19. Statistical Analysis

Quantitative data analysis is fun! Or it should be. Providing the research was soundly designed, analysing the data rewards you with either the insights you sought to gain or with new questions to investigate further. Quantitative methods are often used in media policy research, for example to obtain viewers’ attitudes to public service broadcasting, audience ratings for different types of media or evaluating how media content is impacted by regulation. In this chapter we offer a peek into this wonderful world, broadly describing the necessary steps to prepare and analyse your data, giving some practical pointers, cautions and best-practices along the way. We will discuss data cleaning and preparation, choosing the correct analysis technique, interpreting the results and reporting your data. Since each of these steps could on their own fill multiple books (and have already done so) we will limit ourselves to discussing the basic principles. More detailed information can be found in these many other books, five of which we highlight later on. Throughout this chapter it should become clear that when quantitatively analysing data (a) working systematically is crucial, (b) data preparation and analysis can never make up for sloppy research design or bad sampling and (c) clarity and transparency in describing research results and the techniques and tests used to obtain them is vital to allow interpretation and replication by other researchers.