The Unknown urban realm : methodology and results of a content analysis of the papers presented at the Congress ''Citizen and city in the year 2000''

1.1. Methods of document description and analysis The task of describing and analyzing documents for some specific purpose is fairly old and well known. Although many methods have been evaluated and tested, every new problem needs a new kind of procedure. This is not surprising, because documents are very complex phenomena and their analysis depends on numerous considerations about formal characteristics, language, contents, and the role of man in relation to documents. In general there are at least five different approaches to document description: (a) The hermeneutical method. The main approach here is to interpret a document either in the light of its historical position at the time it was produced or from the viewpoint of its meaning today. Another variant of the hermeneutical method is to interpret the author's motives and intentions in writing the document, either by quoting and interpreting the document itself or by comparing it with the biography of the author. All the various kinds of hermeneutical interpretation try to reconstruct some of the conceptualization of the author, using different terms and systems from those of the author. Front Matter....Pages I-VI Introduction....Pages 1-5 Front Matter....Pages 7-7 General Description and Discussion of the Approach....Pages 9-47 Front Matter....Pages 49-49 General Remarks on the Applicability of the Analytical Approach....Pages 51-53 Content Analysis of the Papers Presented at the VIIth Congress of the European Cultural Foundation....Pages 54-132 Summary....Pages 133-144 Back Matter....Pages 145-190 The Urbanization project of Plan Europe 2000, launched by the European Cultural Foundation as a coordinated, interdisciplinary and internationally forward-looking programme of studies. The whole Plan comprises four projects