Qualitative Analysis: Collocations and Contextual Reading

After having examined the relative frequency of specific keyword categories and a first look at some of the keywords in the congressional material, the analysis of political and public discourse around technological progress and its impact on the economy in the USA will now turn to a more in-depth examination of certain terms and themes. The following analysis will look at collocations of the different terms before turning to a close contextual reading of the congressional hearings and media articles. In the contextual analysis of the terms, certain specific hearings and articles will be presented in more depth than others in order to give examples of the use of the terms in context and to identify overarching themes in which the terms occur. The hearings and articles were chosen because the identified terms (automation, digitization, future of work, platform economy) occurred in the text (either once or several times) and were then grouped around certain thematic topics the hearings or articles were concerned with. The material from the Senate, the House of Representatives, the media sources containing The New York Times (NYT), and Washington Post material, as well as the material from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), will be discussed separately.