Enkele methodologische opmerkingen over de bruikbaarheid van inhoudsanalyse als vorm van toetsend onderzoek

Samenvatting

A discussion of the extent that content analysis can be useful in the evaluation of causal hypotheses. The source is newspaper items. In an article entitled "The structure of foreign news" (Journal of international peace research, 1965, 1, 64-90), j. Galtung and M.H. Ruge claim that a list of events is not necessary in order to do a content analysis on what news appears in newspapers. Their theory, called "common sense perception psychology" has the weakness that the hypotheses to be tested cannot unequivocally be derived from other hypotheses, and thus causal hypotheses cannot be tested in this manner. The formation of a list of events is not practical. Other information of some type is necessary if content analysis is to be useful in the evaluation of causal hypotheses. 4 tables. P. Tiersma