1. Theoretical debate: Overview
5.2 Content analysis of websites
understood. Through the use of the Internet, the gatekeeping capacity of the traditional press has been weakened. As Fathallah Arsalane said:
“We create our websites as part of our public persona. The Internet has offered key benifts because it has for instance allowed us to control our messages and images in the public. We are keen to be presented to the public in the way that fits our political-cultural identity. It allows us to craft and deliver our message unimpeded by gatekeepers”.162
websites in particular has proved a useful guide to understand communication content.
Much research approaches the Internet through content analysis (Davis, 1999; Gibson, 2003; Hill and Hughes, 1998).
In fact, content analysis is an ideal tool for the current study that examines and assesses the functionality of Islam-oriented political websites. This will enable us to make inferences about the message these movements have sought to deliver. It will also enable us to understand how Islam-oriented movements used Internet-based political communication strategies and how far these movements have used their websites to inform, communicate, and network.
Two main types of data were considered: an in-depth analysis of the content of 12 websites belonging to Islam-oriented movements and interviews. The interviews were a series of semi-structured face-to-face interviews with relevant officials, leaders and political spokespersons of Islam-oriented movements.166 In addition, interviews were held with stuff engaged in the development of the organization’s online presence.
A total of thirty-one individuals were questioned over a period that lasted from March 2001 to July 2003. Interviews were carried out with representatives from Al-Adala Wat-Tanmiya (ten interviews) and Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan (six interviews). Three journalists were interviewed who have worked on Islamic affairs in leading Moroccan independent press. Semistructured interviews use a standard set of questions but also provide the flexibility of following up interesting leads that emerge during the sessions.
An endeavour has been made to reconstruct the outlines of these websites by interviewing the different Islam-oriented movements’ webmasters to provide more context to the information gathered on the websites. The interviews were designed to assess the two Islam-oriented organizations’ use and attitudes towards the Internet as well as to examine the importance, function and impact of the Internet for Islam-oriented groups.167
166 Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan’s interviewees show a strong reticence concerning the operation of their websites. This is understandable in the context of the post-September 2001.
167 Some of these interviews were conducted via E-mail.
5.2.2 Sample
Communication researchers adopt different sampling approaches to select communication contents in units (Riffe et al., 1998: 83). Riffe et al argue that the Internet creates unique sampling problems, because gaining a complete list for sampling frame is practically impossible (Riffe et al., 1998: 101). Since listing the pages of all websites seemed virtually impossible, we chose, for pragmatic reasons, the cluster sampling as an effective way to sample websites. Cluster sampling is suitable for content analysis of websites, since webmasters organized the content of websites by topics and subtopics (Riffe et al., 1998:
95).168
A set of twelve websites was included in the analysis. The choice was less a matter of selection than a reflection of what exists. Despite the limited number of websites featured in the analysis, it is truly representative of the major Islam-oriented organizations in Morocco. Islam-oriented websites are defined as the one that are explicitly related to the two Islam-oriented political movements. The definition includes websites produced by Islam-oriented political movements or persons and organizations formally affiliated to the organizations.
To identify the websites, initially we used search engines, primarily google (http://www.google.com/). Convention of the name of the organization and the newspaper plus the word “com”, “org” or “net” was also used. We searched via Islam-oriented websites links and Islam-oriented portals such as Sultan.org and Islamonline. Identified Islam-oriented websites through searches were downloaded over a 36 month period at regular intervals (intervals 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003), depending on the most important political events in Morocco such as election of 2002 and two demonstrations organized in support of the Palestinians and around the Al-Mudawana reform.169 Further material was collected on the basis of regular captures. The intervals between captures were based on the changes observed across this period. The fact that we monitored the websites for a relatively long period of time would assure that the description of the website reflects the development of these websites.
168 According to Riffe et al., cluster sampling is the process of selecting content units from clusters, or groups, of content. A newspaper, for instance is a cluster of a number of articles, usually divided into topic clusters such as politics, culture and religion (Riffe et al., 1998: 95).
169 See chapter 5 for a detailed discussion of these issues.
A digital archive of twelve Islam-oriented websites has been created on CD-Rom.
The communication content was coded into computer database records. Contextual variables included the date when the item was posted, its form (essay, statement, and interview) and the author’s name. Most of the websites under analysis have, in the period since they had first been monitored (2000), had a notable improvement in the quality, especially in terms of design sophistication, accessibility and so forth.
5.2.3 Coding
A standard methodology for analyzing political websites is already emerging. The employed method of categorization was developed by an international team of scholars and successfully used by Pippa Norris (Norris, 2003: 29). According to this coding method, the contents of the websites are coded in terms of two different categories: information and communication.
The first category refers to the provision of different types of information. The information transparency of websites was assessed on the basis of the presence or absence of 19 criteria, including information about their party history, constitution, organization, program, news and schedule of events and conference (Norris, 2003: 27).
The second category refers to communication. The communication interactivity of the websites was evaluated by rating the website as having or not having 13 criteria such as joining the party online, donating money, volunteer services, e-mailing officials and participating in online discussion groups (Norris, 2003: 29).
To further elaborate this coding scheme, a third and useful category for this analysis was adopted to examine the connections between the 12 websites by analysing their internal and external links (Van Aelst and Walgrave, 2004: 116).
In a nutshell, this coding scheme provides measures of the “informative-ness”, which are the content of a website, the “communicative-ness” that is its interactivity and its
“networkness”. To further explore the “informative-ness”, “communicative-ness” and
“networkness” functions of a website, code nought was attributed if the feature was not present at all on the website, while code 1 refers to the presence of the characteristics on the website.
This coding includes only quantitative categories.170 It is heavily descriptive, focusing solely on the availability of information material and feedback tools. Therefore, it seems appropriate to introduce qualitative categories that shift the emphasis to the issues encountered in the websites. The question is not only which information is available on the websites, but also which topics and issues were addressed.
The coding process yielded a comprehensive set of 453 webpages from 12 websites. This set of communication reflected the nature of the discourse produced by the Islam-oriented movements’ websites. We codified the website’s functions by using a coding scheme specifically adapted and designed for Islam-oriented websites.171 We coded these digital contents in terms of political, social, religious and economic issues.
Before the final content analysis was conducted, an initial pre-test was used to develop a coding scheme for website features. Using the sampling frame and procedures to collect data as described below, one coder in the first pre-test examined eleven websites.
This pre-test primarily aimed to identify the types of information and communication available on the websites. The second test was carried out to refine earlier coding schemes and thus make them appropriate for Islam-oriented websites analysis.
We conducted a detailed content analysis of the websites used by Islam-oriented movements (N=12) and used the webpage as the unit of analysis. Content analysis is primarily a quantitative methodology, but it requires some qualitative analysis as well (Berelson, 1952). In this content analysis, we also combined the two steps. The first is the essentially descriptive task to identify and display the result in terms of the frequencies with which the values of the themes occurred. This means to know which thematic units received the most “coverage” in the websites. The second step is predicted on the first and concerns itself with the thematic and qualitative content analysis. A systematic content analysis of communication content of the sampled websites requires a descriptive endeavour with the goal of identifying agents behind the creation and development of the websites, their targets and their aims. The describtion of the websites is an interesting starting point for the content analysis. The following description of the websites is guided by some considerations and questions:
1. How are the aims of the websites presented?
170 Researchers generally adopt existing coding schemes established by their peers. But sometimes, they need to develop their own coding scheme for analyzing content.
171 This codification was performed at each download.
2. Who is the initiator and responsible for the websites?
3. What are the targeted audiences of the websites?
4. What are the functionalities- information, interactive communication and networking of the websites?