Interpretive Content Analysis — Meaning-Oriented Qualitative Analysis of Texts

Interpretive content analysis is a systematic qualitative approach for analyzing the latent meanings and interpretive frameworks embedded in textual, visual, or documentary data. Unlike frequency-based content analysis, it foregrounds the researcher's interpretive engagement with texts to uncover how meaning is constructed, contested, or reproduced. Philipp Mayring's qualitative content analysis and broader interpretive traditions provide the methodological backbone for this approach.