Turning News Into Knowledge

If you’re new to analysis, terms like qualitative and quantitative analysis may be just a little confusing. To look at the differences between, and benefits of, the two systems of measurement, a working definition is needed first.

According to WikiAnswers, qualitative analysis focuses on non-numerical data, such as words, pictures, or artefacts. Conversely, quantitative analysis focuses on numerical data.

Boiling it down, quantitative analysis will tell you what topics people are following, as in trending topics on Twitter.

The strength of each form of analysis can be seen in a recent report by MediaMiser’s own Samantha Ingram about media coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

This chart, taken from the Olympic report, used quantitative analysis (counting the number of times each paper ran a story) to show the papers that contained the most coverage on the popular Olympic mittens.

Using quantitative analysis lets us see which areas are producing a lot of coverage, and which aren’t. Without this measurement, we wouldn’t have known that some of the top coverage was coming from outside Canada, although the mittens were only available here.

While quantitative analysis looks at what people are talking about and how much they have to say, qualitative analysis is more interested in why people are talking, and the contents of their conversations.

The above graph, also from the Olympic Snapshots report, looks at the overall tone of one of the Olympic coverage issues. Using a simple three-point positive/neutral/negative system (and rated by people, not computers), a large amount of articles can be sifted for some basic information.

Though it looks like quantitative analysis on the surface, the tone graph isn’t simply counting who said what. Instead, tone is focused on how people feel about a topic, and the broader content outside of basic keyword analysis.

Qualitative analysis is also used in open-ended surveys, looking at the reasons behind people’s concern rather than just the concerns themselves.

While each will give effective information on their own, without qualitative measurement, pure quantitative analysis can lead to number overload. Knowing how much people are talking is good, but knowing how they feel about a topic makes the information much more valuable.

Likewise, knowing people’s, perhaps customers’, concerns is important, but the information is far more useful if you can also look at which problems are getting the most attention.

Perspectives is a blogging series written, researched and compiled by teams of MediaMiser staff from Client Services, Sales, and R&D. This post was contributed by Jen Hogan, Sophie Jodouin and Daniel Enright.