As I discovered in class Thursday, content analysis is both much more complex than it appears and much simpler. For the activity, I looked at whenicameout.tumblr.com, a site set up so that anyone can submit their coming out story, anonymously or not, and have it posted. I was thoroughly confused while actually doing the activity, convinced that I was not identifying any of the pieces that content analysis requires. However, when talking about my exercise out loud, I realized I actually had all of the pieces, some more than I needed.
I think content analysis will come in quite handy when conducting my own research in the future. I’m interested in LGBTQ literature and how it is presented in reviews, online, at libraries and schools, etc. This method will be the perfect tool to take those apart. In addition, my current project deals with the coming out story as information, and this method is also seemingly tailor-made for such a project.
While I realize open coding is an entirely different process, I feel that content analysis might be an excellent complement to it. The analysis here focuses on context and can be used to spotlight influences perhaps not apparent in the coding process.