Introduction

This chapter provides the basic guidelines and the publicly available tools to conduct semantic network analysis. The combination of content analysis and network analysis is relatively new, but given the importance of both it seems to be indispensable. In parallel to the attempts to classify the functions of language and the meanings of words, there were two crucial and inter-related developments in the field: the use of computers in research and the emergence of network analysis. Semantic network analysis is less expensive and time-consuming than manual coding with traditional codebooks or qualitative approaches. In the construction phase researchers pay close attention to the relationships between these elements as a whole network. Semantic network analysis is less instrumental to understand the tone and valence, cynical expressions, hidden contexts, premises and assumptions, and underlying meanings. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.