. managed by linden labs. much mentioned sources of information. very active lists. there are associated wikis. not sure how much used these are. also there are the personal blogs of the second life celebs. why not those? i suppose i like the conversation of the mailing lists versus the broadcast nature of blogs (though with comments this is not always the case) and of wikis. wikis are also snapshots. hard to see the edit history.

Sytem
"Systematic means that the inclusion and exclusion of content or categories is done according to consistently applied rules. This requirement clearly eliminates analyses in which only materials supporting the investigator's hypotheses are admitted as evidence"... hmmm, this is a problem. Or is it? Yeah sure, most on these boards are in favour of virtual worlds. But I'm interested in use rather than non-use. It goes back to the questions.

The research objective derived is to explore the formation of individual perceptions/attitudes/beliefs regarding online VLEs in virtual worlds, the evolution of those perceptions/attitudes/beliefs over time and their impact on online VLE usage. Research questions have been derived from the research objective. The research questions are:

1. What are individual perceptions of virtual worlds, how do they change over time and what factors (e.g. human and technical) affect them? In particular, how do they relate to institutional perceptions?
2. What are institutional perceptions of virtual worlds, how do they change over time and what factors (e.g. human and technical) affect them? In particular, how do they relate to individual perceptions?
3. What is the nature of virtual world usage?
4. What is the relationship between perceptions and usage?

Maybe I need to look at usage and non-usage... continuance and 'stoppance'... therefore I need more sources than these lists... are there mailing lists for non-adopters? I guess there are not.

Generality
"a datum about communication content is meaningless until it is related to at least one other datum. The link between these is represented by some form of theory. Thus all content analysis is concerned with comparison"... Ah, I have no idea what this means for me, right now. But it's good to know.

Quantitative? Hmm. Does it have to be
Manifest versus latent content? Is CA restricted to the former or not?

When to use CA: Woot!
"The investigator who has direct access to his subjects may prefer to collect his data through some form of content analysis. Despite their very real merits... even the best experiment of survey studies the subject and his responses in a highly artificial situation... Especially when it is important to get repeated measures of the subjects' values, attitudes, and the like over a period of time, and if one has reason to believe that continued interaction between analyst and subject may affect the nature of responses, then content analysis of the subject's statements may be a useful way to gather the required data. An important feature of content analysis is that it is a 'non-reactive' or 'unobtrusive' research technique" p. 16