Application of Content Analysis in Research of Political Discourse

Content analysis is one of the most frequently applied methods for the research of various forms of discourse, including political discourse. As a research technique, it was developed in studies on communication and is now frequently used in linguistics, for example, in text analysis, systematic studies of written text or transcribed speech, as well as in research on nontextual message content. The following article deals with the application of content analysis in research into political discourse and discusses the crucial concepts of the research method. Specifically, it describes the manifest and latent content of political texts and presents two notions particularly useful in the evaluation of content analysis, i.e., ‘reliability’ and ‘validity.’ Additionally, two broad approaches to content analysis are discussed. The first is qualitative content analysis, and the second is quantitative content analysis.