Abstract
A television news message is conveyed in words, voice, facial expression, visual symbols and camera techniques. The qualitative analysis of a news videotape begins with choosing analytical units that meet one's theoretical goals but which do not do violence to the nature of the content at hand. After a transcription of the verbal content is done, patterns in the script and in journalist-news source interactions can be identified. The analyst then listens for “tunes” in news speech which may, for instance, convey humor or skepticism. Television news relies on a visual symbolic code consisting of objects that suggest the topic at hand, of conventions for camera angle and distance, and of journalists' facial expressions. A complete qualitative analysis of the news message produces an exhaustive data matrix showing the juxtaposition of all message elements. This becomes the foundation for a rigorous, wholistic “account of accounts.”
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Echo E. Fields is at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Southern Oregon State College.
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Fields, E.E. Qualitative content analysis of television news: Systematic techniques. Qual Sociol 11, 183–193 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988954
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988954