media analysis research paper sample

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How to Do a Media Analysis

Last Updated: February 9, 2024

This article was co-authored by Noah Taxis . Noah Taxis is an English Teacher based in San Francisco, California. He has taught as a credentialed teacher for over four years: first at Mountain View High School as a 9th- and 11th-grade English Teacher, then at UISA (Ukiah Independent Study Academy) as a Middle School Independent Study Teacher. He is now a high school English teacher at St. Ignatius College Preparatory School in San Francisco. He received an MA in Secondary Education and Teaching from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. He also received an MA in Comparative and World Literature from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a BA in International Literary & Visual Studies and English from Tufts University. This article has been viewed 36,685 times.

A media analysis reviews a broad swath of news stories on a given subject. Media professionals may use media analysis to decide how to frame a story that they want to publish, such as by helping them choose specific terms and rhetorical appeals to use. This is also a common assignment in communications and journalism courses, so you might also do this as a student. Start by collecting news stories and then analyze them by asking and answering questions about them.

Collecting Stories to Analyze

• For example, you may include the local newspaper, radio station, web news sources, and possibly any major news sources in the nearest big city if you’re in a rural area or suburb.
• Alternatively, you might want to focus on national or worldwide news sources to analyze a larger company or subject.

• For example, if you’re conducting a media analysis of the controversy over a major highway construction project in your city, then you might include terms like, “highway construction,” “highway controversy,” “construction budget concerns,” etc.

• Make sure to include a variety of different types of media sources unless you’re hoping to examine a specific medium, such as TV, radio, or print news.

Tip : If desired, you may expand your search to cover a longer period of time, such as 12 months. This may result in a more thorough study of the topic.

• Separating the data into categories can help you know what to expect when you start reading a story.

Analyzing the Stories

• Buzzwords, which are terms that come up again and again across different media channels.
• Bias, which is using emotional appeals to convince readers of something even if the evidence is lacking.
• Similar portrayals of a story, such as portraying it in a positive or negative light across different media channels.
• Positioning of the story, such as whether it’s a front-page or prime-time news story.

Tip : The length of the story may also help you to determine its importance. For example, if it's a short story that appears on one page, the news outlet may deem it less important than something that takes up multiple pages.

• How does the media frame this topic?
• Who are the spokespeople for the topic and how are they being represented?
• Are any voices noticeably absent from the articles on this subject?
• What topics are getting the most coverage within the category?
• What media outlets are covering this topic?
• Does coverage seem to peak or drop at certain times of the year?

• For example, if you have noted that most news outlets portray your subject using a set of buzzwords and a similar level of bias, then you may describe and discuss these.

• For example, if the sources you consulted all portray a public concern in a similar light, then you might want to adopt this method of framing your topic as well.

Structuring a Media Analysis Essay

• For example, you might begin by saying that your topic is an upcoming election in your community and that you wanted to do a media analysis to determine how to introduce your own story on the topic. Then, you might conclude by saying what media channels have in common in their presentation of this topic.

Tip : Make sure to clarify any special terms or details that your readers might not understand in this section as well.

• What aspects of the topic are being covered?
• What buzzwords do the media channels use?
• Do the media channels tend to show bias on the subject, and if so, how?

• This can help you to determine what types of spokespeople to include in your own article.

• For example, you might notice that the “hero takes a fall” archetype is used frequently for the articles in your topic area. This might mean that choosing this frame for your story could be beneficial.

• For example, if you recommend including a business professional, professor, and a member of the community in coverage of a story, cite the data you have collected that shows these spokespeople as the picks for stories on your topic.

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• ↑ https://penandthepad.com/how-2317746-write-media-analysis-papers.html
• ↑ http://www.pointk.org/resources/files/gould_media.pdf
• ↑ https://ecu.au.libguides.com/research-methodologies-creative-arts-humanities/media-analysis

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Structuring a media analysis

Be it television, books, blogs, email or Twitter, media shapes human cultures, perceptions and reactions to events. Because so much of the information we consume is through the media, studying media is a valuable – and fascinating – way to gain understanding of the lenses through which we view various topics and issues.

That’s why social scientists rely upon media analyses. Researching how topics like fear, crime and terrorism are treated in the media can shine light on how society perceives these topics. Understanding how a left-wing paper and a right-wing paper treat an event differently can inform us about differences in how the two groups not only vote, but how they see the world.

Media analyses can also be used on fiction-based media to explore certain themes and messages – a classic example would be examining violence in children’s television.

“The impact [of an individual source] may not be that great, but you have this model,” says David Altheide, who helped develop the modern qualitative media analysis. “If someone’s getting a lot of information about X looking at these kinds of things, what would they feel and see?”

Quantitative or qualitative?

There are two types of media analysis – quantitative and qualitative – and the difference between the two is immediately apparent in their names. Quantitative studies involve methodically selecting sources and counting words, phrases and names. Qualitative studies, on the other hand, involve reading through vast numbers of sources and gradually whittling down until you’re thoroughly analyzing a representative handful.

A qualitative analysis might start with reading a thousand articles. With no preconceived categories or questions, you simply immerse yourself in the documents. That gives you an idea of what themes are important, and that’s where the “protocol” comes in. A protocol is a list of questions informed by your understanding, which will help you seek out the most relevant data in analyzing your sources.

Then you’ll examine those documents to answer the questions in your protocol, making special note of any exceptional documents. Those may be particularly representative of a specific attitude, or they may deviate from the norm. After this, you essentially repeat the process, revising your protocol to more accurately refine your results and sources, possibly using theoretical sampling to find sources which contrast with or expand on ideas your initial sources may have only touched on.

“You immerse yourself, get a feel for it, and then get more systematic and play out the nuances,” says Altheide.

Ultimately you’ve refined your sources and protocol and collected data using them, comparing and contrasting to create a real picture of how the media treats the topic you’re studying. You have examples of the most typical and atypical, most emotional and even sensational documents which you can quote. This is where you may divide and combine your sources to see if different media outlets are associated with different themes.

In contrast, a quantitative study is performed using the classic scientific method. You develop a hypothesis and methodically select your sources. For instance, you may choose to analyze all newspaper articles in one newspaper over the course of a month, or you may choose to analyze all newspapers covering a certain event in two newspapers during the same time period.

You’ll then create categories of things to count – such as the number of times a certain public figure is named, or specific words are used – and read through your sources counting those words or categories. Try using EndNote’s grouping options to make this process a little bit easier – especially smart groups which allow you to sort references automatically based on keyword rules. This will give you statistical evidence to help you either accept or reject your hypothesis.

Either type of analysis could be used effectively, and many studies will use aspects of both types. A qualitative analysis may still benefit from some counting of words, and a quantitative analysis may require some reading of sources beforehand to give context to your hypothesis. In fact, Altheide argues that they can benefit from each other.

“My contention has been that after you do a study like this, then you’re ready to do a really meaningful, large quantitative study if you want, because you’ve got the terms pinned down and are more comfortable in the concepts,” he says.

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