<< Episode Synopsis

Categories and Frequency:

Content Analysis is a technical method of breaking up a text into specialized components in order to explore its wider cultural significance. The systematic method consists of counting the frequency of certain elements in a determined sample of images and objectively analyzing the symbolic meaning of its incidence. In this particular episode of “Fraiser” seven main themes were used to create the categories. The episode was broken up into ten second periods and categorized according to the dominant topic of conversation. Each category is mutually exclusive and covers all the topics covered in the show.
There are seven main categories and corresponding sub-categories for each. The categories are:

1) Personal relationships:
- Family- 2
- Love- 7
- Pets- 3
- Dating- 12
2) Conflict:
- Sibling Rivalry 6
- Rivalry- 5
3) Humour:
- Slapstick humour- 9
- Play on words- 12
- Puns-7
4) Materialism:
- Shoes- 6
- Money- 4
- Snobbery- 13
- Jobs- 6
5) Popular culture:
- sports- 9
- art/ culture- 5
- Shopping- 4
6) Sexuality:
- Sex- 5
7) Emotions:
- Pride-6
- Pain- 8

For each category, the average was taken to determine the overall prevalence of these topics. The results were as follows:

1) Personal relationships: 24/4 = 6
2) Conflict: 11/2 = 5.5
3) Humour: 28/3 = 9.3
4) Materialism: 29/4 = 7.25
5) Popular culture: 18/3 = 3
6) Sexuality: 5/5 = 1
7) Emotions: 14/2 = 7

Descending order of frequency:

Humour, Materialism, Emotions, Personal relationships, Conflict, Popular culture, Sexuality.

Hypothesis and Conclusions>>

Mia Fisher
York University
Toronto, Canada