A VALUE THEME COMPARISON USING COMPUTERIZED CONTENT ANALYSIS

This study searched for value themes of generation “Y” in their reportage of pre Y2K 1999 and post Y2K 2000 computer bug countdown. The University of Minnesota’s The Daily serves as the social artifact for analysis while The Chronicle of Higher Education serves as an academic elite social artifact. The top value themes found by category frequency count for both papers were the same for pre Y2K 1999—STRONG and Post 2000—ACTIVE. A four group (2 by 2 matrix) chi square test for independence showed significance for frequency count distribution in both papers’ use of a strong value theme in their pre Y2K 1999 articles. The significance of 1999’s pre Y2K top value theme— strong, carried over to The Chronicle’s post Y2K 2000 reportage, but not The Daily’s reportage of post Y2K.