Content Analysis With Tableau 1: A Humanistic Map To A Content Analysis Project

This is Part 1 of a 4 part series on content analysis and Tableau. Maybe start with the intro?

Please note that this is a work in progress and I am more amateur than expert. I welcome questions, comments, and corrections.

In this section, I am going to map out the different stages of a content analysis project. This will be an adaptation (much reduced) of the flowchart found in Neuendorf's content analysis Textbook.

First off, start with a good question. Digital humanities methods are great tools—the challenge is in using them to make great scholarship. Content analysis works particularly well with looking at the often-glacial changes in social practices over time periods larger than a human lifetime. As the more humanists gain expertise in content analysis, we will hopefully find new questions to play with.

Then, seek out some kind of body of texts to look through. You need either a preexisting corpus of material or a way of selecting material to build this corpus. You also need some way of sorting through this corpus so you know what material you will be coding.

Next, determine which variables you are going to be looking for. Broadly, in my own work I code for demographic variables and descriptive variables.

Then code! This means that you read your documents and assign codes to each one. These two steps will be outlined in part three

Finally, you’re ready for visualization and analysis.

NEXT: Data Collection!