Exploring the Communication Function of National Parliaments in European Union Affairs: The Use of Content Analysis to Generate Large Quantitative Datasets on Parliamentary Communication Activities and Their Media Visibility

Between 2012 and 2016, generous funding by the Austrian Science Fund allowed me to conduct a research project on the communication function of national parliaments in European Union affairs. The project was guided by two research questions: How do national parliaments communicate European Union issues to their citizens and to what extent are such parliamentary communication activities covered by the media? To answer the questions, the research team generated two large and unique datasets on parliamentary communication activities and newspaper articles in seven member states and over a period of 4 years using quantitative content analysis as the method. This case note focuses on the data collection for the project. It provides a hands-on discussion of the challenges that come with large quantitative data collections using content analysis, focusing especially on sampling methods, codebook design, measures to ensure data validity, equivalence and reliability, and coder selection and training.