ANTH 7333

Data Analysis

Exercise #1

In this assignment, you will analyze the "Across the USA" section of the USA Today newspaper. Typically, a brief news item appears daily for each state plus the District of Columbia.

Go to http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/ns1.htm to see the map and list of the states. Select (randomly or purposively) twenty states from among the 51 listed. Then, copy and paste the five daily mini-texts for each of the selected states into a MS Word (or similar) document. Tag each mini-text with the name of the state to which it corresponds and then save this multi-state and multi-day file with a name of your choice (e.g., 7333-Assignment-1).

Now, you are ready to do the text analysis. Examine the set of 100 items you have selected and determine what, if any, themes emerge in these mini-texts, both within-states and for the sample as a whole. What do your findings about the selected twenty states reveal about the nation as a whole? Be aware of whether the themes emerge from the texts ("inductive" coding) or from your own frame of reference ("deductive" coding). For instance, you might pre-determine that "gender" is a theme that you want to investigate in the texts. On the other hand, you might approach the texts with an open mind and see what emerges -- perhaps you will discover that "politics" is often present in the texts.

For this analysis, you may elect to use the approach suggested by Ryan (i.e., MS Word) or you use one of numerous text-analysis or text database programs (e.g., AskSam, Ethnograph, Nudist, Qualrus)

What conclusions can you reach about the "state of the states" on the basis of these mini-texts? What is "missing"? On what basis do you reach your conclusions?

An important part of the assignment is to document your procedures in sufficient detail so that another person could replicate your work.

You should be able to do the write-up in two to three pages (double-spaced typed). Please include the mini-texts as appendices to your write-up.

This assignment is due at the beginning of class on 3 February 2009. Please bring enough copies so that every member of the seminar has one. On the 3rd, you will be asked to discuss your procedures and your findings. You may choose to prepare a PowerPoint presentation to aid in your discussion, but this is NOT required.