Communication: Applied Communication Research

There's bias and subjectivity just about everywhere* yet we long for an objective & rational way to understand things -here's where the deep body of the scholarly conversation comes in the form of peer-reviewed articles, conference presentations, books (of course), etc.

*If you ask a sociomateriality scholar, then it is irreducibly everywhere we can observe :-)

Polling/Surveys/Public Opinion

Pew Research Center 
Roper iPoll
CQ Magazine
Gale Opposing Viewpoints 
google contextual search tip!
      opinion polling:food
      public survey:cosplay
      statistics:food trucks

Academic/Scholarly/Peer Reviewed Databases

Communication & Mass Media Complete (great!)
Sociological Abstracts (sociology & social work -one of my favorites)
PsycINFO (psychology, but with many applications in social sciences)
Education Full Text & ERIC (education, family development)
Business Source Premier (business)
EconLit
PAIS (public policy and analysis)
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (politics)

OTHER STUFF: NOT NECESSARILY SCHOLARLY -BUT GOOD!

IBISWorld Market Research -like reading a bank report on a particular industry
Social Explorer -access U.S. Census data in a graphic format -quick start video
 

SAMPLE KEYWORD STRINGS

beliefs OR values OR identity OR culture OR community

"social media" OR tiktok OR facebook OR instagram

Looking for research methods in scholarship is easy! Let's look at some of the chapters of your textbook and experiment with the library search interface and different keywords -change stuff around and see what you find! All of the links are sample searches for the library catalog.
(YouTube primer for this exercise)

Semiotic Analysis (sample: semiotic* OR "semiotic analysis" AND restaurant* OR grocer* OR "street food" OR "food truck*")

Rhetorical Analysis (sample: rhetoric OR "rhetorical analysis" AND public AND bathroom)

Data Visualization (sample: "data set" AND "baby boomer*") note: want help with the "visualization" part?

Participant Observation (sample: "participant observation" AND festival OR "farmers market" OR "community event")

Usability Test (sample: "usability test" OR "usability testing" OR "user experience test*" OR "UX test*" AND website*) Note! since there were so many books on this topic -I narrowed by "articles" only -how can you do this, too?

Surveys (sample: survey OR surveys AND cosplay OR comicon OR "comic convention" OR "pop culture convention")

Brief review of what Dale did in class to narrow to recent stuff, peer reviewed stuff, etc.

Semiotic Analysis
Signs and symbols used to create meaning
pink hair symbolizes youthfulness and non-comformity

Rhetorical Analysis
Strategies of the communicator (rhetor) that aren't necessarily what is directly being said
"Jesus cries when you don't brush your teeth" is logical fallacy and a rhetorical appeal to fear

Participant Observation
Researcher observes and notes people in a natural setting
when the train became full, conversations became more likely as people were pressed together

Usability Test
Observing users when they interact with a specific product or service
many of the older users became frustrated with the interface and gave up

Survey
What, if any, is your religious affiliation?
Jedi. (note, answering "Jedi" is a census phenomenon!")