History of Feminism

Evidence From Prior Content Analyses

The closest parallels to the research at hand are previous content analyses of adult videos. Other media forms used to distribute pornography have also been subject to content analysis, including magazines (Malamuth & Spinner, 1980; Matacin & Burger, 1987; Scott & Cuvelier, 1993) and the Internet (Gossett & Byrne, 2002). Yet we focus here on studies that have explored the content of pornographic videos available for purchase or rental, as the present study was of adult videos only.

Method of Sampling

Content analyses of pornographic videos oftentimes have used sampling methods of conve- nience, limiting their generalizability. Some studies have selected movies from only one adult video locale (Duncan, 1991; Yang & Linz, 1990). Others have used multiple adult movie rental stores and popular rental lists but continued to be bound by geographic location (Cowan et al., 1988). In an attempt to overcome geographic limitations, some researchers have used local branches of national rental chains (Monk-Turner & Purcell, 1999). Only one recent content analysis sampled best-selling adult videos from two mail order international catalogs (McKee, 2005). Sampling adult videos from lists of popular titles is particularly clever if the content analysis aims to describe what most people view, although more specific genres may be explored for other reasons.