In this guide, we discuss two general categories of content analysis: conceptual analysis and relational analysis. Conceptual analysis can be thought of as establishing the existence and frequency of concepts – most often represented by words of phrases – in a text. For instance, say you have a hunch that your favorite poet often writes about hunger. With conceptual analysis you can determine how many times words such as “hunger,” “hungry,” “famished,” or “starving” appear in a volume of poems. In contrast, relational analysis goes one step further by examining the relationships among concepts in a text. Returning to the “hunger” example, with relational analysis, you could identify what other words or phrases “hunger” or “famished” appear next to and then determine what different meanings emerge as a result of these groupings.
To read more about each type of content analysis, click on the items below:
Back to Introduction to Content Analysis