Course Schedule

Because the nature of inquiry is question asking, this course is based around a series of questions. Why do we do academic inquiry? What are the goals of academic inquiry? What are the specific kinds of phenomena or processes that communication researchers study? What does academic inquiry look like? What are the stages of research? How do we start a research project? What are the key ingredients of a research project? How do ethics and broad notions of social responsibility enter into the research process? What does good inquiry look like, and how does this vary across scholarly traditions? There are many approaches to inquiry and each has particular strengths and limitations. What assumptions underlie each approach to research? What are the key interests of researchers in each of these areas?

The readings for this class include articles, most of which are available online, and several options among these books:

1. Grazian, David. Blue Chicago : The Search for Authenticity in Urban Blues Clubs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
OR
 Grindstaff, Laura. The Money Shot : Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
2. Yates, JoAnne. Control through Communication : The Rise of System in American Management, Studies in Industry and Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.
OR
 Fields, Gary. Territories of Profit : Communications, Capitalist Development, and Innovation at G.F. Swift and Dell Computer, Innovations and Technology in the World Economy. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004.
3. Streeter, Thomas. Selling the Air : A Critique of the Policy of Commercial Broadcasting in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
OR
 McChesney, Robert Waterman. Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy : The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

 

January 3
Designing communication inquiry. Handout: Designing Communication Research.

January 8
Ethical Considerations. Do the online IRB training course for social and behavioral sciences, and hand in a printout of the final screen showing that you have completed the modules. Handouts: Sokal Hoax. Christians, C. G. (2000). Chapter 5 (ethics and politics in qualitative research). In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 133-155). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

HUMANISTIC AND QUALITATIVE INQUIRY

January 10
Cultural Studies. Dahlgren, P. (1998). Cultural studies as a research perspective: Themes and tensions. In Corner, Schlesinger, & Silverstone (Eds.), International media research: A critical survey (pp. 48-64). New York: Routledge. Haraway, D. (1990). Teddy bear patriarchy: taxidermy in the garden of eden, New York City, 1908-36, In primate visions: Gender, race and nature in the world of modern science. New York: Routledge. Schudson, M. (1997). Paper tigers: A Sociologist follows cultural studies into the wilderness. Lingua Franca: The Review of Academic Life, 7(6), 49-56.

January 15
No Class.

January 17
Critical Discourse Analysis. Guest speaker Dr. Crispin Thurlow, first hour. Thurlow, C. & Jaworski, A. (2006). The alchemy of the upwardly mobile: Symbolic capital and the stylization of elites in frequent-flyer programmes. Discourse & Society, 17(1), 131-167. Cameron, D. (2000). Styling the worker: Gender and the commodification of language in the globalized service economy. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 4(3), 323-347.

January 22
Participant Observation and Interviews. Guest Speaker, Dr. Dawn Nafus. Handout: Organizing an Interview. Sillars, A. L. (1991). Observational research. In B. M. Montgomery & S. Duck (Eds.), Studying interpersonal interaction (pp. 197-218). New York: The Guilford Press. Barley, S. (1986). "Technology as an occasion for structuring: Evidence from observations of CT scanners and the social order of radiology departments", Administrative Sciences Quarterly, 31, 78-108.

January 24
Rhetorical Criticism. Argumentative Fallacies, Gettysburg Address. Benson, T. W. (1994). Rhetorical structure of Frederick Wiseman's primate. In W. L. Nothstine, C. Blair, & Copeland, G. A. (Eds.), Critical questions. New York: St. Martin's. Fisher, W. D., & O'Leary, S. D. (1996). The rhetorician's quest. In M. B. Salwen & D. W. Stacks (Eds.), An integrated approach to communication theory and research (pp. 243-260). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

January 29
No Class. First half of EITHER Grazian Blue Chicago OR Grindstaff Money Shot.

January 31
Ethnography. Guest speaker Dr. Gina Neff, first hour. Gina David Kirsch and Gina Neff, "The Materiality of Failure: Using Organizational Archeology to Theorize the De-Organized Firm." Second half of EITHER Grazian Blue Chicago OR Grindstaff Money Shot. Book review for these titles due. Sample review of Baym, Tune In, Log On.

COMPARATIVE RESEARCH

February 5
Historical and Archival Approaches. Handout: Types of Evidence. Nord, D. P (2003). The Practise of historical research. In G. H. Stempel III, D. H. Weaver, & G.C. Wilhoit (Eds.), Mass communication research and theory (pp. 362-385). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Guest speaker Dr. Jerry Baldasty, first hour. E.W. Scripps and the Business of Newspapers Gerald J. Baldasty University of Illinois Press, 1999. Introduction (pp 1-8), Chapter 8. Is It Interesting? pp. 120-145 and notes (199-205) and Appendix 2 (pp. 160-164). First half of EITHER Yates Control Through Communication OR Fields Territories of Profit.

February 7
International Comparative and Content Analysis. Guest Speaker: Dr. Randy Beam, first hour. Handout: Coding Guide for Market Orientation. Beam, R (2003). "Content Differences Between Daily Newspapers With Strong and Weak Market Orientations," Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 80, pp. 368-390 OR Neuendorf, K. A. (2002). The Content Analysis Guidebook. Thousand Oaks; London; New Delhi: Sage (Chapter 1, Defining Content Analysis). Second half of EITHER Yates Control Through Communication OR Fields Territories of Profit. Book review for these titles due.

February 12
Communication Policy Analysis. Handout: Major Forms of Cross-Case Research. First half of EITHER Streeter Selling the Air OR McChesney Telecommunications, Mass Media & Democracy. First draft research proposal due.

QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

February 14
Surveys. Handouts: In-Class Survey Design Scenario, 20 Ways To Critique a Political Poll, Frequency and Sampling Distributions. Shoemaker, P. J., & McCombs, M. E. (2003). Survey research. In G. H. Stempel III, D. H. Weaver, & G. C. Wilhoit (Eds.), Mass communication research and theory (pp. 231-251). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231-259.

February 19
No Class. Second half of EITHER Streeter Selling the Air OR McChesney Telecommunications, Mass Media & Democracy.

February 21
Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Research. Guest: Dr. Valerie Manusov, first hour. Handout: Types of Causality. Grabe, M. E., & Westley, B. H. (2003). The controlled experiment. In G. H. Stempel III, D. H. Weaver, & G. C. Wilhoit (Eds.), Mass communication research and theory (pp. 267-298). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Shadish, W., Cook, T. & Campbell, D (2001). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs (Chapter 1 Experiments and Generalized Causal Inference and Chapter 14 A Critical Assessment of our Assumptions: pp. 1-32 and 456-504). New York: Houghton Mifflin. Book review for comparative / policy titles due.

February 26
Network Analysis. Handout: Social Network Analysis Exercise. Emirbayer, M., & Goodwin, J. (1994). Network analysis, culture, and the problem of agency. American Journal of Sociology, 99, 1411-1454. Uzzi, B. (1996). The sources and consequences of embeddedness for the economic performance of organizations: The network effect. American Sociological Review, 61, 674-698.

STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

February 28
Student Presentations.

March 5
Student Presentations.

March 7
Student Presentations. Second draft of research proposals due March 12.

ADDITIONAL TOPICS

Auto-Ethnography. Reed-Danahay, D., Ed. (1997). Auto/Ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social. New York, Berg. Ellis, C. (1995). Final Negotiations: A Story of Love, Loss, and Chronic Illness. Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press. Fine, G. (1999). "Field Labor and Ethnographic Reality." Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 28(5): 532 - 539. Clough, P. (1997). "Autotelecommunication and Autoethnography: A Reading of Carolyn Ellis's Final Negotiations." Sociological Quarterly 38(1): 95-110.

Meta-Analysis. D'Alessio, D. and M. Allenz (2000). Media Bias in Presidential Elections: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Communication 50: 133-156. Lipsey, M. and D. Wilson. Practical Meta-Analysis. Thousand oaks, CA: Sage. Sherry, J. The Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression, A Meta-Analysis. Human Communication Research 27: 409-431. Wolf, F. Meta-Analysis: Quantitative Methods for Research Synthesis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Focus Groups. Krueger, R. and M. Casey (2000). Focus Groups : A Practical Guide for Applied Research. Thousand Oaks, CA, SAGE. Fern, E. F. (2001). Advanced Focus Group Research Thousand Oaks, CA, SAGE.

Fuzzy Set Logic. Chapters 6-8 of Ragin, C. (1987). The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. Berkeley, CA, University of California Press. Ragin, C (2000). Fuzzy Set Social Science, University of Chicago Press.

Internet Research Methods. Burnett, R. and Marshall, P. D. (2003) Web Theory: An Introduction, Routledge, New York. Hine, Christine (Ed), (2006) Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet. New York, Berg.

Unobtrusive Methods. Babbie, Chapter 11, “Unobtrusive Research,” pp. 307 to 332. Kellehear, A. (1993). The Unobtrusive Researcher. London, Allen & Unwin.

Applied Research. Gilner, J. A., & Morgan, G. A. (2000). Research methods in applied settings: An integrated approach (Chapter 2). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum (this is a library e-book, and is found by searching on the name Morgan). HL (Bud) Goodall, J. (2004). "Narrative Ethnography and Applied Communication Research." Journal of Applied Communication Research 32(3): 185-194.

Visual Culture. Goldfarb, Brian. Visual Pedagogy : Media Cultures in and Beyond the Classroom. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. Jewitt, Carey, and Theo Van Leeuwen. Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: SAGE, 2001. Mirzoeff, Nicholas. The Visual Culture Reader. 2nd ed. London ; New York: Routledge, 2002.

Actor-Network Theory. Callon, M. and B. Latour. (1981). Unscrewing the Big Leviathan: how actors macrostructure reality and how sociologists help them to do so. In K. D. Knorr-Cetina and A. V. Cicourel (Eds.) Advances in Social Theory and Methodology: Toward an Integration of Micro- and Macro-Sociologies. Boston, Mass, Routledge and Kegan Paul: 277-303. Star, S.L. (1995b). The politics of formal representations: Wizards, gurus and organizational complexity," Pp. 88-118 in S. L. Star, Ed. Ecologies of knowledge: Work and politics in science and technology. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Activity Theory. Nardi, Bonni. (1996). Context and Consciousness: Activity theory and human-computer interaction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kirsten A. Foot, 'Cultural-Historical Activity Theory as Practical Theory: Illuminating the Development of a Conflict Monitoring Network', Communication Theory, Spring, 2001, Vol. 11, N.1, pp. 56-83.

OTHER RESOURCES

Concept Mapping Tools. IHMC.