Abstract

The criticism of the original behavioristic basis of content analysis does not take into account the present state of research. The method has long since overcome its limitation, only to be able to code physical communication in the form of printed or written material. Every intersubjective demonstrable meaning now can be the object of content analysis. In its claim to be able to adequately describe the content of texts it is only apparently in competition with linguistic „structural text analysis“. Due to the different research traditions from which they originated they were developed for different interests. While content analysis is the better method for hypothesis testing and selective description of large quantities of texts, structural text analysis is more efficient with respect to single and complex texts. One could image an optimal combination of both methods being possible.