“The News with Community Views”
9
I also used the research method of content analysis,
which involves the categorization of articles, phrases or
images that appear in certain written and/or visual texts
to systematically evaluate the “content of narratives,
explanations and interpretations,” (Krippendorf 1980).
Scholars agree that content analysis is an effective
technique for examining the meanings of messages that are
distributed through mass media outlets (Altheide 1996;
Holsti 1969). In addition to providing empirical
information from which valid and replicable inferences may
be drawn, this form of inquiry allows for the evaluation of
a larger number of media representations than is usually
found in studies of the black press, social movements and
the African diaspora. My research followed the stages
suggested by scholars of this method: theory development,
operationalization, sampling, coding and tabulation
(Altheide 1996; Neuendorf 2002). In addition to playing
close attention to its quantitative results, this research
uses the critical analysis method to excavate the deeper
meanings that can be interpreted from the careful
discursive review of each article and editorial included in
its sample.
This content analysis tests the theory of black
channels by examining how the Afro-American, Amsterdam News
Convention