Validity in Content Analysis

Content analysis involves replicable and valid methods for making inferences from observed communications to their context. As such, content analys1s is at least 75 years old. It emerged during journalistic debates over the quality of the mass media but has now become part of the repertoire of social science research methods. In the course of its evolution one notes not only an increasing level of technical sophistication and scientific rigor,and an increasing spread to different disciplines using any kind of data for analysis, but also a growing social impact of its findings. Let me consider a few examples.