Methods

Content Analysis

CONTENT ANALYSIS
SURVEYS / SOCIAL MEDIA
SRI® / REPUTATION INDEX
REPUTATION CONCEPT

commsLAB’s reports and analyses are primarily based on the continuous content analysis of a selected set of leading media outlets across both online and offline channels. The media sample is tailored to the specific requirements of each project. Data collection is conducted in close collaboration with the fög – Research Center for the Public Sphere and Society (fög) at the University of Zurich, ensuring a data foundation that meets current social science quality standards.

Data is collected through manual content analysis. Compared to purely automated approaches, this method relies predominantly on human coding, allowing for greater reliability and a lower error rate. Fully automated procedures are not yet able to achieve the same level of quality.

The selected items are coded by trained analysts in accordance with scientifically established protocols, supported by automated control procedures. To ensure a valid, reliable, and intersubjectively reproducible data foundation, data collection is accompanied by scientific quality assurance processes.

 

 

Surveys and Social Media

commsLAB’s ambition, however, is also to enable companies and organisations to systematically integrate — or analyse in an integrated manner — media-based reputation data, network-driven social media data, and survey-based stakeholder data (e.g. general population, customers).

 

commsLAB therefore offers integrated processing and analysis of its own reputation data, combined with data — typically already available within organisations — from social media and stakeholder surveys. For targeted implementation, tailored dashboards are available via commsPORTAL. 

 

On request, commsLAB also handles the collection of social-media data and, in particular, the conduct of representative population surveys. This ensures that these are methodologically and substantively aligned with the media-based reputation analyses.

 

Sedimented Reputation Index® (SRI®)

The main indicator is the Sedimented Reputation Index® (SRI®), developed by commsLAB AG and the fög – Research Center for the Public Sphere and Society at the University of Zurich.The SRI® captures historically evolved reputation as anchored in public memory, enabling the depiction of long-term, sedimented developments.

 The SRI® is based on the premise that reputation is influenced not only by current events but also, to varying degrees and over time, by past events.

  • The SRI® thus operates according to a logic similar to that of a share price or market value.
  • Sedimented resonance functions as a measure of public anchoring, comparable to market capitalisation.
  • Reputation corridors indicate the range of reputation levels that can realistically be expected for an organisation.
  • The SRI® enables a precise description of reputation dynamics and links them to the key issues (reputation drivers).

Reputation Concept commsLAB / fög

The secret of a good reputation lies in the difficult balance between conformity — i.e. meeting functional and social expectations — and differentiation, i.e. the authentic cultivation of a distinct identity.

The illustration shows commsLAB's reputation concept

Media reputation (incl. social media) focuses primarily on the fulfilment of functional and social expectations and can — unlike the public image — also be determined retrospectively and on a daily basis.

The public image is primarily a measure of popularity and shows the expressive strength of the profile.