Rationale for using Content Analysis

Content analysis was classically associated with Bernard Berelson’s Content Analysis in Communication Research (Berelson, 1971). Berelson indicated that the interest of the researcher was not as concerned with the content as with the other areas to which the content “is a cue” (p. 124). Like Berelson, the researcher was more concerned with the deeper phenomena that the analysis of the Newbery female protagonists would reveal, more so than with the books themselves. Using the body of Newbery literature allowed the researcher to focus on the female protagonists and their behaviors as well as the larger meaning regarding culture, gender, and society.

Gall, Borg, and Gall (2007) defined content analysis as “the study of particular aspects of the information contained in a document, film, or other form of communication.” (p. 636). Vandergrift (1990), in the book related to children’s literature, added that content analysis techniques were often employed in children’s literature to examine current sociological concerns, such as gender equity. Babbie

(2005) defined content analysis as a part of qualitative analysis in introducing social research. He stated that qualitative analysis was “the nonnumerical examination and interpretation of observations, for the purpose of discovering underlying meanings and patterns of relationships’ (pp. 394-395). He encouraged researchers to note both frequencies (how often something occurs) and magnitudes (to what level it is displayed) when looking for patterns. Babbie then noted that coding involves

“classifying or categorizing individual pieces of data” and could be coding sentences, paragraphs, chapters, or entire books (2005, pp. 394-395).

Concluded from the above researchers, it was clear that content analysis was a proper tool for close reading and searching for meaning implied within the context.

As previously shown, numerous doctoral dissertations, master’s theses, and other documents revealed content analysis as a popular method for investigating children’s literature. Bernard Berelson(1971) noted:

As a matter of fact, a broad definition of “content analysis” would of course include a large part of the work in literary criticism and intellectual and cultural history generally, as well as a sizable amount of writings in political history, political and social philosophy, rhetoric, and indeed any field in which the close reading of texts is followed by summary and interpretation of what appears therein. (p. 114).

However, content analysis was not without any criticism. Clark, Kulkin, &

Clancy (Clark et al., 1999) were concerned about the approach taken by content researchers when analyzing their data. They feared that researchers might miss certain things because they only stress on what they are supposed to find. They accused content analyzers of being so concerned with proving a specific point that they only drew the attention on what they want to find and ignore some potentially positive findings because these parts might seem contrast to their goals (p. 78). For example,

in order to comment on female under-representation within a certain text, a researcher might have the intention of counting female characters in relation to male characters.

Under such a circumstance, the researchers might find this to be true, if they remain focused only on this phenomenon. At the same time, the researcher were oblivious to other findings such as increased multicultural or homosexual character representation, then he/she had missed an important and informative aspect of the study. Clark and his company criticized the domination of content analyzers of children’s literature who tended to be liberal feminists fixated on what was wrong with the representation of girls and females in children’s literature (p. 82). Clark proposed that researchers focused on the changing face of the girl in children’s literature with respect to race, culture, and sexual preference.

However, while these critics brought up points for consideration, content analysis of children’s literature had proven again and again to be an informative method of doing research that let us know what was going on in children’s books.

Only when we were armed with such information could we design critical literacy strategies that evoked change in attitude and tolerance.

Ultimately, when qualitatively researching the Newberys regarding female protagonists, the researcher felt that content analysis was an appropriate as well as a convenient management tool for classifying characters. The entire story provided the basis for analysis and had to be read before any coding decisions were made (Berelson, 1971, p. 140).

How Content Analysis Was Used

Ary (2002) illustrated the steps involved in content analysis including (pp.

485-487):

1. Specifying the phenomenon to be investigated. The researcher chose to study gender presentation of female protagonists.

2. Selecting the media which the observations are to be made. The researcher chose the Newbery medal and honor books featured with a female protagonist in the 1930s, 1960s and 1990s. Also, considering with the readability and circulation in Taiwan, books fitted to the above criteria should also be able to be purchased in current book market or could be borrowed from the libraries in Taiwan.

3. Formulating exhaustive and mutually exclusive coding categories. The researcher developed a list of categories of the chosen books in terms of self-identification, major adviser, and main companion of the main character in the context built within a specified time setting.

4. Deciding on the sampling plan to be used. The researcher examined the Newbery books in the 1930s, 1960s and 1990s. These books would be classified according to gender of the author, gender of the main character, and be available or not. Secondly, the researcher, along with two raters, read three of the selected books with specific reading purpose regarding to the categories provided by the researcher.

5. Training the coders. There were three raters including the researcher. Since the researcher had completed courses on related fields of this topic in the graduate studies and had done researches on gender issues concerning Newbery Medal books, she was able to apply the coding scheme consistently to the texts being analyzed and thus contributed to the reliability of the content analysis. The other two raters were PhD students in the Department of Language Literacy who had completed related courses in educational research and Children’s Literature. One had a master’s degree in Language Literacy and other held an MA degree in Chinese Literature and was currently taking course on YA Literature.

6. Analyzing the data. Data analysis would be presented in Chapter Four.

Analysis of female protagonists in the 1930s, 1960s, and 1990s would be conducted from three perspectives: self-esteem/ self-identity, main supporter or adviser and major companion. A summary for female protagonists in each decade was provided and comparisons and contrasts for these three decades were then analyzed.