Critical content analysis: a methodological proposal for the incorporation of numerical data into critical/cultural media studies

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces a methodological approach building on advances in mixed-methods communication research to facilitate the integration of quantitative data into qualitative textual analysis. This method allows scholars working in a critical cultural media studies paradigm to incorporate quantitative data into their research to better understand media in an increasingly complicated media eco-system. This paper argues that despite calls for mixed-methods research, there are long-standing ideological and methodological tensions within the fields of Communications and Media Studies that create logistical and conceptual limitations to integrating quantitative methods in a critical cultural media studies context. This paper establishes the need for this intervention, the historical methodological contexts from which it emerges, and walks through how the approach works by looking at two possible studies using the approach in different ways.

KEYWORDS:

• Mixed-methods
• content analysis
• critical media studies
• quantitative data analysis
• social-science paradigms
• humanities paradigms
• cultural studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Some scholars use the phrase textual analysis to refer to any study of texts, including content analysis. My use of the term refers to a specific approach involving ‘close reading,’ evolving from literary studies (McKee, 2003).

2 In critical media studies mixed methods may refer to the combination of textual analysis, audience studies, and/or production studies. Sometimes alternative terminology, such as ‘multi-method’ (Kackman & Kearney, 2018) is used.

3 A key exception here is reality television that has been an extensive and robust scholarly tradition, frequently applying critical approaches focused on ideological analysis (Becker, 2018).

4 These journals were: Communication, Culture and Critique, Critical Studies in Media Communication, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Feminist Media Studies, The International Journal of Cultural Studies, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Media, Culture, and Society, Popular Communication and TV and New Media.