CONTENT ANALYSISlabor is relatively inexpensive, we can expect ambi-
tious content-analysis software, of which TextAnalyst
from Russia (www.megaputer.com) may be a
forerunner.
Given continuing content-analysis software de-
velopments, those who would like to learn what is
currently available are advised search Internet sites
rather than rely upon even recently published
materials. One recommended starting point is the
Georgia State University content-analysis site
(www.gsu.edu/~wwwcom/content.html), which gives
links to software web sites (including software
mentioned in this article), indexes recent content-
analysis publications, and has a mailing list of
more than 700 members. Technical reviews of
relevant language-analysis tools, such as Berleant’s
(1995), occasionally appear in computational lin-
guistics journals and web sites. For training, the
University of Essex Summer School in Social Sci-
ence Data Analysis and Collection (www.essex.ac.uk),
as part of a program of a European consortium,
has been offering a content-analysis module for
years as part of its program.
Given the developments described here, some
of the contributions that content analysis should
be able to make to sociological research include:
- A major shift from reliance upon closed-
ended questions to an appropriate use of
open-ended questions that lets people be
heard in the ways they frame issues, as
well as the way they think and feel
about them, as discussed in detail by
Stone (1997) - A better understanding of both print and
television media and its impact on public
opinion, both in setting agendas and in
influencing opinion intensity, as laid out
in Neuman (1989). This will involve
research that compares the content of
media with the content of opinions. Not
only will survey research data be archived
and accessible from Internet servers, but
full-display media will be accessible from
Lexis-Nexis and on-line editions supplied
by media providers, as well as television
news archives such as those at Vanderbilt
University - Better use of historical qualitative data,
including both text and graphic materials,
to address such issues as how economic
cycles impact ideology, as examined by
Namenwirth and Weber (1987), or to
uncover cycles of creativity, as demonstrat-
ed by Martindale (1990)- Investigations, several of which are already
underway, of both intranet communi-
cation patterns within organizations as
well as Internet communications, includ-
ing analyses of the content of communica-
tions over those networks.
There is also, however, good reason for cau-
tion. Never before in history has so much qualita-
tive information been available electronically. High-
volume image scanning will also further increase
the amount of information that can be electroni-
cally accessed and content-analyzed. Quite under-
standably, those agencies responsible for limiting
terrorist activities may look on content-analysis
procedures as possibly providing early warnings
that could save lives. But these procedures can also
become tools for a ‘‘big-brother’’ monitoring so-
ciety. Sociologists have an important role in antici-
pating these problems and helping resolve them.REFERENCES
Berleant, Daniel 1995 ‘‘Engineering ‘Word Experts’ for
Word Disambiguation.’’ Natural Language Engineer-
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Boyatzis, Richard E. 1998 Transforming Qualitative Infor-
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Iker, Howard, and Norman Harway 1969 ‘‘A Computer
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Krippendorff, William Paisley, and Philip Stone, eds.,
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