Comprehensive, innovative, and focused on the undergraduate student, this textbook prepares students to read and conduct research. Using an engaging how-to approach that draws from scholarship, real-life, and popular culture, the book offers students practical reasons why they should care about research methods and a guide to actually conduct research themselves. Examining quantitative, qualitative, and critical research methods, the textbook helps undergraduate students better grasp the theoretical and practical uses of method by clearly illustrating practical applications. The book defines all the main research traditions, illustrates key methods used in communication research, and provides level-appropriate applications of the methods through theoretical and practical examples and exercises, including sample student papers that demonstrate research methods in action.
This introduction to communication research methods takes the student from the conceptual beginnings of a research project through the design and analysis. Emphasizing the correct questions to ask and how to approach the answers, authors Gary Petty, Cheryl Campanella Bracken, and Elizabeth Babin approach social science methods as a language to be learned, requiring multiple sessions and reinforcement through practice. They explain the basics of conducting communication research, facilitating students’ understanding of the operation and roles of research so that they can better critique and consume the materials in their classes and in the media. The book takes an applied methods approach, introducing students to the conceptual elements of communication science and then presenting these elements in a single study throughout the text, articulating the similarities and differences of individual methods along the way. The study is presented as a communication campaign, involving multiple methodologies. The approach highlights how one method can build upon another and emphasizes the fact that, given the nature of methodology, no single study can give complete answers to our research questions. Unique features of the text: It introduces students to research methods through a conceptual approach, and the authors demonstrate that the statistics are a tool of the concepts. It employs an accessible approach and casual voice to personalize the experience for the readers, leading them through the various stages and steps. The presentation of a communication campaign demonstrates each method discussed in the text. This campaign includes goals and objectives that will accompany the chapters, demonstrates each individual methodology, and includes research questions related to the communication campaign. The tools gained herein will enable students to review, use, understand, and critique research, including the various aspects of appropriateness, sophistication and utility of research they encounter.
Communication research is evolving and changing in a world of online journals, open-access, and new ways of obtaining data and conducting experiments via the Internet. Although there are generic encyclopedias describing basic social science research methodologies in general, until now there has been no comprehensive A-to-Z reference work exploring methods specific to communication and media studies. Our entries, authored by key figures in the field, focus on special considerations when applied specifically to communication research, accompanied by engaging examples from the literature of communication, journalism, and media studies. Entries cover every step of the research process, from the creative development of research topics and questions to literature reviews, selection of best methods (whether quantitative, qualitative, or mixed) for analyzing research results and publishing research findings, whether in traditional media or via new media outlets. In addition to expected entries covering the basics of theories and methods traditionally used in communication research, other entries discuss important trends influencing the future of that research, including contemporary practical issues students will face in communication professions, the influences of globalization on research, use of new recording technologies in fieldwork, and the challenges and opportunities related to studying online multi-media environments. Email, texting, cellphone video, and blogging are shown not only as topics of research but also as means of collecting and analyzing data. Still other entries delve into considerations of accountability, copyright, confidentiality, data ownership and security, privacy, and other aspects of conducting an ethical research program. Features: 652 signed entries are contained in an authoritative work spanning four volumes available in choice of electronic or print formats. Although organized A-to-Z, front matter includes a Reader’s Guide grouping entries thematically to help students interested in a specific aspect of communication research to more easily locate directly related entries. Back matter includes a Chronology of the development of the field of communication research; a Resource Guide to classic books, journals, and associations; a Glossary introducing the terminology of the field; and a detailed Index. Entries conclude with References/Further Readings and Cross-References to related entries to guide students further in their research journeys. The Index, Reader’s Guide themes, and Cross-References combine to provide robust search-and-browse in the e-version.
This volume provides an essential roster of primary research methods as they apply to health communication inquiry. Editor Bryan B. Whaley brings together key health communication researchers to write about their primary methodological areas. Their chapters offer guidance and insights for a variety of approaches to answering research questions. The methods included here cover: Exploration and Description: interview/focus groups, case study, ethnography, and surveys; Examining Messages and Interpersonal Exchanges: narrative analysis, conversational analysis, analyzing physician-patient interactions, social network analysis, and content analysis; Causal Explication: experimental research, meta-analysis, and meta-synthesis; and Cultural, Population, and Critical Concerns: rhetorical methods and criticism, and methodological issues when investigating stigmatized populations, and groups with health disparities. Chapters cite or use examples from allied health areas -- nursing, public health, sociology, medicine -- to demonstrate the breadth of health communication studies. This work highlights the importance of methodology in health communication research in multiple contexts. Developed to provide a fundamental reference for investigating health communication, this volume will serve as an invaluable tool for researchers and students across the social science and health disciplines.
This essential set brings together leading articles on the three major domains of the communication process: 1) Institutions/Organisations/Production; 2) Content/Representation; and 3) Audiences/Consumption.
"While most books on statistics seem to be written as though targeting other statistics professors, John Reinard′s Communication Research Statistics is especially impressive because it is clearly intended for the student reader, filled with unusually clear explanations and with illustrations on the use of SPSS. I enjoyed reading this lucid, student-friendly book and expect students will benefit enormously from its content and presentation. Well done!" --John C. Pollock, The College of New Jersey Written in an accessible style using straightforward and direct language, Communication Research Statistics guides students through the statistics actually used in most empirical research undertaken in communication studies. This introductory textbook is the only work in communication that includes details on statistical analysis of data with a full set of data analysis instructions based on SPSS 12 and Excel XP. Key Features: Emphasizes basic and introductory statistical thinking: The basic needs of novice researchers and students are addressed, while underscoring the foundational elements of statistical analyses in research. Students learn how statistics are used to provide evidence for research arguments and how to evaluate such evidence for themselves. Prepares students to use statistics: Students are encouraged to use statistics as they encounter and evaluate quantitative research. The book details how statistics can be understood by developing actual skills to carry out rudimentary work. Examples are drawn from mass communication, speech communication, and communication disorders. Incorporates SPSS 12 and Excel: A distinguishing feature is the inclusion of coverage of data analysis by use of SPSS 12 and by Excel. Information on the use of major computer software is designed to let students use such tools immediately. Companion Web Site! A dedicated Web site includes a glossary, data sets, chapter summaries, additional readings, links to other useful sites, selected "calculators" for computation of related statistics, additional macros for selected statistics using Excel and SPSS, and extra chapters on multiple discriminant analysis and loglinear analysis. Intended Audience: Ideal for undergraduate and graduate courses in Communication Research Statistics or Methods; also relevant for many Research Methods courses across the social sciences
Over the last decade there has been a growing use of qualitative research methods in the study of social and cultural change. Incorporating theoretical insights from discourse analysis, ethnograohy and reception theory such research has proven a fruitful and enlightening mode of analysis.The Handbook represents the first volume devoted to the utilization of such methods in mass media research. It includes contributions from those at the forefront o communication studies who apply a developing methodology to media contents, contexts and audiences. Among others, Gaye Tuchman writes on news production, Dave Morley and Roger Silverstone on media audiences, and Horace Newcombe applies qualitative methods to television drama.In view of the rapid changes which the media environment is now undergoing, the books systematic overview of qualitative research methods will benefit commercial organisations as well as academic institutions.
This handbook covers perspectives from both the social sciences and the humanities. It provides guidelines for how to think about, plan, and carry out studies of media in different social and cultural contexts.
Communication Research Methods introduces students to the what, why, and how of research in the field of communication studies. In accessible terms, the authors walk readers through the theoretical and practical aspects of a research project, from making claims about topics in need of investigation to designing valid methods for collecting and analyzing data to reporting findings. The research-as-argument model at the centre of this approach emphasizes the importance of proceeding from a claim to a conclusion in a logical and straightforward manner, with particular emphasis on behaving ethically at all stages of the process. Covering an array of quantitative and qualitative methods as well as Canadian research and regulation, this comprehensive guide gives students the tools they need to evaluate and pursue communication research in Canada.
