Experience of content analysis technique design of peasant life reflection in Siberian periodicals of early 20 century (newspaper "Vostochnoe Obozrenie", January 1905)

We developed a method of content analysis of unstructured information of periodicals published before the Revolution time. The analysis is made on the basis of the newspaper ''Vostochnoe Obozrenie'' of January 1905. The developed content analysis tool can also be used for investigation of modern machine readable periodicals. It will give an additional chance to the researchers to compare it with the modernity of the investigations of contemporary phenomena and processes of past time (for example, rural life or public opinion). Using concrete historical example we were able to test how a modern method of linguistic analysis can clarify the known information or reveal new information and to facilitate the review of previous views. The method of content analysis on the topic "peasant life" was based on the separation of lexical indicators-markers on the context-dependent and context-independent. Lexical indicators can be interpreted as subtopics or secondary topics within the primary one. From the linguistic point of view, they are interpreted as hyponyms in relation to hyperonym "Peasantry". Context-independent lexical indicators mark phenomena, objects and processes that are unique to rural life. These markers do not show the historical context of interactions of the peasantry with different spheres of life and phenomena outside of agriculture and the countryside. Context-independent lexical indicators mark specificity and uniqueness of life and mentality of the Russian peasantry in the history of the period under study. Context-sensitive lexical indicators mark phenomena, objects and processes that are not only unique to country life, but also provide the historical context of interactions of the peasantry with different spheres of life and phenomena outside of agriculture and rural life. We have 59 invariant lexical indicators of the theme "peasant life." 31 of them display context-independent, and 28 - context-sensitive indicators. Thematic intent-analysis that we made at the next stage of the study allowed us to identify 14 themes of peasant life: "rural poverty", "hunger", "development of capitalism in the Siberian village", "control of the Siberian village", "crime", "ethnic conflicts", "rural people's drunkenness", "rural people's health", "education for rural people", "charity", "environment (deforestation)'', "Siberian character", "agricultural reform''. These themes can be grouped into five blocks of generalizing: economy, politics, social relations, culture and future of the Siberian countryside. For each topic we identified intention of perception of events by correspondents who are the authors of the newspaper articles. The intentions are the direction and mindsets of consciousness. Most often intentions are embodied in the text explicitly or implicitly in clear pronunciations of assessments, declarations, explanations of the main ideas, sense of metaphors, allegories and insinuations. A structured analysis of the source did not give reason to doubt the existing approaches to understanding the history of Siberian peasants, but made additional method to organize the vast array of specific historical information in the press.

Keywords

Authors

References