Content analysis

Content analysis (also called: textual analysis) is a standard methodology in the social sciences on the subject of communication content. Earl Babbie defines it as "the study of recorded human communications, such as books, websites, paintings and laws". Harold Lasswell formulated the core questions of content analysis: "Who says what, to whom, why, to what extent and with what effect?". Ole Holsti (1969) offers a broad definition of content analysis as "any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages."