Editing Content analysis (section)

==Uses==
Holsti groups fifteen uses of content analysis into three basic [[Categorisation|categories]]:<ref name=Holsti1969>{{cite book|last=Holsti|first=Ole R.|title=Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities|year=1969|publisher=Addison-Wesley|location=Reading, MA|pages=14–93|id=(Table 2-1, page 26)}}</ref>
* make [[inference]]s about the antecedents of a [[communication]]
*describe and make inferences about characteristics of a communication
*make inferences about the [[Causality|effects]] of a communication.
He also places these uses into the context of the basic communication [[paradigm]].

The following table shows fifteen uses of content analysis in terms of their general purpose, element of the communication paradigm to which they apply, and the general question they are intended to answer.

{| class="wikitable"
|+Uses of Content Analysis by Purpose, Communication Element, and Question 
|-
! Purpose
! Element
! Question
! Use
|-
| rowspan=2| Make inferences about the antecedents of communications
| align=center| Source
| align=center| Who?
|
*Answer questions of disputed authorship ([[authorship analysis]])
|-
| align=center| [[Encoding]] process
| align=center| Why?
|
*Secure political & [[military intelligence]]
*Analyse traits of individuals
*Infer cultural aspects & change
*Provide legal & evaluative evidence
|-
| rowspan=3| Describe & make inferences about the characteristics of communications
| align=center| [[communication channel|Channel]]
| align=center| How?
|
*Analyse techniques of persuasion
*Analyse style
|-
| align=center| Message
| align=center| What?
|
*Describe trends in communication content
*Relate known characteristics of sources to messages they produce
*Compare communication content to standards
|-
| align=center| Recipient
| align=center| To whom?
|
*Relate known characteristics of audiences to messages produced for them
*Describe patterns of communication
|-
| Make inferences about the consequences of communications
| align=center| Decoding process
| align=center| With what effect?
|
*Measure [[readability]]
*Analyse the [[information flow|flow of information]]
*Assess responses to communications
|-
| colspan=4| Note.  Purpose, communication element, & question from Holsti.<ref name=Holsti1969 /> Uses primarily from [[Bernard Berelson|Berelson]]<ref>{{cite book|last=Berelson|first=Bernard|title=Content Analysis in Communication Research|year=1952|publisher=Free Press|location=Glencoe, Ill}}</ref>  as adapted by Holsti.<ref name=Holsti1969 />

|}

As a counterpoint, there are limits to the scope of use for the procedures that characterize content analysis. In particular, if access to the goal of analysis can be obtained by direct means without material interference, then direct measurement techniques yield better data.<ref>{{cite book|last=Holsti|first=Ole R.|title=Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities|year=1969|publisher=Addison-Wesley|location=Reading, MA|pages=15–16}}</ref> Thus, while content analysis attempts to quantifiably describe ''communications'' whose features are primarily categorical——limited usually to a nominal or ordinal scale——via selected conceptual units (the ''unitization'') which are assigned values (the ''categorization'') for ''enumeration'' while monitoring ''intercoder reliability'', if instead the target quantity manifestly is already directly measurable——typically on an interval or ratio scale——especially a continuous physical quantity, then such targets usually are not listed among those needing the "subjective" selections and formulations of content analysis.<ref>{{cite book|last=Holsti|first=Ole R.|title=Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities|year=1969|publisher=Addison-Wesley|location=Reading, MA}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Neuendorf|first=Kimberly A.|title=The Content Analysis Guidebook|year=2002|publisher=Sage|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|isbn=0761919783|pages=52–54|id=(On content analysis's descriptive role)}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Agresti|first=Alan|title=Categorical Data Analysis|edition=2nd|year=2002|publisher=Wiley|location=Hoboken, NJ|isbn=0471360937|pages=2–4|id=(On the meanings of "categorical" and other measurement scales)}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Delfico|first=Joseph F.|title=Content Analysis: A Methodology for Structuring and Analyzing Written Material|year=1996|publisher=United States General Accounting Office|location=Washington, DC|url=https://www.gao.gov/products/PEMD-10.3.1|id=(Linked to a PDF)|pages=19–21}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Delfico|first=Joseph F.|title=Content Analysis: A Methodology for Structuring and Analyzing Written Material|year=1996|publisher=United States General Accounting Office|location=Washington, DC|id=(ASCII transcription; Chapter 3:1.1, on uses according to scale type, and Appendix III, on intercoder reliability)|url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-10-3-1/html/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-10-3-1.htm}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Carney|first1=T[homas] F[rancis]|date=1971|title=Content Analysis: A Review Essay|journal=Historical Methods Newsletter|language=en|volume=4|issue=2|pages=52–61|doi=10.1080/00182494.1971.10593939 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/00182494.1971.10593939|id=(On content analysis's quantitative nature, unitization and categorization, and descriptive role)|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{cite book|last=Krippendorff|first=Klaus|title=Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology|edition=2nd|year=2004|publisher=Sage|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|isbn=0761915451|url=https://usu.instructure.com/files/70315935/download?download_frd=1&verifier=kPCeVgRYVJ8UK2gEQNbehYHbiKYBNjWMFleh6j5G|pages=(passim)|id=(On content analysis's quantitative nature, unitization and categorization, and uses by scale type)}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Hall|first1=Calvin S.|last2=Van de Castle|first2=Robert L.|title=The Content Analysis of Dreams|year=1966|publisher=Appleton-Century-Crofts|location=New York|pages=1–16|id=(Chapter 1, "The Methodology of Content Analysis," on the quantitative nature and uses of content analysis, and quoting "subjective" from page 12)}}</ref> For example (from mixed research and clinical application), as medical images ''communicate'' diagnostic features to physicians, [[neuroimaging]]'s [[stroke]] (infarct) volume scale called ASPECTS is ''unitized'' as 10 qualitatively delineated (unequal) brain regions in the [[middle cerebral artery]] territory, which it ''categorizes'' as being at least partly versus not at all infarcted in order to ''enumerate'' the latter, with published series often assessing ''intercoder reliability'' by [[Cohen's kappa]]. The foregoing ''italicized operations'' impose the uncredited ''form'' of content analysis onto an estimation of infarct extent, which instead is easily enough and more accurately measured as a volume directly on the images.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Suss|first=Richard A.|date=2020|title=ASPECTS, The Mismeasure of Stroke: A Metrological Investigation|journal=OSF Preprints|doi=10.31219/osf.io/c4tkp |s2cid=242764761 |language=en|url=https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/c4tkp|id=(§3, §6, and §7 for the nature of, risks of, and alternative to ASPECTS, and page 76 for comparison to content analysis)|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Suss|first1=Richard A.|last2=Pinho|first2=Marco C.|date=2020|title=ASPECTS Distorts Infarct Volume Measurement|journal=American Journal of Neuroradiology|language=en|volume=41|issue=5|page=E28|doi=10.3174/ajnr.A6485 |pmid=32241774 |pmc=7228155 |s2cid=214767536 |url=https://doi.org/10.3174/ajnr.A6485}}</ref> ("Accuracy ... is the highest form of reliability."<ref>{{cite book|last=Weber|first=Robert Philip|title=Basic Content Analysis|edition=2nd|year=1990|publisher=Sage|location=Newbury Park, CA|isbn=0803938632|page=17}}</ref>) The concomitant clinical assessment, however, by the [[National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale]] (NIHSS) or the [[modified Rankin Scale]] (mRS), retains the necessary form of content analysis. Recognizing potential limits of content analysis across the contents of language and images alike, [[Klaus Krippendorff]] affirms that "comprehen[sion] ... may ... not conform at all to the process of classification and/or counting by which most content analyses proceed,"<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Krippendorff|first=Klaus|date=1974|title=Review of Thomas F. Carney, ''Content Analysis: A Technique for Systematic Inference from Communications''|journal=University of Pennsylvania Scholarly Commons, Annenberg School of Communication Departmental Papers|language=en|url=https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1538&context=asc_papers|id=(Quote from 4th page, unnumbered)}}</ref> suggesting that content analysis might materially distort a message.