Introduction

Sources of
available
data

Analyzing
available
records

Secondary
analyses

Content
analysis

Strengths & limitations
of available
data

Social
indicators

Aids

Secondary analyses

Data collected by other researcher can frequently be re-analyzed to answer a new problem.   This kind of research, referred to as secondary analysis, can be undertaken with almost any kind of data, but is usually done using quantitative data from previous surveys or from reports from government ministries.

Investigators frequently keep the original questionnaires from a survey or the computer disks with raw data from the questionnaires. These can be a rich source of data for secondary analysis. You might also find data held by professors at your university, at a social research institute, or in the files of a government ministry. Several of the studies we mentioned earlier were based on secondary analyses. These include:

• Re-analysis of data originally collected for the Sudan Fertility Survey (Nouri, 1983)
• Factors affecting differences in fertility in the Gezira and Managil areas of the Sudan       (Abdelrahman, 1995), based on data from a household survey conducted in 1987
• Investigation of child mortality in the Khartoum metropolitan area, based on census data and a household survey (Farah, 1981)

Available data are particularly useful for conducting trend studies. This is what Badri and Burchinal (1985) did, using data from the Sudanese Ministry of Education to investigate trends in the school enrollment of females relative to males. Re-analysis of available data is also a quick and low cost way of doing research. There is no data collection cost: All the investigator has to do is reorganize existing data with a new plan of analysis.

There are disadvantages as well. The main limitation is whether or not the data are valid for use as indicators of the variables a researcher wants to measure. Frequently, researchers find that the questions asked in a previous survey may be close to, but don't exactly match, what they want to measure. Too often, data from previous studies are only approximations of what we would like to have. Still, with some redefinition of concepts, secondary data offers ways of doing research that a single investigator could not do by his- or herself. Secondary analysis is done in the same way as described for the analysis of any other quantitative or qualitative data. Another form of secondary data consists of mass media and other materials, which we turn to next.

Content analysis

Content analysis is a technique for analyzing the content of all kinds of written or recorded material or the spoken word. Written materials include the contents of newspapers, magazines, books, official documents, advertisements - anything that is written. Recorded materials include films, videotapes, photographs, and anything else in audio or video form. The content of spoken words can be analyzed as well, including poems, folk tales, speeches by religious or political leaders, or the content of everyday conversations.

These kinds of mass media materials have caught the attention of social scientists because they contain expressions of values, opinions, and attitudes that reflect changes occurring in a society. In conducting content analysis, the investigator uses objective and systematic analysis techniques to generate a description of the meaning of the materials selected for analysis. Meaning is expressed in the symbols or images contained in the materials. Symbols or images may be expressed in references to a country's flag, by use of certain phrases, such as "imperialistic," "terrorists," or   in descriptions of   the "right" or "proper" way to view some issue or group of people.   A few examples will help show how content analysis can be used to analyze mass media materials.