Unobtrusive Research
UAPP 702: Research Methods for Urban & Public Policy
Class Notes
Based on, Earl Babbie, The Practice of Social Research
Danilo Yanich
1
Unobtrusive Research
 Clues all around...must use some ingenuity to examine
them...
 Babbie uses examples of worn tiles in museum, mucus
on window, radio dial settings
 May have some problems with validity and reliability...
 But that can be accommodated
2
Three types of unobtrusive research
 Content analysis
 Analysis of existing statistics
 Historical/comparative analysis
3
Content Analysis
 Study of recorded human communications
 Record the content of those communications
 Two types of content
 Manifest
 Latent
4
Manifest content
 The visible, surface content of a communication
 Analogous to a questionnaire with extent of specificity
 Advantage of reliability, but may have some question of
validity
 Babbie’s example of erotic novel—can count number of
times words like love, kiss, etc. are used in book...but
 Is that a valid measure of eroticism?
5
Latent content
 The underlying meaning of the content

Questions about reliability

Babbie’s example re: erotic novel
 Read entire novel and assess how erotic it is

Might be very different assessments by different
coders/readers

Might even be different assessment if one person was the
ONLY reader because no guarantee that definitions will remain
same
6
Content analysis
Local TV news example, content coding
 Research question

A comparison of the reporting of adult vs. juvenile crime on
local TV news stories in the Baltimore and Philadelphia
markets
 By offenses
 By the characteristics of the suspects and victims
 By the production modes of the story

NOTE: Juvenile crime story=story in which suspect or victim or both are
under 18 years of age
7
Content analysis
Local TV news example, content coding, p. 2
 Sample
 The videotaped broadcasts of a “constructed” week of
the primary evening news broadcast…
 During March and April 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1996…
 For all stations delivering a regularly scheduled news
broadcast to the market
 Result: 153 broadcasts from 11 stations
8
Content analysis
Local TV news example, content coding, p. 3
 Unit of analysis
 Individual news story
 Result: 2400 total stories excluding sports and weather
 Over 700 crime stories
9
Coding instructions for local news
ID#
Continuous
Channel
Continuous
Date
Continuous
Story line
Continuous
Time
Duration in seconds
Type
1=Crime event;
2=Police;
3=Courts;
4=Corrections;
5=CJ policy
Age suspect
1=Juvenile (under 18);
2=Adult;
3=Adults & juveniles
8=Unknown/Not reported
9=NA
Age victim
1=Juvenile (under 18)
2=Adult;
3=Adults & juveniles
8=Unknown/Not reported
9=NA
Source: CJ
0=No; 1=Yes; 9=NA
Source: Defense Atty
0=No; 1=Yes; 9=NA
Presentation mode
1=Anchor read; 2=VO/Anchor; 3=Live at location
10
A news story in New York City
11
What do we record?
Time
Type
Age
Sus
Age
Vic
Source
CJ
Source
DefAtty
Mode
Teen pleads guilty in
man’s death
45
3
1
2
1
1
2
3/11/98
Man arrested for
robbery
23
2
2
2
1
0
1
3/12/98
Domestic dispute
turns into hostage
situation
45
1
2
3
1
9
3
1=Juv
2=Adult
3=Adults
&Juv
8=Unk/
NotReport
9=NA
1=Juv
2=Adult
3=Adults
&Juv
8=Unk/
NotReport
9=NA
0=No
1=Yes
9=NA
0=No
1=Yes
9=NA
ID#
Chan
Date
4687
WABC
3/11/98
4688
WABC
4689
WNBC
Story Line
Seconds
1=Crime event
2=Police
3=Courts
4=Corrections
5=CJ policy
1=Anchor read
2=VO Anchor
3=Live
12
Content analysis
Local TV news example, content coding, p. 4
 Careful not to take the position that the content analysis
often shows what is common knowledge.
 Example: Local news and race of victim and suspect

More often than not, the race or ethnicity of the victims and
suspects is NOT reported on local TV news

Then, raises the obvious question—why the common
assumption?
 Other possible explanations—Placement of story? Production
factors? Offenses?
13
Table 1: In both markets, the race/ethnicity of the victims and suspects
most often was not reported or not known
Baltimore
Philadelphia
Victim
% of stories
Suspect
% of stories
Victim
% of stories
Suspect
% of stories
Not reported/not known
57
41
54
40
Only Caucasian
22
41
25
29
Only African-American
16
17
16
25
Only Hispanic
0
1
3
5
Mixed race/ethnicity
5
0
1
1
Only Asian
0
0
1
0
Race/Ethnicity of Victim/Suspect
Source: Danilo Yanich (1998). Crime, Community & Local TV News, p 49
14
Advantages of content analysis
 Economy of both time and money
 Safety—it is easier to redo if there is a problem
 Permits the study of processes that occur over a long time
 Content analyst has no effect on subject being studied
 Reliability

You can always recode and recode again to ensure reliability
15
Disadvantages of content analysis
 Limited to the examination of recorded
communications
 Validity problems
16
Analyzing Existing Statistics
 Babbie makes distinction between
secondary data and existing statistics
 Secondary data—someone else’s data on
which you conduct your own analysis.
 Existing statistics—data analyses that others
have done
17
Analyzing Existing Statistics, p.2
 Babbie uses Durkheim’s study of suicide as
example
 Concerned with social conditions that encouraged or
discouraged it
 Developed theory of anomie, “normlessness”—a general
sense of social instability
18
Analyzing Existing Statistics, p.3
 Problems with validity
 Two ways to deal with validity questions
 Logical reasoning: Durkheim “reasoned” that most of the
suicides in a predominantly Protestant region would be
Protestants
 Replication: Durkheim replicated his study for countries,
regions, etc.
19
Analyzing Existing Statistics,
p.4
 Problems with reliability
 Babbie uses crime data for drug arrests
 Arrests may be organizational or political
“events”
20
Sources of Existing Statistics
 Most obvious and important is:
Statistical Abstract of the United States
 Published by U.S. Department of Commerce
 Bureau of the Census: www.census.gov
 Best source of data about the U.S.
21
Historical/Comparative Analysis
 Examines the development of social forms
over time
 Comparing those social forms across
cultures
22
Examples of historical/comparative analysis
 Marx’s progression of history seen as “class
struggle”
 Sorokin’s notion of societies that cyclically
alternate between “ideational” (spiritual & religious
factors) and “sensate” (sense experiences) points of
view
23
Elements of historical/comparative analysis
 Usually a qualitative method
 Researcher must find patterns among details
describing the subject matter
 Often informed by a particular theoretical
paradigm
24