Comm. Research

Everyday research

• Casual and intuitive

• Often subjective

• Based on limited samples or experience

Scholarly research

• Organized and methodical

• Uses defined procedures

• Aims for accuracy and reliability

• Tries to minimize bias

• Produces knowledge that others can evaluate or replicate

Cultural Studies and Research

Emphasizes:

• Culture as a site of meaning-making

• Media, language, and everyday practices as worthy of study

Research is shaped by:

• Social position

• Historical moment

• Cultural values

Nietzsche's claim

There are no pure facts, only interpretations

Diachronic

• historical

• Examines change over time

• Focuses on history, development, evolution

In synchronic

• Comparative

• Examines systems at a specific moment

• Focuses on structure, patterns, relationships

Common binaries

• Male/female

• Good/evil

• Nature/history

• Qualitative/quantitative

• Western/eastern

Why are binaries bad

Binaries simplify complex reality

Overt and Covert Oppositions

• Many oppositions in texts are implicit (covert), not directly stated

• Meaning is produced through contrast, not isolation

5 aspects of media communication

1. Intrapersonal

2. Interpersonal

3. Small group

4. Organizational

5. Mass Media

Intrapersonal

• Self-talk

• Internal dialogue

• Journals, reflection

Interpersonal

• One-one-one or small interactions

• Mutual exchange

Small Group

• Teaching, meetings

• Limited interaction due to size

Organizational

• Institutional communication

• Internal/external messaging

Mass Media

• One-to-many communication

• Film, TV, radio, digital media

• Largely narrative-based

How does social media blur boundaries?

• Individuals become mass communicators

• Smartphones enable viral content

• Everyone is a potential producer

What does a lit review do?

summarizes the major findings of scholars and researchers who have conducted research in the area

How do you do a literature search?

Comb through the materials available in the library, databases, and on the Internet for articles, research reports, journals, and books on the subject, and offer a summary of what has been done in the particular area.

What does a lit. search do for you?

1. offers a sense of context for your readers so that they can see how your research fits into the scheme of things

2. shows readers where you got your information and lets them assess how current/reliable it is

Operational

specifies the exact procedures or operations that will be used to measure/identify a concept

Conceptual

defines words in terms of other words and concepts

Research Question

A broad question that a study aims to answer

Hypothesis

a specific, testable prediction about the relationship between variables.

Sampling

selecting a subset of a population to study

Independent Variable

factors that you manipulate or change in your study to see their effect on something else

Dependent Variable

what you measure to see if it is affected by the independent variable

IRB

Institutional Review Board

APA

American Psychological Association

What does the IRB do?

reviews and approves research involving human subjects to ensure it is conducted ethically and in compliance with regulations

Systematic

we count all relevant aspects of the sample, we can not define what aspects get analyzed.

Objective

we seek units for analysis and categorize them using clearly defined criteria.

Manifest

we count what is tangible and observable

nominal

Data is categorized into distinct groups with no inherent order