Introduction To Communication Research

Introducing Communication Research: Paths of Inquiry, Fourth Edition demystifies the theories and applications of communication research through its focus on methods in practice. Offering an overview of the research process with a focus on examples of research in real-world settings, Donald Treadwell and Andrea Davis introduce both quantitative and qualitative methods.

This volume provides a graduate-level introduction to communication science, including theory and scholarship for masters and PhD students as well as practicing scholars. The work defines communication, reviews its history, and provides a broad look at how communication research is conducted. It also includes chapters reviewing the most frequently addressed topics in communication science. This book presents an overview of theory in general and of communication theory in particular, while offering a broad look at topics in communication that promote understanding of the key issues in communication science for students and scholars new to communication research. The book takes a predominantly "communication science" approach but also situates this approach in the broader field of communication, and addresses how communication science is related to and different from such approaches as critical and cultural studies and rhetoric. As an overview of communication science that will serve as a reference work for scholars as well as a text for the introduction to communication graduate studies course, this volume is an essential resource for understanding and conducting scholarship in the communication discipline.

This essential textbook provides a clear and authoritative introduction to qualitative and quantitative methods for studying media and communication. Written by two highly experienced researchers, the book draws on a wide range of media and communication research to introduce students to the relative strengths of the different research approaches. Beginning with an overview of the changing contexts and trends in media and communication research approaches, the book demystifies 'research' and the 'research process' by offering practical and accessible guidance on how to design, plan and carry out successful research projects in media and communication. This is an indispensable text for all students of media and communication studies, particularly those undertaking their own research projects or taking modules in research methods.

This introductory research text trains students to develop research arguments by designing studies, gathering research evidence, and thinking critically about them. This textbook is ideal for the student with little or no research background. Fundamental research issues are discussed in detail and provide building blocks for further study, giving students both comfort and knowledge. This textbook is designed to teach students how to "do scholarship" by making reasoned cases and offering research conclusions. The fourth edition features a complete updating of examples and revision of treatments of key concepts to maintain the timeliness of the book in the fast-changing world of communication studies research.

This publication aims to introduce undergraduate students to the research practices of communication science, with the emphasis on fundamental and basic research.

"This introductory research text trains students to gather research evidence, develop research arguments, and think critically about them. This textbook is ideal for the student with little or no research background. Fundamental research issues are discussed in detail and provide building blocks for further study, giving students both comfort and knowledge. This textbook is designed to teach students how to "do scholarship" by making reasoned cases and offering research conclusions."

In the second edition of this widely-used introductory text John Fiske draws upon the main authorities in the field, from Shannon and Weaver'sCommunication Theoryto Saussure's structural linguistics and Peirce'sSemiotics. He examines the two main schools: seeing communication as the encoding, transmission, and decoding of messages; and viewing communication as the generation of meanings.

In this book, Arthur Asa Berger combines a practical focus, the use of numerous examples, a step-by-step approach, and humour to examine both qualitative and quantitative research methods in media and communication research.