Critical Reading in

Anglophone Media

Presented by
Miss Mekhaznia Wafa

2020-2021
CHAPTER ONE:
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

MAJOR CONCEPTS AND TERMS

:The Outline
Introduction*
I -Mass media
 Media’ Sources
 Media’s Function
 Media’s Problems
 Media’s role in Shaping the Public’ Opinion.

 II- Opinion Poll and its Function in the Media

 Opinion Polls’ Function in the Media
 Opinion Polls as a Main Source Adapted in the Media
 Polls as News
 The Adaptation of Opinion Polls in the US Election of 2016

 *Conclusion
  Introduction

Media is sometimes referred to as the 4th branch of the

government because its role is to serve as the watchdog…
watching over those who we elect to oversee our national and
local governments on behalf of those they serve, the citizens.
Therefore, Media is also closely linked to Opinion poll, for it
affects and gets affected by opinion poll in the process of
gathering information and data and affecting the public opinion
as well. Opinion Polls and the Media provide the most
comprehensive analysis to date on the relationship between the
media, opinion polls, and public opinion. . Looking at the extent
to which the media, through their use of opinion polls, both
reflect and shape public opinion, it brings together a team of
leading scholars and analyzes theoretical and methodological
approaches to the media and their use of opinion polls.
 -Media is a KEY LINKAGE INSTITUTION between the people
and policy makers
 Brings political information to the public on a daily basis-
Television, radio, magazines, books, Internet, etc.
 Media has a profound effect on public policy because most
people rely on the information from the media to make their
choices in an election
 So, if the media chooses not to cover something, then most
people will never get that information.
 Sources of the Media:
 *Print media: Newspapers, Magazines
 *Broadcast Media: Television, Radio (Public Broadcast System and
Talk Radio), Internet (New Media), Blogs and Podcasts, Social Media
(Twitter, facebook).

 Functions of the Media

◦ Transmit political information from political actors to the public
◦ Gate keeping
 Media makes decisions about what is news, and for how long
◦ Watchdog function
 Informal check in our political system
 Media allows the public to keep tabs on behavior of elected
officials
◦ Expand scope of an issue
 More media attention leads to higher levels of public knowledge
about issue
 This leads to more pressure on politicians.
 We can sum up the functions of media as:
[1] Media provide news and information required by the people.
[2] Media can educate the public.
[3] Media helps a democracy function effectively. They inform
the public about government policies and programs and how
these programs can be useful to them. This helps the people
voice their feelings and helps the government to make necessary
changes in their policies or programs.
[4] Media can entertain people.
[5] Media can act as an agent of change in development.
[6] Media has brought people of the world closer to each other.
[7] Media promote trade and industry through advertisements
[8] Media can help the political and democratic processes of a
country.
[9] Media can bring in positive social changes.
Problems with Media
 Agenda setting – Blurs perceptions
◦ The media tells up what to think about by covering some issues,
and ignoring others
 Bias
◦ Ideological bias
◦ Corporate bias
 Media not accessible to everyone
 Priming
 Framing
 Agenda Setting

 Agenda Setting Theory: The term was coined by Maxwell McCombs and
Donald L Shaw in 1972 in the context of election campaign where the
politicians seek to convince the voters about the party's most important
issues. This theory tries to describe and explain as how stories are
selected. (a)Packaged and presented- a process known as Gate keeping,
(b)by resulting agenda (c) how this agenda affects what people think about
the relative importance of the issues presented. This theory also “predicts”
that of particular news item is presented prominently and frequently by the
press, the public will come to believe that it is important.
Therefore Agenda setting is:
◦ The decision to cover any event or issue necessarily means that other
issues are more unlikely to be covered, even if those issues are arguably
more important
 “Newshole” is limited by various constraints
◦ Time
◦ Space
 Pressure to cover the sensational…
 Examples of Agenda setting
 Experiment 1 – News stories about defense
◦ Group A: Stories about weakness in defense
◦ Group B: No stories about defense
◦ *** participants much more likely to cite defense as a
major problem facing nation

 Experiment 2 – Various news stories

◦ Group A: Stories about defense
◦ Group B: Stories about pollution
◦ Group C: No added stories
◦ *** Participants cited defense, pollution, depending on
what stories they were exposed to
Media Blurs Perceptions
 If it bleeds, it leads
◦ When asked about the crime rate, most respondents vastly
overestimate overall crime rate, and more particularly violent
crime rate
◦ Since 1990, murder coverage increased over 500% while real
world homicide rates dropped over 40%
 1999 – Lowest crime rate of decade, but 511 homicide stories
 1991- Higher crime rate than in 1999, but fewer than 100
homicide stories on major 4 networks
IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS
Bias
 Ideological bias
◦ Claim that there is a liberal bias in the media
 Many in media are liberal (tend to vote Democratic)
 Higher percentage of liberals in national media
◦ Rising claim of conservative bias as well
 Fox News obviously has conservative slant
 “Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War”
Media not accessible to everyone

 While most newspapers and TV news are presented at basic level,

there are high start-up costs that disadvantage many
◦ Terms used often over the head of those with low political
knowledge
 Without basic knowledge about politics, and often the issue at
hand, many cannot understand the news
 Saying that a Democratic challenger to the incumbent is
much more liberal is only informative if you understand
ideologies (including how they match up with your own
preferences)
Framing

 The way that the media presents a story

 Can affect who we blame for a particular problem, which affects
how we think the government should respond
◦ Individual vs. societal frames
 Poverty experiment
 Those who were exposed to societal frames more likely to
blame society for high poverty levels
 More likely to support welfare, food stamps, etc.
 Those who were exposed to individual frames more likely to
blame individuals
 Oppose social welfare programs
Priming
 Prominence of stories in the media can affect the standards by
which we judge political leaders.
 Example:
◦ Bush overall approval rating – 71%
 Approval of handling of economy – 49%
 Approval of handling of taxes – 52%
 Approval of handling war in Iraq – 71%
◦ **Overwhelming coverage of the war is priming the public
 Evaluate Bush, they do so based on war, rather than economy
or taxes
 Media’s Role in Shaping the Public Opinion:

Social media has provided a newer, more direct forum in

which politicians talk to people. However, social media’s biggest
impact on politics arguably has less to do with politicians talking,
and more to do with them listening. Presidents and presidential
candidates have long reached people through national television,
rallies and the like. But until recently, talking to politicians meant
writing a letter one could only pray would reach its intended
audience, attending a rally in hopes of grabbing a moment of the
candidate’s time, or being quoted in a news article that the
candidate might see. Even if one’s words reached the candidate,
neither he nor the candidate would know if he was alone in his
beliefs.
 II- Opinion Poll and The media

 Opinion poll is a method for collecting information about the

views or beliefs of a given group. Information from an opinion
poll can shed light on and potentially allow inferences to be
drawn about certain attributes of a larger population.
 Opinion polls typically involve a sample of respondents,
drawn to represent a larger relevant population, who are asked a
standardized series of questions in a fixed form. The results are
analyzed for the entire respondent sample, as well as for specific
subsamples that represent subgroups in the population. In some
cases, the relevant population is well known and easily
operationalized, as in the case of “adults age 18 and over residing
in telephone households.” But in other cases, the relevant
population has to be constructed during the course of the
interview, as in the case of “likely voters.”
 *Opinion Poll’s Function in the Media:

 Opinion polls are an important part of media and social life

today. It is particularly used by companies, the media and
political parties. Made from questionnaires to a sample of
individuals’ representative of a given population, polls estimate
the distribution of the opinion of the whole population.
Exchanges often based on the analysis of surveys, mobilize many
analysts, editorialists, and journalists who can influence public
opinion. Specific legislation defines the functioning and limits of
surveys. All the surveys are not opinion polls.
 *Opinion Polls as a Main Source adapted in the Media.

 Treating polls as news stories is nowadays an essential part of the

news making process of the media. Since they do not only report
on the findings of external research organizations, but are also
closely involved in the polling process itself by commissioning
or even conducting polls, it is said that poll coverage has become
‘a news beat of its own’ . Because of this close relationship
between news media and polling, the role of the media in
‘creating’ a certain image of ‘public opinion’ by disseminating
information about polls and people’s opinions is considered
substantial but is evaluated rather pejoratively by authors such as
Barnett, Herbst, Suhonen and Billiet. For they believe that
journalists can influence the opinion formation process of the
people by reporting upon and interpreting opinion polls and by
disclosing generalizing statements about people’s opinions
(Herbst, 1998).
 *Polls as news

 Polls are frequently used by the media in their news. Because

media organizations regularly commission polls themselves, the
poll results are quickly accessible for them to report upon
extensively. In media reports, the opinions measured by polls are
not treated as exploratory variables of underlying attitudes or
behavior but the poll results are instead primarily used because
of their news value. From this it is clear that the media’s ‘prime
objective is to report aspects of public opinion for their intrinsic
interest as news’. Public opinion polls are considered
newsworthy to cover because they measure the views of the
people. Knowing the opinions of the public is believed to be
essential in a democracy.
 *The Adaptation of Opinion Polls in the US Election of 2016

The US presidential election of 2016 was a nightmare for the

pollsters. On the one hand nearly every national poll puts Hillary
Clinton ahead. So anything other than a Clinton victory will be
regarded as a polling failure. But on the other hand, although
there seems to have been a small swing in her favour in the final
days, the Democrat nominee’s lead is still only a narrow one – on
average between three and four points. If the polls are
overestimating her strength in this election by just a little more
than that the outcome could be very close indeed. Meanwhile, of
course, it is not the nationwide vote that will decide who will
become the next president. Rather, it will be who wins most
votes in an electoral college in which big states have many more
votes than small states and where, with just a couple of
exceptions, the winner in a state takes all of its electoral college
votes irrespective of the narrowness of their victory.
 *The US Polls Misinterpret the Presidential Election of 2016

 Donald Trump won the general election of Tuesday, November

8, 2016 despite being behind in nearly all opinion polls. Media
analysts differ as to why the polling industry was unable to
correctly forecast the result. Two daily tracking polls, the UPI/C
Voter poll and the University of Southern California/Los Angeles
Times poll were the only polls that often predicted a Trump
popular vote victory or showed a nearly tied election. Trump
ultimately lost the popular vote while winning the Electoral
College.
 Before Election Day, they were showing a sustained but
narrowing lead for Hillary Clinton. The Telegraph's poll tracker,
which was based on an average of the last five
polls published on Real Clear Politics, showed Clinton leading
with three percentage points over Trump. American statistics and
polling analysis site Five Thirty Eight gave Trump a 30 per cent
chance of victory going into the final few days.
 *Conclusion

 In here, we have dealt with the relationship between the media

and the industry of opinion poll and the interaction between the
two. Since the media from one hand is seen to be one of the
crucial factors in the foundation of public opinion which is
considered to be a vital source for the subjects that can be treated
by public opinion poll, from the other hand; it is the essential
medium through which the results of these polls can be spread on
a wider level. We also have dealt with the roles through which
the media participates in arousing the demand on these kinds of
polls through exposing the different topics and news that really
matter, and also helps in satisfying the public by allowing them
to have a look at the results of these polls through the publication
of their results, since in some cases the media tends to act as an
active factor in the making of the public opinion polls.
Chapter Two: Investigating
Anglophone Media and its
Vitality in the Shaping of the
Public Opinion.
Reflecting upon Anglophone
Media
 As a concept, the media include all variables
connecting people into socially shared universes of
understanding. Television, radio, film, magazines, and
books typically are classified immediately within the
class of media. Yet, such an operational definition is
incomplete. Employing a vernacular conception
 reflecting broader social usages, Webster's (1973, p.
714) defines a medium as "something in a middle
position," as a "means of effecting or conveying
something," and as the "means of transmission." Most
obviously, language is thus a medium, for people
transmit mutual exchanges through the medium of
language and thereby create commonly shared
universes of understanding. In the same sense, a host
of other phenomena and experiences function as
media.
MEDIA AS A REALITY: A THEORY OF
DETERMINISM
While the integrating and self-contained features of
the contemporary electronic media are the focal
point of our study, the scope of this analysis is much
more broad in terms of :
media themselves constitute a socially constructed
reality. The configuration of media employed by a
cultural unit affects the selective perception, mental
patterns, worldviews, and ultimately the valuation
system itself defining the essence of a cultural unit.
 Media’s Influence on Society:
 Over the last 500 years, the influence of mass media has
grown exponentially with the advance of technology. First
there were books, then newspapers, magazines,
photography, sound recordings, films, radio, television, the
so-called New Media of the Internet, and now social media.
Today, just about everyone depends on information and
communication to keep their lives moving through daily
activities like work, education, health care, leisure
activities, entertainment, traveling, personal relationships,
and the other stuff with which we are involved. It's not
unusual to wake up, check the cell phone for messages and
notifications, look at the TV or newspaper for news,
commute to work, read emails, take meetings and makes
phone calls, eat meals with friends and family, and make
decisions based on the information that we gather from
those mass media and interpersonal media sources.
 So what?
 We need to be aware that the values we hold, the beliefs we harbor and the decisions
we make are based on our assumptions, our experiences, our education and what we
know for a fact. We rely on mass media for the current news and facts about what is
important and what we should be aware of. We trust the media as an authority for
news, information education and entertainment. Considering that powerful influence,
then, we should know how it really works.
 How media Influence us
 The degree of influence depends on the availability and pervasiveness of
media. All of the traditional mass media still have great influence over our
lives.
 Books once were supremely influential because they came first before
newspapers, magazines, radio or television. Newspapers and magazines
became great influencers after they were developed. sound recordings and
film were and still are influential.
 Radio and then television were very influential. As the 20th century closed,
TV exposed us to untold numbers of images of advertising and marketing,
suffering and relief, sexuality and violence, celebrity, and much more.
 New and influential media-distribution channels have appeared in the 21st
century. Delivered via the World Wide Web across the Internet, we are
influenced daily by blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds and myriad
forms of content sharing.
Who controls the message?
Who owns the media companies that shape our values, beliefs and
decisions?
A media conglomerate or media group is a company that owns
many mass media businesses.
According to a recent Fortune 500 list, the top five in terms of
revenue are:
Walt Disney Company
News Corporation
Time Warner
CBS Corporation
Viacom
Other well-known major conglomerates include:
NBC Universal
Sony Corporation of America
Together, these giants control 95% of all the traditional media we
receive every day.
 These media conglomerates own the major television and
radio broadcast stations and networks and programming,
video news, sports entertainment, entertainment theme
parks, movie studios, integrated telecommunications,
wireless mobile entertainment and information
distribution systems, video games software, electronic
and print media, the music industry, and a whole lot more.
 Back in the day, there was more diversity in companies,
but they have merged over the decades so now they are
few in number. Today's huge merged companies have the
power to shape our opinions and beliefs and influence our
decisions.
 This is why it's important to be aware of what we are
exposed to every day, so we can look at things from
different perspectives and not just from the perspective of
a medium.
 Why are audience ratings important?
 Money. Revenues. Profits.
 A commercial medium wants to sell ad space or time to businesses with
products or services for sale. To make that sale, they need to be able to tell
potential advertisers that their messages on the air, in print, or on the
monitor screen will be viewed and heard by large numbers of consumers.
 For example, here are Nielsen program ratings for cable news channels for
April 2012:
 1. The O'Reilly Factor – Fox News — 2.87 million total viewers
 2. Hannity – Fox News — 2.075 million total viewers
 3. Special Report with Bret Baier – Fox News — 1.778 million total viewers
 4. On the Record with Greta van Susteren – Fox News — 1.722 million
total viewers
 5. Fox Report with Shepard Smith – Fox News — 1.688 million tota
viewers
 6. The Five – Fox News — 1.674 million total viewers
 7. America's Newsroom –Fox News — 1.272 million total viewers
 8. Your World with Neil Cavuto – Fox News — 1.252 million total viewers
 9. O'Reilly Factor (11PM) – Fox News — 1.22 milliontotal viewers
 10. America Live – Fox News — 1.191 million total
 viewers
 11. Studio B – Fox News — 1.113 million total viewers
 12. Fox & Friends – Fox News — 1.082 million total viewers
 13. Happening Now – Fox News — 1.029 million total viewers
 14. The Rachel Maddow Show – MSNBC — 985,00 total viewers
 15. The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell – MSNB — 931,000
total viewers
 16. The Ed Show – MSNBC — 875,000 total viewers
 17. Hardball with Chris Matthews – MSNBC — 744,00 total viewers
 18. PoliticsNation – MSNBC — 712,000 total viewers
 19. Piers Morgan Tonight – CNN — 567,000 total viewers
 20. The Situation Room – CNN — 548,000
 Notice that programs owned by News Corporation dominate
the first 13. The next five are NBC Universal programs and the
bottom two in the top 20 list are Time Warner programs.
 Bill O'Reilly has five times as many viewers as Wolf Blitzer.
 How do media influence public opinion?
 Media shape public opinion in different way depending on the content.
 Here's an example:
 Following the 9/11 terrorism, media coverage followed accusations by
government authorities that pointed toward al Qaeda as the group that
carried out the attack on the United States and Osama bin Laden as
leader of that group. Those news reports on the attack and the
aftermath shaped public opinion to support the war on terrorism.
 Other ways to influence public opinion include political advertising.
 Trends for and against political candidates are measured by public
opinion polls. Candidates raise money to pay for media exposure --
political advertising -- that influences public opinion so they will
receive more votes on Election Day.
 Understanding Media Discourse
Media discourse refers to interactions that take place through a broadcast
platform, whether spoken or written, in which the discourse is oriented
to a non-present reader, listener or viewer.
 Though the discourse is oriented towards these recipients, they very
often cannot make instantaneous responses to the producer(s) of the
discourse, though increasingly this is changing with the advent of new
media technology, as we shall explore.
 Crucially, the written or spoken discourse itself is oriented to the
readership or listening/viewing audience, respectively. In other words,
media discourse is a public, manufactured, on-record, form of
interaction. It is not ad hoc or spontaneous (in the same way as casual
speaking or writing is); it is neither private nor off the record. Obvious
as these basic characteristics may sound, they are crucial to the
investigation, description and understanding of media discourse.
 Because media discourse is manufactured, we need to consider how this
has been done – both in a literal sense of what goes into its making and
at an ideological level. One important strand of research into media
discourse is preoccupied with taking a critical stance to media discourse.
 Media analysis can be used to identify messages, examine how those
messages are framed, and see how existing coverage of an issue could
be improved.
 These analyses entail systematically taking a “slice” of media coverage
from a set time-frame, often in the top daily newspapers, magazines
and broadcast news outlets.
 The coverage can be classified and analyzed to identify communication
opportunities for nonprofits and foundations, and strategic
recommendations can be drawn to help them effectively disseminate
their messages.
**A typical media analysis can answer the following questions:
 How do the media frame public discussion of an issue (by repeating
various story elements, using common metaphors, quoting similar
people, etc.)?
 Who are the main spokespeople on a particular topic, and how are they
being quoted? Are they mainly advocates, policymakers, academic
experts, etc.?
 How often are various spokespeople quoted and in what context?
 What topics are being covered, and what topics are being ignored?
 Which outlets are covering or ignoring an issue or organization that
they should be covering?
 Is there a time of year when an issue or organization is more likely to
be covered than others?
 Is a topic or organization front-page news, and if not, where in the
paper is that topic or organization covered?
 Which reporters are writing on this issue/organization?
 What messages are being used?

 «What matters here, rather than teach things and transmit content, is
that the individual learns to learn; to be capable of thinking for
himself, to overcome verifications merely empirical and immediate
findings of facts that surround it (naive consciousness) and develop
its own capacity to reduce, to relate, elaborate synthesis (critical
consciousness)» (Kaplún, 1998: 51).
 The media programs mislead the critical
spirit and the acquisition of knowledge. They
propose that the student becomes implicitly
more critical whenever he acquires the
knowledge proposed by the program. But a
fundamental question remains unanswered:
what do we understand by critical thinking?
 Generalities on Media Analysis:
Things you should know before starting:
 1) Being objective, avoiding ideological proposals
 2)Taking into account the social, political and cultural
influence that unnecessarily embraces the media
 3)The media must be settled in their context, environment,
with values, demands and aspirations
 Therefore, Critical Reading require that the reader
possesses a series of intellectual skills that involve
reading, decoding, analysis, perspective, expression and
communication.
 1) Select the media text or texts; visualize it (reading or listening to it,
according to the case) as a starting point.
 2) Identify values and views that the group possesses in terms of the media
text. Consider emotional affinities: did you like it? What did you dislike?
What aroused your curiosity? What were you indifferent to? Include: usage,
habits and tastes regarding the media text. This step is the recognition of the
characteristics you have as a consumer of media, with habits, tastes and
preferences.
 3) Study the formal elements of the text: the deconstruction of the aspects
that shape and link with the language and grammar in each media
“Analyzing texts is based on the ideas that language is inherently unstable
and shifting and that the reader rather than the author is central in
determining meaning” “Derrida, 1960” . In the case of television, for
example, use of shots and angles, camera movements or composition.
Include: description of a television genre, the structure of a magazine or a
newscast.
 4) Interpret the relationships that the issuer suggests by the deliberate
construction of the message, taking into consideration formal aspects
identified in the previous section; these are evidence of analysis. Specify the
denotative, primary meaning (Saussure, 2005), according to related culture.
In the case of audiovisual language, for example, it is easy to interpret a shot
such as a «low shot» angle that demonstrates the superiority of the object
represented.
 5) Select a specific theme for discussion, as a motivational strategy.
This leads to work with specific general problems and not certain
individual viewpoints.
 6) Contextualize the message or analyzed text, considering that it may
occur in various formats. Nowadays, this involves technological
intervention, conditioned interpretations and relationships established
with audiovisual speech. Contextualize is to locate the texts in their
socio-cultural context, i.e. it implies reflection on the references that
help us to interpret /understand the issuer/author of the message, as
well as the diegetic “narrative” location (spatial and temporal) of the
media text (when did it happen? where was it drawn up?).
 7) Evaluate the text from the identification of the source: who is the
issuer? (origin of the text). This allows us to evaluate the degree of
confidence it has with respect to institutional mediation to infer the
possible interests of the issuer. The issuer can be an artist, as in the case
of a short film, a company that responds to the logic of the
entertainment industry, as with soap operas, a public institution or
health prevention campaign.
 8) Identify the characteristics of the content from the genre, format and
media from which it arises; discriminate between facts, inferences and
opinions, for example, in news programs or in the print media. This
will allow us to understand the use of the language and grammar of
media, its linkage with the theme and developed gender. If we look at a
magazine we are unlikely to see sequencing with a descriptive intent or
details of a level of usage that emphasize specific aspects of what is
represented, because the logic of the discourse points to another type of
plan, showing the scene of representation and dynamism, among other
technical and semiotic aspects.
 9) Inventory concepts and definitions that serve to establish
relationships between them; from experiences and prior knowledge,
depending on the review of its influence from the context in which it is
immersed. It basically works from dialogue, discussion and joint
account agreements. Here different social mediation and knowledge in
reflective action are at play, from the constructivist perspective.
 10) Discover the present in the text (Saussure, n2005), connotations,
i.e. identify the subjective meanings, ambiguities and multiplicity of
interpretations it offers. It is essential to assess the points of view of
each reader/interpreter and above all, constructions from their
references. This step can include the investigative or intentional
analysis of the author/sender of the message; recognize the means and
ends used to build the message; make assumptions and conjectures
that allow the reader to anticipate consequences. This procedure
relates to the process of questioning.

 11) With the information obtained so far, it is possible to build

«premises of interpretation», which should be argued over and, above
all, shared/negotiated with the group that participates in the process of
critical reading. These premises, in turn, are directly linked to the
topics that have been proposed to guide the discussion.
 12) Second level of contextualization. That is, analysis of the aspects
related to the industry/field in which the text occurs. As it is the case
with taking news from the local press to analyze how information is
presented: what are the business or political groups involved; the
contradictions and overlap; the power relations that are referred to
directly or indirectly, relations with society; the treatment given to the
same information in various media, among other aspects.
 14) Reflect on what has been analyzed, what you’ve learned and
understood. How did the process f analyzing go How were the results
obtained? What is acceptable in the process of interpretation? try to
explain and understand: What is thought? How do you think? How do
we think others might think regarding the same matter?
 Critical readings identify communication strategies that
media present to the audience in hidden messages (effects);
on the other hand, they recognize that behind the perceived
message there is a market logic in the media industry that
favors certain ideological positions (criticality); or, as is the
case in our country, of certain political projects to the
detriment of a critical and autonomous reading of media.
 Media Content Analysis
 Sociologists have been interested in mass media content since the early
20th century, starting with Max Weber who saw media content as a
means of monitoring the ‘cultural temperature’ of society.
 Media content analysis is a specialized sub-set of content analysis, a
well-established research methodology. It is described “the primary
message-centred methodology”)
 Content analysis is used to study a broad range of ‘texts’ from
transcripts of interviews and discussions in clinical and social research
to the narrative and form of films, TV programs and the editorial and
advertising content of newspapers and magazines.
 Media content analysis was introduced as a systematic method to study
mass media by Harold Lasswell (1927), initially to study propaganda.
 Media content analysis became increasingly popular as a research
methodology during the 1920s and 1930s for investigating the rapidly
expanding communication content of movies.
 In the 1950s, media content analysis proliferated as a research
methodology in mass communication studies and social sciences with
the arrival of television. Media content analysis has been a primary
research method for studying portrayals of violence, racism and women
in television programming as well as in films.
 Lasswell suggests : “… content analysis operates on the view that
verbal behavior is a form of human behavior, that the flow of symbols
is a part of the flow of events, and that the communication process is an
aspect of the historical process … content analysis is a technique which
aims at describing with optimum objectivity, precision, and generality,
what is said on a given subject in a given place at a given time.”
 Lasswell’s better known statement which briefly encapsulates what
media content analysis is about, published in 1948, (as cited in
Shoemaker and Reese, 1996), describes it as:
 Who says what
 through which channel the process of communicating
 to whom
 with what effect .
 “Content analysis is any research technique for making inferences by
systematically and objectively identifying specified characteristics
within text” (Stone, Dunphy, Smith & Ogilvie, 1996, with credit given
to Holsti p. 5);
 In more contemporary times, Weber (1990) says: “Content analysis is
a research method that uses a set of procedures to make valid
inferences from text” (p. 9);
 therefore, “Content analysis … is a research technique that is based on
measuring the amount of something (violence, negative portrayals of
women, or whatever) in a representative sampling of some mass-
mediated popular form of art” .
 Neuman (1997) lists content analysis as a key non-reactive research
methodology (i.e. non-intrusive) and describes it as: “A technique for
gathering and analysing the content of text. The ‘content’ refers to
words, meanings, pictures, symbols, ideas, themes, or any message that
can be communicated. The ‘text’ is anything written, visual, or spoken
that serves as a medium for communication” (pp. 272–273);
 Purposes of Content Analysis tends to:
 To describe substance characteristics of message content
 To describe form characteristics of message content.
 To make inferences to producers of content.
 To make inferences to audiences of content.
 To predict the effects of content on audiences.
 Quantitative and qualitative Content Analysis:
 Shoemaker and Reese (1996) note that media content is characterized
by a wide range of phenomena including the medium, production
techniques, messages, sources quoted or referred to, and context, and
They say that the task of content analysis is “to impose some sort of
order on these phenomena in order to grasp their meaning.”
 quantitative analysis collects data about media content such as • topics
or issues, volume of mentions, ‘messages’ determined by key words
in context (KWIC), • circulation of the media (audience reach) and
frequency.
 As for qualitative analysis, it examines the relationship between the
text and its likely audience meaning, recognizing that media texts are
polysemic – i.e. open to multiple different meanings to different
readers – and tries to determine the likely meaning of texts to
audiences. It pays attention to audience, media and contextual factors
– not simply the text.
 Quantitative content analysis can conform to the scientific method and
produce reliable findings. Whilst qualitative content analysis is
difficult and maybe impossible to do with scientific reliability.
 1- Quantitative Analysis:
 Quantitative content analysis also considers visual media such as
television use more sophisticated semiotic systems than printed text
and, thus, are generally regarded as having greater impact. Neuendorf
(2002) says: “What’s important is that both content and form
characteristics ought to be considered in every content analysis
conducted.
 Quantitative media content analysis should be conducted in accordance
with ‘the scientific method’, and hence should involve the following
elements:
 Objectivity • A major goal of any scientific investigation must be to
provide a description or explanation of a phenomenon in a way that
avoids or minimizes the biases of the investigator and, while true
objectivity may not be possible, it should strive for consistency.
Objectivity is maximized by selection of a representative sample.
 It is also maximized by making sure that measurement, and coding
rules must be made before the observation begins” (Neuendorf, 2002,
p. 11).
 Thus, a grounded theory approach can be applied to identify issues and
messages appropriate for analysis through
 preliminary reading of existing research literature in the field and
reading of a sub-sample of the media content to be studied. In media
content analysis, a prior design is operationalised in a Coding System.
A key component of a Coding System is a comprehensive written Code
Book or Coding List.
 The coding system should contain the list of variables (units of
analysis) to be researched and provides researchers involved in the
project with a consistent framework for conducting the research. The
primary units of content analysis (variables) are messages expressed as
words or phrases – e.g. ‘violent’, ‘leader’, ‘funding should be
increased’, etc.
 The Coding List should establish all the messages (both positive and
negative) that are relevant. In addition, the Coding List may establish
certain categories of issues or topics, and may further identify names
of certain sources (individuals or organizations) to be analysed in
association with issues or messages.
 Typical variables identified by researchers as important and required
for Best Practice content analysis include:
 Media weighting or categorization to allow high circulation, high
rating or highly influential media to be scored higher than small, less
important media;
 Prominence to record impact factors such as page number or order in
an electronic media bulletin and use of photos or visuals;
 Positioning such as headline mentions, first paragraph mentions,
prominent mentions, or passing mentions and ‘share of voice’ in
articles;
 Size of articles or length of radio and TV segments;
 Sources quoted including the balance of supportive and opposing
sources cited in the texts and their position/credibility (e.g. an official
government authority or known expert is likely to be more credible
than a little known unqualified source).
 Validity: the validity of content analysis is achieved through
thoroughly understanding the research, objectives, preliminary reading
of a sub-set of relevant content and careful selection of the sample of
media content to be analysed.
 Generalizabilty: Generalizability refers to the extent to which research
findings can be applied to and taken as a measure of the target
population generally Generalizability is largely determined by selection
of a representative and sufficiently large sample, as well as the overall
thoroughness of the methodology.
 Replicability: that is the ability and degree of difficulty or otherwise
for other researchers to replicate the research to confirm or challenge
the results, is a key criterion for all scientific research. Replicability is
determined by full disclosure of information on methodology and
procedures. In the case of content analysis, this should include the
Code Book/Coding List; coding guidelines and instructions to coders;
method of coding used in the case of human coding; details of any
software programs used; and all data supporting conclusions.
 Sampling for media content analysis comprises three steps:
 1. Selection of media forms (i.e. newspapers, magazines, radio, TV,
film) and genre (news, current affairs, drama, soap opera, documentary,
and so on)
 2. Selection of issues or dates (the period)
 3. Sampling of relevant content from within those media (pp. 80–81). •
 The simplest form of selecting content for analysis is a census
“systematic count” – i.e. selection of all units in the sampling frame.
This provides the greatest possible representation. However, a census
may not be possible in some cases – e.g. where a large volume of
media coverage has to be analysed such as a study over many months
or years. In such cases, a sample of media content may be selected.
 Sampling needs to be conducted in an objective way, ensuring
reliability is maintained.
 Typical methods of sampling for media content analysis include:

 Systematic random (selecting every nth unit from the total population
of articles or advertisements/commercials for study);
 Purposive such as selecting all articles from key media (and not from
less important media.
 Quota such as selecting a proportion of articles from each of several
regions or areas (either geographic, demographic, psychographic, or
subject category);
 Stratified composite samples “representative ones” constructed by
randomly selecting units for analysis (articles or ads) from certain days
or weeks over a period.
 2- Qualitative Analysis:
 qualitative content analysis relies heavily on researcher ‘readings’ and
interpretation of media texts. This intensive and time-consuming focus
is one of the reasons that much qualitative content analysis has involved
small samples of media content and has been criticized by some
researchers as unscientific and unreliable.
 qualitative analysis of texts is necessary to understand their deeper
meanings and likely interpretations by audiences – surely the ultimate
goal of analyzing media content.
 Qualitative content analysis can, to some extent, be incorporated within
or conducted simultaneously with quantitative content analysis. For
instance, positive and negative words and phrases can be analysed to
identify the tone of text. Also, analysts can record notations during
coding in relation to contextual factors. However, in many cases, in-
depth analysis of selected content using qualitative research methods is
required to fully understand the potential meanings (manifest and latent)
for audiences and likely effects of texts.
 Qualitative message analysis methods applicable to analysis of media
content include text analysis, narrative analysis, rhetorical analysis,
discourse analysis, interpretative analysis and semiotic analysis, as well
as some of the techniques used in literary studies such as critical
analysis.
 Within the broad hermeneutic “interpretative” tradition concerned with
text analysis, there are two main strands particularly relevant to
qualitative content analysis. The first, narratology, focuses on the
narrative or story-telling within a text with emphasis on meaning that
may be produced by its structure and choice of words. The second
draws on semiotics and focuses attention on signs and sign systems in
texts and how readers might interpret (decode) those signs.
 the key text elements commonly studied in qualitative content analysis
are:
 Adjectives used in descriptions (positive and negative) which give
strong indications of a speaker’s and writer’s attitude (e.g. it was
‘disgusting’);
 Metaphors and similes used (e.g. labeling a car a ‘lemon’ or a person a
‘rat’); Whether verbs are active or passive voice;
 Viewpoint of the narrator (i.e. first person, second person, third person);
 Tonal qualities such as aggressiveness, sarcasm, flippancy, emotional
language;
 Binaries established in texts and how these are positioned and used;
 Visual imagery in text
 Context factors such as the position and credibility of spokespersons or
sources quoted which affects meaning taken from the text (e.g. if one
message is presented by a high profile expert it will generally outweigh
a non-expert opinion).
 Audience Analysis
 Media would not exist without audiences. Yet the media have to
compete for people’s attention and interest; and finding and keeping an
audience is not easy. Producers might imagine they know what
different groups of people will want, but it is often hard to explain why
some things become popular and others do not. People also use,
interpret and respond to media in very different ways. A given media
text will not mean the same thing to everybody. Understanding and
reflecting on our own and others’ uses of media is therefore an
important part of media education.
 KEY QUESTIONS
 Looking at media audiences means looking at:
 Targeting: How are media aimed at particular audiences? How do they
try to appeal to them?
 Address: How do the media speak to audiences? What assumptions do
media producers make about audiences?
 Circulation: How do media reach audiences? How do audiences
know what is available?
 Uses: How do audiences use media in their daily lives? What are their
habits and patterns of use?
 Making sense: How do audiences interpret media? What meanings do
they make?
 Pleasures: What pleasures do audiences gain from the media? What
do they like or dislike?
 Social differences: What is the role of gender, social class, age and
ethnic background in audience behaviour?