Methodologies

With information for this study being recorded over the course of a year, Neuendorf’s predicative content analysis was decided as the appropriate method with which data would be viewed under. With the goal of predicting an outcome or effect of messages (Neuendorf, 2002), this type of content analysis often works well when people are used as units of data collection – precisely what Digg users were during the course of this 12-month study. Furthermore, with the study involving 12 instances where data was collected and processed (one at the end of each month), the potential to make predictions the direction of data was always present.

Relating to Neuendorf’s  definition of the scientific method, the use of predicative content analysis for this study shows its strength in the following criteria:

Reliability – the extent to which a measuring procedure yields the same results on  repeated trials (Carmines & Zeller, 1979). This study involved repeatedly recording Digg’s front page material for a period of 12 months – each time presenting similar results.

Replicability – repeating a study with different cases or in a different context, checking to see if similar results are obtained each time (Babbie, 1995). Influenced by a previous study in a smaller context, this new study is a larger scale recreation of that study.

Generalizability – the extent to which findings may be applied to other cases (Neuendorf, 2002). With Digg being one of many other news aggregators, these findings may easily be applied to suggest other sites have their own power users and oligarchies.