ABSTRACT
Social phenomena leave traces in a great number and variety of documents : archives, censuses, the press, personal documents, instruments and tools, pictures, photographs, films, records, tape recordings, etc. This chapter provides a general outline of these various kinds of documents and examines the problems of the techniques of documentary analysis. Three different documentary uses of the press can be distinguished: general documentation, documentation on particular social groups or categories, and as a source of documentation on the press itself. Man uses a great diversity of objects which are classified according to their use and nature. The chapter describes three different types of analysis of objects: material analysis, Technological analysis, and symbolic analysis. Some kinds of documents call for special methods such as juridicial, psychological and mathematical analysis. Content analysis is a special simplified form of quantitative semantics. It is concerned less with the style of the text than the ideas contained in it.
