Los censores

The major tool of data collection for the study, a content analysis framework, was applied to a sample of 16 community newspapers (Appendix C, and Table 9). It was used to examine each item within the papers sampled, excluding group classifieds, individually-placed

advertisements, and public notices (n = 6724). Based on the second and third aims of the study, the purpose of the content analysis of community newspapers was six-fold.

For Research Question 2

1. To establish a large quantitative database, identifying issues and interests within a sample of community newspapers in Tasmania over a period of time.

2. To identify patterns over time of:

o source, the contributors of items to the newspapers

o shape, describing how items appeared, for example: report, letter, notice o horizon, being the locale from where the subject of item is located and

o tone, being the ‘particular state or temper of the mind, spirit, or tenor’ (Macquarie Dictionary, 1998, p 1233) in which items are described.

3. To provide a profile of a community newspaper content that may be observed in isolation or compared to other community newspapers in relation to community issues and interests.

For Research Question 3

4. To investigate community newspaper content by including categories drawn from the concept of social capital, based on literature and research, to further understand, causes/ indicators /evidence of social capital.

5. To investigate links between social capital and community interactions over the twentieth century.

6. To investigate if content analysis of community newspapers can provide a profile of community social capital.

Studies considering content analysis and sampling methods found in the literature search are listed in Table 3. Texts relating to content analysis methods and study are listed in Table 4. A number of these studies are drawn onin the construction of the content analysis framework. These studies are also discussed in relation to themes and sampling in the following sections.

Table 3 Content analysis studies informing current study research design

Study Year Place Variables Data source Sample Analysis method Comments

1 Bodle, John V. ‘Assessing News Quality: A Comparison between Community Newspapers and Student Daily Newspapers’ Journalism in Mass Communications Quarterly, 73, 3 Autumn, pp. 672–686. 1996 USA Readability Interest level Thoroughness 6 community daily (private sector) papers; 6 student daily papers Flesch ‘s (1949) processes Word and sentence

paragraph structures Statistical comparisons

2 Flournoy, Don M., Content analysis of Indonesian newspapers, Gadjah Mada University Press, Yogyakarta.

1992 Indonesia Quantity of news as political Variation in Government- and privately-owned papers 12-day spreads over one year for each paper

5 papers The Equivalent forms method as cited in Stemple (Flournoy, p. 88)

Statistics

3 Franzosi, R, ‘The press as a source of socio-historical data: Issues in the methodology of data collection from newspapers,’

Historical Methods, 53, 1 pp. 5–16.

1987 USA Draws heavily on ‘conflict in Italy’ newspaper data

Previous studies

Not applicable Emphasis placed on problems of validity rather than reliability. Magnitude of the error in

problems of validity larger than that of reliability

Sample selection bias

Coding schema design

Inter-coder reliability

Units of measurement and analysis

Study Year Place Variables Data source Sample Analysis method Comments

4 Franzosi, R. (1995), Computer assisted content analysis of newspapers: Can we make an expensive research tool more efficient, Quality & Quality, I. 29, 157–172.

1995 Italy/USA Semantic structures Story grammars New schema Macro-propositions Previous studies Qualitative multiple studies Coding scheme Complexities: Additional or modified categories and economy

Linguistics & semantics useful conceptual tool increasing efficiency of content analysis

5 Hansen, Kathleen A. ,Ward J., Conners, J. L., Neuzil, M., ‘Local breaking news: Sources technology and newspaper routines’,

Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 3, Autumn, pp. 561–572. 1994 USA Characteristics of breaking news— large newspaper Contribution of information technology to breaking news- covering processes In depth interviews

10 newspapers Coding and Statistics Content analysis

Results found reliance on same sources for information

6 Henningham, John, The shape of daily news: A content analysis of Australia’s metropolitan newspapers’,

Media International Australia , No. 79, pp. 22–34.

1996 Australia Editorial priorities of Australia’s major newspapers All Australian capital cities’ daily newspapers by 20 issues gave 217 newspapers; 15,990 stories Content analysis Schema—from Mayer (1964) and McQuail (1977)

7 Lacy, Stephen, Robinson, K. & Riffe, D. 1995. Sample size in content analysis of weekly newspapers, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 72, 2, Summer 1955.

1955 USA Number of stories Number of photographs. Number of local government stories Square inches of local government copy Percentage of all stories about local government Previous studies and newspapers 2 newspapers coded over 52 weeks in different sets: simple random one by quarter one by month 16 sets of 20 samples each 320 samples each paper Content analysis Simple random Statistics

Contrasting sample types to assess their utility in representing weekly newspaper content

Study Year Place Variables Data source Sample Analysis method Comments

8 Loo, E. & Hurst, M.

‘Recalcitrant or keras kepala? A cross-cultural study of how Malaysian and Australian press covered the Keating– Mahathir spat’, Media International, Australia 77, August, p. 107–119. 1995 Australia Comparative analysis of tone of newspapers in Australia and Malaysia over reportage of political events

210 articles Systematic analysis Thematic analysis Content analysis of

articles in Australian and Malaysian papers

High external validity in response to study

9 Miller, Mark, & Riechert, Bonnie P. ‘Identifying themes via concept mapping: A new method of content analysis’, paper submitted for

presentation to Theory and Methodology Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Meeting, August. URL:

http://excellent.com.utk.edu/~ mmmiller/pestmaps.txt

1994 USA Amount of media reporting; Emphasis—topic of pesticides 4 magazines Statisticss Chi-square Content analysis of stories on pesticides

10 Project for Excellence in Journalism: Framing the news: The triggers, frames and messages in newspaper coverage. A study of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Princeton Survey Research Associates. URL: http://www.journalism. org/framing.html

2000 USA Inventory variables: (Source, date, length, wire service, and dateline) Construction variables:(Recur- ring leads, topic, story trigger, story frame, and headline/subhead agreement) Experimental variable— enduring message National and regional dailys 3 national 4 regional/ local newspapers

Coding All data was not weighed or screened—used the time of the Clinton impeachment trial (Jan 1–Feb 28 1999) which was not filtered from dataset ‘typical.’

Study Year Place Variables Data source Sample Analysis method Comments

11 Rau, Robin Anne, The role of sources in news coverage of the Don Harding execution, Unpublished masters thesis, Arizona State University Tempe, AZ. 1993 USA Location Size, source/agency Language describing Definition of the problem Message/emphasis Viewpoint, Themes: Angles Brief description: Bar graph Theme chart Content coding 12 Windhauser, J. W. Stemple, G. H. III, & Dominic, J. R., Reliability of six techniques for content analysis of local coverage, Journalism Quarterly 157, p. 148–152 1979 USA Article Space measurement Statement Issue—single Issue—multiple headline Previous studies Dailies 12 metropolitan dailies analysed for 35-day period (Sept 28– Nov 1971)

Content analysis Tabled

Rank order correlations Content units generated by six procedures

Comparison of

techniques finds highly comparable results.

Table 4 Content analysis research methods texts informing current study research design

Text Subject focus Data source

Altheide, David, 1996 Qualitative Media Analysis, Series 38, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Qualitative research methods Ethnographic content analysis

Sampling & visual images

Ball, S. & Gregory H. Smith, 1992 ‘Analysing visual data’, Qualitative Research Methods, Vol. 24, Sage, Newbury Park.

Ethnographic methodology of content analysis Use of photographs

Visual images & sampling

de Vreese, Claes. H, 2003 Framing Europe: Television news and European integration, Aksant, Amsterdam.

Communication processes Multi-method approach

Television and media coverage of European new topics

Dunphy, Dexter,1966 ‘The construction of categories for content analysis dictionaries’, Chap. 4, in, Stone, P. H., Dunphy, D. C., Smith, M. S., & Ogvilie, D. M, The general inquirer: A computer approach to content analysis. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Category construction Language sign

member identification within the group

Research groups

Dunphy, D. C., Bullare, C. G., & Crossing, E. E. M. 1998, ‘Validation of the General Inquirer Harvard IV Dictionary’ in, C. Zuell, R. P. Weber, & Mohler, Computer-assisted text analysis for the social sciences: The general inquirer III, Mannheim, FRG: Centre for Surveys, Methods and Analysis (ZUMA).

Computerised content analysis system General inquirer category construction

Research groups

Harper, D. 1989 ‘ Visual sociology: Expanding sociological vision’. In G. Banks et al. (Eds.): New technology in sociology: Practical applications in research and work, 81–87. New Brunswick: Transaction.

Photographic and visual content Newspaper and media graphics

Krippendorff, Klaus, 1980 Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology, Sage Context Series, Beverly Hills, CA.

Quantitative content analysis research Random sampling

Stratified sampling

Systematic sampling cluster Varying probability

Multistage

Text Subject focus Data source

Mayer, Henry, 1964, ‘What’s in the paper?’, Chap. 14, The press in Australia, Lansdowne, Melbourne, pp. 211–228.

Quantitative content analysis

Comparative analysis of newspapers in Australia Volume of news

Sport and foreign news as % of editorial space Crime and passion news

Differential News—values

Differential evaluation of foreign news Content and volume by states Readership and attitudes

Content analysis

Major daily and national newspapers

Neuendorf, K. A. 2002 The content analysis guidebook, Sage, New York. All aspects of quantitative content analysis

Riffe, D., Lacy, S., & Fico, F. G., 1998 Analysing media messages using quantitative content analysis in research, Lawrence Erlbaum, London.

Information sources Sampling techniques: Census

Non-probability sampling Probability sampling Simple random systematic Stratified cluster: multi-stage

Previous studies quantitative content analysis

Shapiro, Gilbert & John Markoff, 1998 Revolutionary demands: A content analysis of the ‘Cahiers de Doleances’ of 1789, Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Content analysis stratified and cluster samples Structured—1332 subject topics

50 main grievances derived for the source

Archival construction of 40,000 grievances found in the ‘Cahiers de Doleances’ of 1789

Weber, Robert Phillip, 1990 Basic content analysis, Sage, Newbury Park, CA.

Computer-aided content analysis quantitative content analysis previous studies