Counting a Code’s Frequency in Content Analysis

Drawing inferences from the frequency of codes is the simplest and often the most useful form of data analysis. Drawing conclusions in the Stars and Stripes assignment, evaluators counted the number of articles that presented a negative image of the military and compared the number to the number of wire service articles with negative images. Because the numbers were sufficiently large, the evaluators used percentages. The analysis showed that 47 percent of the wire service stories portrayed a negative image but that the European edition had only 35 percent and the Pacific edition 27.

Source: GAO (2013), Content Analysis: A Methodology for Structuring and Analyzing Written Material: PEMD-10.3.1, BiblioGov.