This document provides an overview of a study analyzing newspaper articles about nanotechnology from three Spanish newspapers over 13 years using qualitative data analysis software. The study aims to understand how nanotechnology has been portrayed in the Spanish press and how risk discourse has been framed. Researchers analyzed over 600 articles totaling 392,666 words using Atlas.ti software to identify themes, topic clusters, and changes over time. Preliminary results found longitudinal shifts in key themes and differences in risk discourse framing between newspapers. The researchers concluded that quantitative text analysis helps provide an overview while qualitative coding aids interpretation.

1. Computer-Aided Qualitative Research Europe
7 & 8 Oct 2010, Lisbon
For more information about our events, please visit:
http://www.merlien.org

2. Data triangulation on
newspapers articles
using different software
A. Crescentini and G.A.Veltri
Computer-Aided Qualitative Research; 7-8 October 2010, Lisboa (Portugal).

3. Overview
Background
Theoretical background
Triangulation
Current Research
Methodological notes
Research questions
Sample
Analytical steps
Main results
Articles body analysis
Articles headline analysis
Data triangulation
Final considerations and further steps

4. Theoretical Background
Social Representations Theory (Moscovici, 1988).
Focus on the use metaphors and clusters of
meanings to determine the core of representations
present in the mass media.
Researchers in this area are focused on the idea
that in the public sphere there are competing
definitions, in what is a complex game played for
control of semantics in the public sphere (Gaskell et
al., 1998).
Anchoring and Objectification (Moscovici, 1988)
Similarly, there is the notion of “mediascapes” (Van
Loon, 2002), the symbolic environment in which a
technology is debated.

5. Qualitative research:
two words on validity

6. Current research
Studies on nanotechnology and the mass media
have increased in the past few years due to the
increasing hype that is surrounding this scientific
domain.
Research on nanotechnology’s mediascapes have
focused initially on UK and US, but now other
countries are under scrutiny (see Kjølberg, 2009;
Kjærgaard, 2010) . In Spain, to our knowledge,
nothing similar exists at the moment.
In addition, most studies focused mainly on
risk/benefits analytical frame within the media
analysis.

7. Research questions
How nanotechnology has been anchored in the
Spanish National Press?
How the nanotechology risk discourse has been
anchored?

8. Methodological notes
646 articles (1997 to 2010) from three main spanish
newspapers:
El Mundo – 432,204 daily copies on average, (moderate)
El Pais – 330,634 daily copies on average, (left-leaning)
ABC – 240,225 daily copies on average, (right-leaning)
392.666 words, 32.477 lemmas
From Lexis - Nexis database (www.lexisnexis.com)
Sampling criteria: presence several keywords such
as ‘nanotecnologia’, ‘nanosciencia’, ‘nanoparticulas’,
‘nanostructura’ and ‘manipulación atómica’,
‘ingeniería atómica’.

10. Analysis T-Lab 7 – atlas.ti 6.1
Articles were pre-processed by human coding: tagging
and establishing main variables (newspaper, year,
etc.)
We explored his texts using different kinds of tools:
Co-occurrence analysis and automatic thematic analysis
Comparative analysis
Automatic thematic analysis of EC as mean to unravel
core packets of meanings in the coverage of
nanotechnology in Spanish Press.
Cluster analysis of themes and their longitudinal
evolution
Headline were analyzed to find main categories
Three main codes have been applied to identify the
attitude of newspapers

11. Understanding

12. Longitudinal analysis of themes
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13. Risk Discourse Clusters
13

14. Risk discourse longitudinal evolution
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15. Risk discourse by newspapers
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16. Quantitative analysis of text
data particularly important for
Conclusions the longitudinal dimension.
Overview of the overall
coverage
Overview of a given newspaper
coverage
Not limited to the risk/benefit
analytical frame
Complementary to qualitative
coding or a reliability tool to
compare human thematic
coding and automatic one
Qualitative analysis helps in
giving sense to the
information
Problem of the attitude
Risk of hyper analysis
16

17. Thank you!
alberto.crescentini@supsi.ch
17

18. Computer-Aided Qualitative Research Europe
7 & 8 Oct 2010, Lisbon
For more information about our events, please visit:
http://www.merlien.org