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Professor: Jan MarontateFall 2011

Lab Instructor:Chris JeschelnikSimon Fraser University

Teaching Assistants:School of Communication

Nawal Musleh-Motut & Megan Robertson

CMS 260-3: Empirical Methods for Communications Research

Handout 3: Assignment 2 –Reviewing the Scholarly Literature as Part of Planning a Study

The next three assignments in the course take you through some stages in the research process. You are all asked to work on the same general research topic---attitudes and practices related to the ethics and to etiquette in media use in communication. Within this general area you need to narrow the topic and develop specific research questions, conduct bibliographic research about scholarship related to your specific topic, design ways of collecting information and present an analysis of information you collect.

Choosing a focus for your research

Try to develop a topic that interests you related to contemporary debates about ethical (moral) uses of media and/or polite (or impolite) ways of communicating using different media. Some of the issues are related to the type of content and others to the contexts. There are many recent debates and controversies about media use that could inspire you in your choice of topic.

For example, the issue of “sexting” (sending sexually explicit photos or texts in electronic communications) has become a controversial topic in the news media. Do men and women have different attitudes towards sexting? Do men “sext” more than women?

Another recent debate in BC is related to posting images of people committing crimes (for example, during the riot in Vancouver this summer). Some people claim that it is their duty as citizens to identify criminals. Others raise questions about whether posting pictures violates people’s right to privacy. What attitudes do people have towards posting photos of people committing crimes on the internet? Do they feel differently about posting images of strangers committing crimes than they do about posting images of friends involved in illegal acts?

Another direction might be to study towards ‘good manners” in media use in social contexts. Do people feel that texting or talking on the cellphone during a family dinner or a date is OK? What media are appropriate for breaking up a romantic relationship? Are there variations in attitudes related to age, gender or cultural background? I

If you are interested in recent political events and social movements you might be want to investigate the use of social networking sites by individuals and groups for mobilizing others. Protesters in Tunisia and Egypt made heavy use of them to mobilize demonstrators. Looters used them in England this summer.

Some of you might be interested in studying debates about how media professionals use the media. For example, human rights workers have denounced the use of pictures of starving children in media coverage of famine victims and developed guidelines for picture-taking. How would you study that?

There are many more avenues to explore in studying attitudes and practices related to ethics and etiquette in media use in communication. You might develop other topics related to computer gaming, marketing, surveillance and health. Try to think about issues that interest you when you undertake these assignments and focus on a particular question you would like to study.

Searching the Scholarly Literature and Reviewing a Publication

Conducting a literature search to see what has been published in your research area is an important stage in most research strategies. Assignment 2 asks you to conduct a literature search of published material related to your specific topic to find out what methods other people have used to investigate this topic or ones related to it. (Be sure to try to find examples of empirical research rather than theoretical articles.) The primary objective of the assignment is to help you develop skills for gathering information about published scholarly research findings.

Chapter 4 of your textbook gives a general presentation of some of the ways of investigating how other scholars have conducted research and how you can build on their research in your own work.

Part One: Looking for scholarly literature on topics that interest you.

For this part of the assignment you should learn to use the library resources at SFU to find out how other scholars have studied questions related to the topic you plan to study. Sylvia Roberts, the area librarian in communication will be conducting workshops on September 22 to introduce you to some of the library resources.

Use the opportunity to ‘think about’ your idea for a topic that interests you related to the general theme of the ethics and etiquette of media use and to find out ways other people have studied topics related to your specific interests. Here are the steps recommended for the first part of this assignment:

  1. Use the SFU library resources to find five articles published in scholarly journals that are related to your topic using one of the article databases. (Do not use Google for this). The articles should involve empirical research, not just theory. Now do a search in Google Scholar on your topic and look at the results. Which, if any, might be appropriate for you to study given the information in the google search results?
  1. Make a list of the citations of the five publications you selected using one of the citation formats listed in Chapter 4 (p. 68).
  1. Read the abstracts of the articles or book chapters and write a short annotation for each based on the abstracts describing why this might or might not be relevant to your topic on the basis of this partial knowledge of the article contents.
  1. Prepare a written report on you search (2 pages):

This should include a one page discussion of your search followed by a list of citations in one of the styles illustrated in your textbook. Your discussion should present:

  1. the topic you choose to research (one paragraph)
  2. a description of your search of the scholarly literature including information about which databases and the search terms you used;
  3. what you learned about scholarly research related to your topic from reading the abstracts and what methods others have used in their research.

Reviewing a Scholarly Article

Read one of the articles or the report by Rideout et al. (2010) in the liston page 4 of this handout.Identify which one you have read and prepare a brief (2 page) discussion of the research questions and methodology the author(s) used. When reading the text prepare to describe and evaluate them by thinking about the points in the table below. Note that all of the points will not be applicable to every type of research.

Description / Evaluation
Topic/Research Question / What is the topic and the main point of the analysis? what are the aims and intended uses of the research? Is it related to existing literature? How? / How clearly do the authors introduce the topic and outline the main points? How well is it related to existing literature or to a stated purpose?
Source of Data/Information / How was the information obtained? / Are the data-gathering procedures clearly described? Is the method appropriate for the topic? Why or why not?
Sample (or choice of field site or cases) / What kind of sampling procedure was used? Or if a field study or case study how was the site or case chosen? Why? / Who or what is included or omitted? Is the sample, site or case appropriate? Why or why not? How might the sample, site or case selection affect the findings?
Time Frame / How is time treated in the study? / What are the limitations of the time frame used? Is it appropriate?
Unit of analysis / What is the unit of analysis? / Is this appropriate?
Variables and Main Concepts / What are the variables or concepts under study? How are they defined (conceptually) and measured? / Are the conceptual and operational definitions appropriate?
Hypotheses or area of investigation / What is (are) the hypotheses (hypotheses) being tested? Or in qualitative work what are the areas of investigation? / Were the data used to test the hypothesis appropriate? Why or why not? Were the hypotheses confirmed by the analysis? In field work were the informants and situations observed appropriate for the area of investigation?
Conclusions / What is/are the main conclusion(s) / Does the evidence presented support the conclusions adequately? Explain

Choose one of the following texts to read and review:

Barker, Valerie and Ota, Hiroshi (2011) “Mixi Diary versus Facebook Photos: Social Networking Site use among Japanese and Caucasian American Females” Journal of Intercultural Communication Research. 40(1): 39-63

Dimmick,John, John Christian Feaster and Gregory J. Hoplamazian (2010) “News in the interstices: The niches of mobile media in space and time”, New Media Society 13: 23 originally published online 18 May 2010

DOI: 10.1177/1461444810363452

Dowding, Martin R. (2011) “Interpreting Privacy on Campus: The Freedom of Information and Personal Privacy Act and Ontario Universities” Canadian Journal of Communication 36(1):11-30

Fahmy, S and S. Roedl. (2010) "Lessons from Virginia Tech: Exploring Disparities & Commonalities Between Visual Coverage in US Newspapers & Victims' Families' Perceptions". Visual Communication Quarterly. Vol. 17 (2): 91-107.

Hancock,Jeff, Jeremy Birnholtz, Natalya Bazarova, Jamie Guillory, Josh Perlin, and Barrett Amos (2009): "Butler lies: awareness, deception and design", Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: 517-526

Juul,Jesper (2009) “Fear of Failing? The Many Meanings of Difficulty in Video Games” in Mark J. P. Wolf & Bernard Perron (eds.)The Video Game Theory Reader 2. New York: Routledge: 237-252.

Rideout, Victoria, Ulla G. Foehr and Donald F. Roberts, (2010) Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds. Menlo Park, California: Kaiser Family Foundation. (Focus on the Key Findings and Methodology sections).

(Retrieved on August 31 from

Wysocki, Diane and Cheryl Childers (2011) ‘‘Let My Fingers Do the Talking’’: Sexting and Infidelity in Cyberspace." Sexuality and Culture 15:217-239.