Web Content Analysis: Expanding the Paradigm

Are established methods of content analysis (CA) adequate to analyze web content, or should new methods be devised to address new technological developments? This article addresses this question by contrasting narrow and broad interpretations of the concept of web content analysis. The utility of a broad interpretation that subsumes the narrow one is then illustrated with reference to research on weblogs (blogs), a popular web format in which features of HTML documents and interactive computer-mediated communication converge. The article concludes by proposing an expanded Web Content Analysis (WebCA) paradigm in which insights from paradigms such as discourse analysis and social network analysis are operationalized and implemented within a general content analytic framework.

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