ABSTRACT
One of the first decisions facing content analysis researchers is to determine the most appropriate strategy for sampling media messages. This can be a daunting task, as the cultural environment offers an almost boundless universe of media titles and infinite ways of parsing the content. In this chapter, we consider two distinct ways in which samples can be constructed. Specifically, decision-making about sampling is of critical importance, and often reflects the compromise that the content analyst makes between what is available within the media landscape and what is consumed by the audience(s) of interest. A health communication researcher interested in magazine articles that focus on diet and exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle will find, in the universe of magazines, hundreds of titles from which to sample (from Ebony to Men’s Health, to CosmoGirl!, to The Economist). Depending on the objectives of the research and the theoretical underpinnings of the presumed effects, the researcher may want a sub-sample of titles-for example, those magazines that are most likely to be consumed by a segment of magazine readers (for example, adolescent girls or adults at risk for cancer)—in order to narrow his frame.
