Student’s content analysis exercise «

Student’s content analysis exercise

February 13, 2008 · 5 Comments

Three weeks ago, my devcom students embarked on their content analysis exercise. To give you a flavor of my students’ initial attempt at content analysis, here’s one report:

Content analysis of 5 food websites
by Paulo-Angelo Sosmeña
BSDC-3
Introduction

Most people nowadays rely on the Internet for a variety of purposes: research,
entertainment, communication with others, etc. From the Internet we get a wide range of information on science, fashion, news and food, among others.

Filipinos are great food lovers. Not only do we eat lots of different kinds of food but we also cook them to satisfy our hungry stomachs or to impress our girlfriends. Gone are the days when food preparers rely solely on cookbooks that they borrow from friends or buy from the bookstores. Now, with just a click of the mouse, we can search for different food recipes on the Internet free of charge by downloading them and we can try them out in the kitchen afterwards.

There are many websites about food. Though they cover one major topic, food, websites differ in their features and content.

Objectives - This content analysis aims to: 1) identify the contents of 5 sample food websites, and 2) compare and contrast their features.

Procedure
1) From the Internet, five food websites were chosen, namely:
A - Joyofbaking.com
B - Allrecipes.com
C - Recipes.com
D - Cooksrecipes.com
E - Pastrywiz.com

2) Parameters were laid out to establish the scope of the content analysis: number of authors, real name or pseudonym, layout color, text and image, site copyright, clickable image, food focus, advertisements and availability of contact information.

Results
The table below reveals that 80% of the sites showed the names of the authors or team members. Some 40% have single authors while the rest is of multiple membership where members an submit their recipes, rate, and give their comments. An equal 40% each revealed their real names or pseudonyms.

Two sites have single female authors while the rest consisted of both male and female. Some 60% of the sites showed the photos of the authors and team members. Eighty percent of the sites are copyrighted; 60% combined both text and image. Another 80% have clickable images inking the reader to its recipe guide.

In terms of food focus, all of the 5 sites focuses on cakes and pastries, 60% on drinks and beverages, 60% on meat dishes, and 60% on soups and stews. Forty percent of the sites advertise baking tools and kitchen utensils while an equal number promote cookbooks.

Table 1. General features of food websites.

Parameters	Joyofbaking	Allrecipes	Recipes	Cooksrecipes	Pastrywiz
Layout color	brown & gray	yellow & orange	green	white & blue	blue
Text and image	combination text & image	combination text & image	too textual, less image	too textual, less image	combination text & image
Site copyright	yes	yes	no	yes	yes
Clickable image	yes	yes	yes	no	yes
Number of authors	single	multiple	multiple	single	single
Author/member image	available	available	not available	not available	available
Name type	real name	pseudonym	pseudonym	real name	real name
Gender	female	male & female	male & female	female	female
Availability of contact info	yes	yes	no	yes	yes

Categories: Evaluation of communication materials
Tagged: Student's content analysis exercise

5 responses so far ↓

Jojo Agot // March 1, 2008 at 10:11 pm

ma’am moni,

i don’t know where to put this comment but i supposed this post is the closest.

i just finished reading Michael Crichton’s STATE OF FEAR (2004) novel a few hours ago and i was pleasantly surprised that there is a chapter there about content analysis of TV and printed news reports from early seventies to the nineties.

the story is all about the “politicalization” of research and the slanted interpretation of data to reinforce a preconceived political stance on global warming. in that particular chapter, the story focused on the idea of social control- the state’s way of managing the behavior of its citizens so they stay orderly and reasonably docile.

in that chapter, a social scientist was quoted saying that during the 80s, the word CRISIS appeared in news reports about as often as the word BUDGET. Prior to 1989 (before the fall of the Berlin Wall), adjectives such as DIRE, UNPRECENDENTED, DREADED were not common in TV reports or newspaper headlines.

in 1995, the word CATASTROPHE was used five times more often than it was in 1985 and its use was doubled again in 2000. stories on fear, worry, danger, uncertainty and panic were also heightened especially after the 9/11 attacks.

i am thinking that this runs along the lines of agenda setting in the mass media or something to do with gatekeepers’ bias.

anyway, i was just pleased to see politico-legal application of content analysis and i recommend the novel for light reading. im sure you’ll enjoy the suspense, although it’s been highly criticized for some erroneous representation of research data.
Monina Escalada // March 2, 2008 at 7:37 am

Jojo, thanks. It’s amazing how your wide reading repertoire has taken you to unexpected reads. I must read this book as it has implications for use of research for agenda-setting — you’re right about this. If you read the intro of my previous post on content analysis, I wrote about how the iron butterfly wanted to use content analysis results to take a writer to court. It didn’t push through as a more catastrophic event has taken place — the imposition of martial law.
Jojo Agot // March 2, 2008 at 3:44 pm

Ma’am Moni, I browsed back your iron butterfly post and I am amused because I didn’t notice it before.

I have a question: If social scientists recognize the agenda-setting power of the mass media, isn’t there a countervailing system to balance it? Are there social science theories to work against it or we’re just back to the old one-size-fits-all solution- to educate the people?

In STATE OF FEAR, Crichton hinted that whereas there is a check and balance of power in the government, the media remain unchallenged and it seems like how much the general population knows rests at the mercy of the media gatekeepers (or their owners’ interests).

Of course I’m aware this is fiction Crichton was writing about but in the real world, who protects the masses from media bias? We all know, at least to a certain extent, that the mass media have the propensity to heighten (read: blow up or sensationalize) what would have been a rather ordinary event in order to catch attention.

I’m sure a large part of this question is not within the province of devcom but I figured devcom is, after all, not that popular compared to masscom so maybe there’s a connection in terms of getting the right information into the hands of the masses.

Just wondering…
Monina Escalada // March 2, 2008 at 6:17 pm

Jojo, devcom and masscom use the same communication theories so either area can tackle the issue of media’s agenda-setting and gatekeeping role. I’m glad we get to discuss this because these are important issues. Besides bias, the media can also be used to simulate pseudo events. During the regime of the iron butterfly’s husband, particularly the days following marti*al law, we only received information from government media. People knew that many events and “good deeds” of the regime that were broadcast/published by the government media were always suspect. It was creepy during that time as people didn’t know which event was real or not. The same situation is often found in totalitarian countries where the stories they leak to the outside world may not be trustworthy.

On Fox News today and one of the three TV reporters argued that Prince Harry’s stint on the front line in Afghanistan was a “PR stunt”. Times Online of the UK has more write-up on this issue.

PR Watch.org (http://www.prwatch.org) presents many cases of the state or big business duping the public through clever use of media. In “How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future” the Center for Media and Democracy staff wrote: “In their new book, Trust Us, We’re Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber offer a chilling exposé on the manufacturing of “independent experts.” Public relations firms and corporations have seized upon a slick new way of getting you to buy what they have to sell: Let you hear it from a neutral “third party,” like a professor or a pediatrician or a soccer mom or a watchdog group. The problem is, these third parties are usually anything but neutral. They have been handpicked, cultivated, and meticulously packaged to make you believe what they have to say–preferably in an “objective” format like a news show or a letter to the editor. And in some cases, they have been paid handsomely for their “opinions.”

The public has no way to sift the truth from PR spins.

The same uncertainty about the trustworthiness of information sources also applies to blogs. That is why in the “About” section of Devcompage, there is a suggestion for readers to look up my name in Google to validate some of the good stuff I posted about myself. Hahaha!
Jojo Agot // March 2, 2008 at 10:36 pm

Ah, so that means we really are at the mercy of whoever controls the biggest media and the gatekeepers that manage them. I should have known this before.

I remember that during the Cold War, western societies were under the impression that Russia was a formidable world power and it created a sense of uneasiness all over the world. Nobody knew for certain the strength of its military and economic power, that is, until the crumbling down of USSR and the truth came out. Russia must have had a brilliant PR department to accomplish this for half a century!

As for Prince Harry’s stint in Afghanistan, i also had the same impression the first I read it on the online version of the New York Times.

It’s ironic. Freedom of expression and the mass media are products of democracy, but now, societies are willingly falling under their tyranny. How sad, maybe Plato was right. The world would be a better place if it is ruled by philisophers. But then again, I wonder if people would find it fun at all, hahaha.