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.
"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
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.
In this critical examination of the beginnings of mass communications research in the United States, written from the perspective of an educational historian, Timothy Glander uses archival materials that have not been widely studied to document, contextualize, and interpret the dominant expressions of this field during the time in which it became rooted in American academic life, and tries to give articulation to the larger historical forces that gave the field its fundamental purposes. By mid-century, mass communications researchers had become recognized as experts in describing the effects of the mass media on learning and other social behavior. However, the conditions that promoted and sustained their authority as experts have not been adequately explored. This study analyzes the ideological and historical forces giving rise to, and shaping, their research. Until this study, the history of communications research has been written almost entirely from within the field of communications studies and, as a result, has tended to refrain from asking troubling foundational questions about the origins of the field or to entertain how its emergence shaped educational discourse during the post-World War II period. By examining the intersection between the individual biographies of key leaders in the communications field (Wilbur Schramm, Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, Hadley Cantril, Stuart Dodd, and others) and the larger historical context in which they lived and worked, this book aims to tell part of the story of how the field of communications became divorced from the field of education. The book also examines the work of significant voices on the rise of mass communications study (including C. Wright Mills, William W. Biddle, Paul Goodman, and others) who theorized about the emergence of a mass society. It concludes with a discussion of the contemporary relevance of the theory of a mass society to educational thought and practice.
Merrigan and Huston's COMMUNICATION RESEARCH METHODS is a timely introduction to the communication research methods course. This engaging, student-friendly text presents a unique and fully developed teaching model of research as argument that connects researchers' claims, data, and warrants, or background reasoning. The text incorporates a tremendous range of examples from published communication studies that provide students with current, relevant, and practical illustrations of key concepts.
This exciting collection of papers represents some of the finest communications research published over the last decade. To mark the 20th anniversary of the European Journal of Communication, a leading international journal, the editors have selected 21 papers, all of which make significant and valuable interventions in the field of media and communications. The volume is prefaced with an introduction by the editors and will be a central research text for scholars in this field.
The manuscript discusses the early days of communication research, explicitly the first works of Paul Lazarsfeld’s radio and media research in Vienna, Newark, NJ, Princeton and New York during the years between the early 1930s, and the end of the 1940s. Lazarsfeld’s Viennese radio research, especially the world’s first extensive audience research – RAVAG study (1931) – is entirely new information for English speaking scholars. The book shows the details of Lazarsfeld’s methodological reasoning in his projects in the field of communication. The book also presents the research institutes that Lazarsfeld founded in Vienna in 1931, from Newark Center in New Jersey (1935) to Princeton Office of Radio Research in 1937, and up to the foundation of Lazarsfeld’s famous BASR at Columbia University in New York in the 1940s. The monograph shows how important Lazarsfeld’s first studies were for the future development of communication.
A hands-on guide for applying research methods to common problems, issues, projects, and questions that communication practitioners deal with on a regular basis, this text demonstrates the relevance of research in professional roles and communication and media careers. The second edition features updated material that covers major communication research methods including surveys, experiments, focus groups, and observation research while also providing key background information on ethics, validity, reliability, concept explication, statistical analysis, and other current topics. It continues to foster student engagement with research through its numerous features and practical activities, including: Research in Depth—examples of methods as applied in scholarly research Reflect & React—problems and issues that promote reflection and discussion Voices from Industry—Q&As with professionals working in communication industries End-of-Unit Activities—exercises that reinforce concepts and content The text is ideally suited to both undergraduate and graduate courses in mass communication research methods. Online resources, including sample syllabi, PowerPoint slides, and test banks are available on the companion website: www.routledge.com/cw/boyle.
Originally published in 1988. Step-by-step, this book leads students from problem identification, through the mazes of surveys, experimentation, historical/qualitative studies, statistical analysis, and computer data processing to the final submission and publication in scientific or popular publications.
