Applied Communication Research Methods
- LAST REVIEWED: 19 July 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 29 May 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0225
- LAST REVIEWED: 19 July 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 29 May 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0225
Introduction
The field of mass communication is strongly shaped by the early role of professional education in the discipline. Early mass communication scholars were often housed in schools of journalism. Broadcasting, advertising, and public relations all followed. As such, the connection between research and application has long been an important aspect of training in methods. While mass communication scholars are expected to be familiar with the core practice of social science research, they also speak to a professional audience. Textbooks and general guides in methods are written to help guide both scholars and practitioners. Additionally, specific research techniques are applicable to professional practice. Advertising and marketing professionals need to be familiar with a number of tools that can help them evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of a chosen message or campaign. Journalists are called upon to report polling, and they increasingly use data to report on the news and construct compelling narratives. In general, content creators seek to quantify their audiences and measure engagement. Finally, as the sheer volume of research grows ever larger, journalists must understand and explain this material, communicating the methods and dilemmas of science to their audience. The relevant bibliographic resources are varied. Many of them are textbooks and similar guides to broad principles or specific techniques. Others are discussions within the industry about best practices and the merits of particular tools. Still others are academic scholarship, providing evidence about the efficacy of methods, the breadth of their adoption, or the consequences of their use.
General Overviews
Anyone looking to use or evaluate research needs to be familiar with the basic terminology and perspectives that guide scientific research and, in particular, the social sciences. Most of the books in this section are textbooks, offering a review of the field as a whole to a general audience; this includes Boyle and Schmierbach 2015; Croucher and Cronn-Mills 2014; Jugenheimer, et al. 2015; Lindlof and Taylor 2017; and Pettey, et al. 2017. Each has its own strengths as a resource. The exception is Mathes 2017, which is an edited encyclopedia. Compared to the others, this resource is written in greater depth and is geared toward a more advanced audience, but the entries are vital references. The best references are easy to navigate and allow the interested reader to focus on the specific terms they need to understand.
Boyle, M., and M. Schmierbach. 2015. Applied communication research methods: Getting started as a researcher. New York: Routledge.
This is a broad textbook, with material on both qualitative and quantitative methods, although the latter is more of a focus. Organized in part as a glossary, with distinct entries for each key term, it is particularly easy to navigate. It also presents exercises and interviews that link concepts to professional practice.
Croucher, S. M., and D. Cronn-Mills. 2014. Understanding communication research methods: A theoretical and practical approach. New York: Routledge.
The authors offer a comparison between different perspectives on the goals of research and the nature of evidence, and a major component of the text is based upon detailed information about specific methods and the types of arguments that can be made based upon those techniques.
Jugenheimer, D. W., L. D. Kelley, J. Hudson, and S. Bradley. 2015. Advertising and public relations research. New York: Routledge.
This textbook is more narrowly focused, presenting the key principles of research methods through the lens of advertising and public relations practice. As such, most of the methods described are particularly applicable to those fields, and the examples given generally focus on advertising-related problems.
Lindlof, T. R., and B. C. Taylor. 2017. Qualitative communication research methods. 4th ed. Los Angeles: SAGE.
By focusing on qualitative research, this book provides a more detailed explanation of each stage of a qualitative research project. In particular, it offers more information about how to record, process, and present data to an audience, and is thus of particular use to a professional who might feel comfortable conducting a focus group or similar study, but is less sure how to summarize it for an audience.
Mathes, J., ed. 2017. The international encyclopedia of communication research methods. 3 vols. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
This edited encyclopedia covers an impressive array of topics. It includes detailed discussions of specific statistical procedures, software tools, and data gathering techniques, but also more philosophical discussions of important concepts in research. Most of the material is too detailed and technical to be the first resource used, but it is an excellent resource for details about a topic mentioned elsewhere in passing.
Pettey, G., C. C. Bracken, and E. B. Pask. 2017. Communication research methodology: A strategic approach to applied research. New York: Routledge.
This textbook primarily focuses on quantitative techniques, though it includes a discussion of qualitative research. It puts less emphasis on specific methods and more on understanding the underlying logic and procedures that scientific studies share.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Accounting Communication
- Acculturation Processes and Communication
- Action Assembly Theory
- Action-Implicative Discourse Analysis
- Activist Media
- Adherence and Communication
- Adolescence and the Media
- Advertisements, Televised Political
- Advertising
- Advertising, Children and
- Advertising, International
- Advocacy Journalism
- Agenda Setting
- Annenberg, Walter H.
- Apologies and Accounts
- Applied Communication Research Methods
- Argumentation
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advertising
- Attitude-Behavior Consistency
- Audience Fragmentation
- Audience Studies
- Authoritarian Societies, Journalism in
- Bakhtin, Mikhail
- Bandwagon Effect
- Baudrillard, Jean
- Blockchain and Communication
- Blogs
- Bourdieu, Pierre
- Brand Equity
- British and Irish Magazine, History of the
- Broadcasting, Public Service
- Capture, Media
- Castells, Manuel
- Celebrity and Public Persona
- Censorship
- Civic Duty
- Civil Rights Movement and the Media, The
- CNN
- Co-Cultural Theory and Communication
- Codes and Cultural Discourse Analysis
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Collective Memory, Communication and
- Comedic News
- Communication Apprehension
- Communication Campaigns
- Communication, Definitions and Concepts of
- Communication History
- Communication Law
- Communication Management
- Communication Networks
- Communication, Philosophy of
- Community Attachment
- Community Journalism
- Community Structure Approach
- Computational Journalism
- Computer-Mediated Communication
- Content Analysis
- Corporate Social Responsibility and Communication
- Crisis Communication
- Critical and Cultural Studies
- Critical Race Theory and Communication
- Cross-tools and Cross-media Effects
- Cultivation
- Cultural and Creative Industries
- Cultural Imperialism Theories
- Cultural Mapping
- Cultural Persuadables
- Cultural Pluralism and Communication
- Cyberpolitics
- 3D Media
- Death, Dying, and Communication
- Debates, Televised
- Deliberation
- Developmental Communication
- Diffusion of Innovations
- Digital Divide
- Digital Gender Diversity
- Digital Intimacies
- Digital Literacy
- Diplomacy, Public
- Distributed Work, Comunication and
- Documentary and Communication
- E-democracy/E-participation
- E-Government
- Elaboration Likelihood Model
- Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM)
- Embedded Coverage
- Entertainment
- Entertainment-Education
- Environmental Communication
- Ethnic Media
- Ethnography of Communication
- Experiments
- Families, Multicultural
- Family Communication
- Federal Communications Commission
- Feminist and Queer Game Studies
- Feminist Data Studies
- Feminist Journalism
- Feminist Theory
- Focus Groups
- Food Studies and Communication
- Freedom of the Press
- Friendships, Intercultural
- Gatekeeping
- Gender and the Media
- Global Englishes
- Global Media, History of
- Global Media Organizations
- Glocalization
- Goffman, Erving
- Habermas, Jürgen
- Habituation and Communication
- Health Communication
- Hegemony
- Hermeneutic Communication Studies
- Heuristics
- Homelessness and Communication
- Hook-Up and Dating Apps
- Hostile Media Effect
- Identification with Media Characters
- Identity, Cultural
- Image Repair Theory
- Implicit Measurement
- Impression Management
- Indexing
- Infographics
- Information and Communication Technology for Development
- Information Management
- Information Overload
- Information Processing
- Infotainment
- Innis, Harold
- Instructional Communication
- Integrated Marketing Communications
- Interactivity
- Intercultural Capital
- Intercultural Communication
- Intercultural Communication, Tourism and
- Intercultural Communication, Worldview in
- Intercultural Competence
- Intercultural Conflict Mediation
- Intercultural Dialogue
- Intercultural New Media
- Intergenerational Communication
- Intergroup Communication
- International Communications
- Interpersonal Communication
- Interpersonal LGBTQ Communication
- Interpretation/Reception
- Interpretive Communities
- Journalism
- Journalism, Accuracy in
- Journalism, Alternative
- Journalism and Trauma
- Journalism, Citizen
- Journalism, Citizen, History of
- Journalism Ethics
- Journalism, Interpretive
- Journalism, Peace
- Journalism, Tabloid
- Journalists, Violence against
- Knowledge Gap
- Language Ecology
- Lazarsfeld, Paul
- Leadership and Communication
- LGBTQ+ Family Communication
- LGBTQ+ People and Media Industries
- Mass Communication
- McLuhan, Marshall
- Media Activism
- Media Aesthetics
- Media and Time
- Media Bias
- Media Convergence
- Media Credibility
- Media Dependency
- Media Ecology
- Media Economics
- Media Economics, Theories of
- Media, Educational
- Media Effects
- Media Ethics
- Media Events
- Media Exposure Measurement
- Media, Gays and Lesbians in the
- Media Literacy
- Media Logic
- Media Management
- Media Policy and Governance
- Media Regulation
- Media, Social
- Media Sociology
- Media Streaming
- Media Systems Theory
- Merton, Robert K.
- Message Characteristics and Persuasion
- Mobile Communication Studies
- Muckraking
- Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Approaches to
- Multinational Organizations, Communication and Culture in
- Murdoch, Rupert
- Narrative
- Narrative Engagement
- Narrative Persuasion
- Net Neutrality
- News, Fake
- News Framing
- News Media Coverage of Women
- NGOs, Communication and
- Online Campaigning
- Open Access
- Organizational Change and Organizational Change Communicat...
- Organizational Communication
- Organizational Communication, Aging and
- Parasocial Theory in Communication
- Participation, Civic/Political
- Participatory Action Research
- Patient-Provider Communication
- Peacebuilding and Communication
- Perceived Realism
- Personalized Communication
- Persuasion and Social Influence
- Persuasion, Resisting
- Photojournalism
- Political Advertising
- Political Communication, Normative Analysis of
- Political Economy
- Political Knowledge
- Political Marketing
- Political Scandals
- Political Socialization
- Polls, Opinion
- Priming
- Product Placement
- Propaganda
- Proxemics
- Public Interest Communication
- Public Opinion
- Public Relations
- Public Sphere
- Queer Intercultural Communication
- Queer Migration and Digital Media
- Race and Communication
- Racism and Communication
- Radio Studies
- Reality Television
- Reasoned Action Frameworks
- Religion and the Media
- Reporting, Investigative
- Rhetoric and Communication
- Rhetoric and Intercultural Communication
- Rhetoric and Social Movements
- Rhetoric, Religious
- Rhetoric, Visual
- Risk Communication
- Rumor and Communication
- Schramm, Wilbur
- Science Communication
- Scripps, E. W.
- Selective Exposure
- Semiotics
- Sense-Making/Sensemaking
- Sesame Street
- Sex in the Media
- Small-Group Communication
- Social Capital
- Social Change
- Social Cognition
- Social Construction
- Social Identity Theory and Communication
- Social Interaction
- Social Movements
- Social Network Analysis
- Social Protest
- Sports Communication
- Stereotypes
- Strategic Communication
- Superdiversity
- Surveillance and Communication
- Symbolic Interactionism in Communication
- Synchrony in Intercultural Communication
- Tabloidization
- Telecommunications History/Policy
- Television
- Television, Cable
- Textual Analysis and Communication
- Third Culture Kids
- Third-Person Effect
- Time Warner
- Transgender Media Studies
- Transmedia Storytelling
- Two-Step Flow
- UNESCO
- United Nations and Communication
- Urban Communication
- Uses and Gratifications
- Video
- Video Deficit
- Video Games and Communication
- Violence in the Media
- Virtual Reality and Communication
- Visual Communication
- Web 2.0
- Web3 and Communication
- Web Archiving
- Webcare
- Whistleblowing
- Whiteness Theory in Intercultural Communication
- WikiLeaks
- Youth and Media
- Zines and Communication