Abstract
An ethnographic approach to document analysis is offered based on principles of qualitative data collection and analysis. It is proposed that numeric as well as narrative data be collected when studying such documents as TV new and movies. Ethnographic content analysis is briefly contrasted with conventional modes of quantitative content analysis to illustrate the usefulness of constant comparison for discovering emergent patterns, emphases and themes in an analysis of TV news coverage of the Iranian hostage situation. It is suggested that an ethnographic perspective can help delineate patterns of human action when document analysis is conceptualized as fieldwork.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, W. C. and Fay Schreibman 1978 Television Network News: Issues in Content Analysis. Washington, D.C.: George Washington University.
1976 “Creating Reality: How TV News Distorts Events.” Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.
1982 “Three-in-one news: Network coverage of Iran.” Journalism Quarterly 48:476–90.
1985a “Format and ideology in TV news coverage of Iran.” Journalism Quarterly Summer 62:346–51.
1985b Media Power. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.
Altheide, David L. 1985c “Keyboarding as a social form.” Computers and the Social Sciences 1985:(Fall).
Altheide, David L. and Robert P. Snow 1979 Media Logic. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.
Batscha, Robert M. 1975 Foreign Affairs News and the Broadcast Journalist. New York: Praeger.
Bennett, W. Lance 1983 News: The Politics of Illusion. New York: Longman.
Berelson, Bernard 1966 “Content analysis in communication research.” Pp. 260–66 in Bernard Berelson and Morris Janowitz (eds.), Reader in Public Opinion and Communication. New York: The Free Press.
Epstein, Edward J. 1973 News From Nowhere. New York: Random House.
Glaser, Barney and Anselm Strauss 1967 The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Chicago: Aldine.
Hammersley, Martyn and Paul Atkinson 1983 Ethnography: Principles in Practice. London: Tavistock.
Holsti, Ole R., et al. 1963 Content Analysis. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press.
Johnson, John M. 1975 Doing Field Research. New York: The Free Press.
Krippendorf, Klaus 1978 “The Expression of Values in Political Documents.” Journalism Quarterly:510–18.
Lang, Kurt and Gladys Engel Lang 1968 Politics and Television. Chicago: Quadrangle.
McCormack, Thelma (ed.) 1982 Studies in Communications: Vol. 2 Culture, Code and Content Analysis. JAI Press.
Plummer, Ken 1983 Documents of life: An Introduction to the Problems and Literature of a Humanistic Method. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Schwartz, Howard and Jerry Jacobs 1979 Qualitative Sociology. New York: The Free Press.
Starosta, William J. 1984 “Qualitative Content Analysis: A Burkean Perspective.” Pp. 185–94 in William B. Gudykunst and Young Yun Kim (eds.), Methods for Intercultural Communication. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.
Tuchman, Gaye 1978 Making the News. New York: The Free Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This draft has benefitted from comments and suggestions by Robert Emerson, Shulamit Reinharz, and three anonymous reviewers. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, Albuquerque, NM, April 17–20, 1985.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Altheide, D.L. Reflections: Ethnographic content analysis. Qual Sociol 10, 65–77 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988269
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988269