8 Methods of Content Analysis

Inspired by the measurement bug, I was looking through some earlier notes of mine and came across this list of "methods of content analysis" originally published by The Institute for Public Relations. The list is theirs; the notes are mine.

1. Clip Counting (volume counts) -- called the "most basic and perhaps most antiquated"
2. Circulation and Readership Analysis -- reported in "total circulation" or "total readership and includes number or readers, demographic profiles of readers and other lifestyle data
3. Advertising Value Equivalence (AVE) -- reportedly the dollar value of media impressions based on how much it would cost to take out an ad in the publication where the article was published. It is said to be "generally discredited by PR practitioners and leading researchers" however the PR folks I've been talking with all say their clients often ask for it and they give 'em what they want.
4. Simple Content Analysis -- counts of documents about certain topics
5. Message Analysis -- counts of documents that include specific messages
6. Tonality/Sentiment/Favorability Analysis - assessment of the entire article and individual messages in the article
7. Prominence Analysis -- Importance of the hits based on publication name, day of the week, word count, location of article in publication, presence of art work, size of headline. Each element gets a weight and roles up to a score for the article
8. Overall Quality of Coverage -- combination of tonality, prominence, message inclusion and volume counts