Methoden vergleichen

	Digitale Inhaltsanalyse	Digitale Ethnographie	Diskursanalyse	Thematische Analyse
Fachgebiet	Qualitativ	Qualitativ	Qualitative Forschung	Qualitative Forschung
Familie	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Entstehungsjahr	1950s (classical); digital adaptation 2000s–2010s	Late 1990s – 2000s	1989 (Fairclough); 1987 (Potter & Wetherell)	2006
Urheber	Building on Berelson (1952) and Krippendorff (1980); adapted for digital contexts by Herring (2010) and Neuendorf (2002+)	Christine Hine (virtual ethnography); Robert V. Kozinets (netnography)	Norman Fairclough; Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell	Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke
Typ	Qualitative/quantitative hybrid research approach	Qualitative research method	Method	Method
Wegweisende Quelle	Neuendorf, K. A. (2017). The Content Analysis Guidebook (2nd ed.). Sage. ISBN: 978-1412979474	Kozinets, R. V. (2010). Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage. ISBN: 978-1847875228	Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. Longman.	Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.
Aliasnamen	DCA, online content analysis, web content analysis, digital media content analysis	online ethnography, virtual ethnography, internet ethnography, netnography	DA, Critical Discourse Analysis, Discursive Analysis	TA, Reflexive Thematic Analysis
Verwandt	4	6	2	3
Zusammenfassung	Digital Content Analysis is a systematic research method for describing, categorising, and interpreting the content of digital materials — social media posts, websites, online forums, blogs, emails, and video transcripts. It applies the rigorous coding logic of classical content analysis to digitally native or digitally collected text, enabling researchers to move from raw online data to structured, interpretable findings about communication, meaning, and social phenomena.	Digital ethnography is a qualitative research method that adapts traditional ethnographic fieldwork to online and digitally mediated settings. Drawing on sustained participant observation, document collection, and sometimes interviews, the researcher immerses themselves in one or more digital communities — social media platforms, forums, gaming spaces, or messaging groups — to understand how culture, identity, and social practice are constructed through digital interaction. The approach recognises that online spaces are not merely reflections of offline life but distinctive sites of cultural production in their own right.	Discourse analysis is a qualitative research methodology that examines how language, communication, and power shape meaning, identity, and social reality. Developed across linguistics, sociology, and psychology (particularly by Norman Fairclough and Jonathan Potter), discourse analysis goes beyond content to analyze language use as a social practice that constitutes and reflects power relations, ideologies, and social structures.	Thematic Analysis (TA) is a qualitative research methodology for identifying, analyzing, and reporting patterns (themes) in qualitative data. Developed systematically by Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke (2006), TA is flexible and accessible, applicable across diverse theoretical frameworks and data types, making it one of the most widely used qualitative methods in psychology, health research, and social sciences.