Automating Content Analysis With Multiple LLM Agents: Impacts of Agent Attributes and Human–AI Collaboration
Emerging research in computational social science has applied LLMs to automate content analysis, often by prompting a single model to act as a human coder. While a single LLM may suffice for a few manifest variables, it still falls short on diverse latent constructs. And the impact of LLM agent attributes on measurement outcomes remains unclear, limiting their validity for communication research. Drawing upon the literature on interacting agents and communication, this study examines the impact of agent diversity, agent open-mindedness, and human–AI collaboration (HAIC) in a multi-LLM-agent system for automated content analysis. The results demonstrate reliable and accurate measurement of four communication variables across three datasets, with improved performance following agent discussion. Additionally, agent open-mindedness, but not agent diversity, significantly affects measurement outcomes. These results highlight the potential of multi-LLM-agent systems for automated content analysis and suggest the importance of considering agent attributes and values in system design.