A Content Analysis of Content Analyses: Twenty-Five Years of Journalism Quarterly

Examination of the increasing number of articles employing quantitative content analysis in 1971–95 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly showed primary focus on news/editorial content in U.S. media. Nearly half examined newspapers, and half were coauthored. Most used convenience or purposive samples. Few involved a second research method or extra-media data, explicit theoretical grounding, or research questions or hypotheses. Half reported intercoder reliability, and two-fifths used only descriptive statistics. Analysis of trends shows growth in coauthorship and reporting of reliability, and increasing emphasis on more sophisticated statistical analysis. No parallel trend exists, however, in use of explicit hypotheses/research questions or theoretical grounding.