Analytical Framework

Your analytical framework links your research question to your findings. It says what you will analyze, how you will analyze it, and why that approach suits the question. It follows from your literature review and leads to the choice of a method.

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From Answers to Evidence

Your rival answers already suggest a research design. For each answer, ask what evidence you would expect to find if it were right. Then choose the sources and method that can show those differences.

Suppose your question is why autocrats expand mass schooling. The social control answer expects curricula that stress obedience, while the skills answer expects curricula that stress productive skills. A comparison of curricula can therefore weigh the two answers, and it tells you which documents to collect and what to code in them.

If two answers predict the same evidence, your design cannot separate them. Change the evidence or rethink the answers.

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What the Framework Contains

Use these parts as a flexible outline. Expand what matters most to your project, and combine the rest. A historical thesis will stress different parts than a quantitative content analysis. The examples come from newspaper analysis, but the logic applies to any topic.

Part	What to write	Example
1. Purpose	Restate your question and say how the framework guides your interpretation.	“This section sets out how I analyze the representation of social movements in South Korean newspapers.”
2. Theory and concepts	Define the main theories and concepts. This part connects the literature review to the rest of the framework.	“I draw on Entman’s (1993) concept of framing to examine how headlines make some perspectives more salient.”
3. Research design	Justify your method by explaining how it fits your question and theory.	“I use content analysis to identify frequent terms and discourse analysis to interpret the stances they convey.”
4. Sources and selection	State your sources, date range, languages, and sampling rationale, and how you store the material. See Building a Corpus.	“I examine editorials from four South Korean newspapers from 2015 to 2020. They cover different ideological positions.”
5. From concepts to evidence	Show how abstract ideas become things you can identify in your material, such as codes or themes.	“I classify each editorial’s focus as economic impact, social justice, or political stability.”
6. Analytical steps	Set out your procedure, such as initial reading, coding, contextual interpretation, and comparison. Name any software.	“After coding in NVivo, I compare stances across outlets to find consistent patterns and outliers.”
7. Ethics and positionality	Say how you handle consent and data protection if people are involved. Note any personal or cultural factors, including language, that may shape your interpretation (Rose 1997). See Ethics.	“I analyze Korean-language sources as a second-language reader, so I check my interpretations against secondary literature.”
8. Limitations	State the constraints of your approach, such as source availability, language, time, or method.	“I analyze major dailies only, so local outlets may offer framings I do not capture.”
9. Closing	Say how the framework as a whole allows you to answer the question.	“The next chapter applies this framework to the selected corpus.”

Not every project uses formal coding. In historical analysis, interviews, or close reading, part 5 explains how you find and interpret the key evidence. The reader should still be able to see how you get from concepts to observations.

Prefer clear language to complex language, and use each technical term, such as “frame” or “discourse,” in one consistent way. Refer back to your literature review to show how the framework builds on it.

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Common Questions

These questions came from students in my BAKS thesis seminar.

How do I choose among theories? Choose theories that directly help explain your question and guide your interpretation. Trace their foundations only far enough to show that you understand where the framework comes from and why it suits your case.

How do I avoid repeating my literature review? Do not repeat full explanations. Restate the key concept or definition briefly and refer back to where you discussed it.

What if a concept has several definitions? Select the definition that best fits your question and material. Justify the choice by citing key scholars and explaining why that definition is analytically useful for your study.

Can I use blog posts or online messages? Publicly available content can generally be used if it is properly cited and documented. You should still consider potential harm and whether people expect privacy on the platform. Anonymizing usernames may be appropriate for private individuals. Explain briefly how you collected the material.

Where do limitations and future research go? Limitations usually go in a short section near the end of the thesis or within the discussion. Suggestions for future research usually go in the conclusion.

How can I decide this early, when my ideas are still abstract? Make provisional choices based on the best available literature and your question. You can refine the framework as you learn more about the literature and your data.

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A Worked Example

My BAKS seminar handouts apply this outline to a sample thesis on how three South Korean newspapers covered the Yemeni refugee arrivals on Jeju Island in 2018.

• Analytical Framework Guidelines (PDF)
• Worked example on Yemeni refugee media coverage (PDF)

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Sources

• Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x.
• Rose, G. (1997). Situating knowledges: Positionality, reflexivities and other tactics. Progress in Human Geography, 21(3), 305–320. DOI: 10.1191/030913297673302122. On positionality and its limits.