Content Analysis as a Foundation for Programmatic Research in Communication

Previous arguments that content analyses provide the descriptive foundation for media effects research (McLeod & Reeves, 1980 McLeod, J. M. and Reeves, B. 1980. “On the nature of mass media effects”. In Television and social behavior: Beyond violence and children, Edited by: Withey, S. B. and R. P., Abeles. 17–54. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [Google Scholar]) are extended to suggest that content analyses can provide a sound and useful foundation for programmatic research by individual communication scientists. I discuss examples from my own work and from that of colleagues in communication and related disciplines. Use of messages sampled and coded in a content analysis in combination with survey data sets or as stimuli in experiments are highlighted. The particular potential for employing larger numbers of randomly sampled messages in experimental designs, and, with use of appropriate statistical methods, being able to generalize to populations of messages, is described.