Summary
Contents
Krippendorff introduces social scientists to information theory and explains its application for structural modeling. He discusses key topics such as: how to confirm an information theory model; its use in exploratory research; and how it compares with other approaches such as network analysis, path analysis, chi square and analysis of variance. Information Theory simplifies and clarifies a complex but powerful statistical method for analysing multivariate qualitative data. It will serve both as a textbook and as a sourcebook for researchers in communication theory, information theory and systems theory.
Exploration
Exploration
In an exploratory mode of analysis we search among models that possess certain specified structural properties to find those with an optimal balance between the two conflicting criteria of simplicity and goodness of fit. Inasmuch as the search presupposes little about the data under consideration, exploration may ...