Identify the correct statement about quantitative content analysis:

Concept

Quantitative content analysis uses an explicit coding scheme to convert observable features of documents, messages, or media into numerical categories and counts.

Because the material can already exist before coding begins, the method is ordinarily unobtrusive and non-reactive. Applying the same coding rules to material from different periods can reveal change over time.

Application

1. Select comparable documents from two or more time periods.

2. Define stable coding categories and apply the same rules to every period.

3. Compare the resulting frequencies or proportions across periods.

4. The comparison shows a temporal trend, so quantitative content analysis can support a certain amount of longitudinal analysis.

Contrast

• Longitudinal analysis is possible when archived material from different periods is coded on a common basis.

• An obtrusive method enters or disturbs the setting being measured; coding existing documents need not interact with participants.

• A very rigid method permits virtually no design refinement; a coding frame is structured, but categories and rules can be pilot-tested and refined before full coding.

• A reactive method changes the behaviour being measured; pre-existing documents were produced before the researcher coded them.

Cross-check

For example, coding the same newspaper sections in several years permits direct comparison of category frequencies while the newspapers themselves remain unaffected by the later analysis.

Therefore, the supported statement is: It can allow a certain amount of longitudinal analysis.