Table Of Contents:

• Preface to the Fifth Edition
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Round Up the Usual Suspects
• Applying the Focal Points Model to Media
• How I Became a Man Without Quantities
• Data Man Versus Data-Free Man
• Kinds of Questions Researchers Ask
• Conclusions of a Man Without Quantities, Who Is Also a Practicing Theoretician
• Introduction: Applications and Exercises
• PART I. GETTING STARTED
• 1. What Is Research?
• We All Do Research, All the Time
• Scholarly Research Is Different From Everyday Research
• Cultural Studies and Research
• Nietzsche on Interpretation
• Problem of Certainty
• Diachronic and Synchronic Research
• The Way the Human Mind Works
• Overt and Covert Oppositions
• Thinking, Fast and Slow
• Quantity and Quality in Media Research
• Media and Communication
• Why a Book That Teaches Both Methodologies?
• Considering Research Topics
• What Is Research? Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 2. The Research Process
• Search Strategies
• Sources of Information
• How to Read Analytically
• Critical Thinking
• Critical Thinking as Defined by the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, 1987
• Doing a Literature Review
• Primary and Secondary Research Sources
• Searching on the Internet (or “Find the Info If You Can!”)
• Using the Internet to Conduct Research
• Analyzing Methodology in Research Articles
• The Research Process: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• PART II. METHODS OF TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
• 3. Semiotic Analysis
• Saussure’s Division of Signs Into Signifiers and Signifieds
• Semiotics of Blondeness
• Semiotics and Society
• Peirce’s Trichotomy: Icon, Index, and Symbol
• Allied Concepts
• Michel Foucault on Codes and Cultural Change
• Marcel Danesi on Codes and Culture
• Clotaire Rapaille on Culture Codes
• Semiotics in Society: A Reprise
• Syntagmatic Analysis of Texts
• Paradigmatic Analysis of Texts
• Applications of Semiotic Theory
• Paul Ekman on Facial Expression
• Semiotics: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 4. Rhetorical Analysis
• Aristotle on Rhetoric
• Rhetoric and the Mass Media
• A Brief Note on the Communication Process
• Certeau on Subversions by Readers and Viewers
• Applied Rhetorical Analysis
• A Miniglossary of Common Rhetorical Devices
• Other Considerations When Making Rhetorical Analyses
• A Sample Rhetorical Analysis: A La Mer Advertisement
• Rhetorical Analysis of the Visual Image
• Images in Narrative Texts
• Gangsta Rap and American Popular Culture
• Rhetorical Analysis: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 5. Ideological Criticism
• Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia
• Defining Ideology
• Marxist Criticism
• Roland Barthes on Mythologies
• The Problem of Hegemony
• The Base and the Superstructure, False Consciousness, and the “Self-Made Man and Woman”
• Post-Soviet Marxist Criticism
• Society of the Spectacle
• Basic Ideas in Marxist Criticism
• A Marxist Interpretation of the Fidji “Snake” Advertisement
• John Berger on Glamour
• Identity Politics
• Feminist Criticism of Media and Communication
• The Social Conception of Knowledge
• Phallocentric Theory: The Physical Basis of Male Domination
• Political Cultures, the Media, and Communication
• Pop Cultural and Media Preferences of the Four Political Cultures
• Marxist Perspectives on Social Media
• A Preview of Critical Discourse Analysis
• Ideological Criticism: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 6. Psychoanalytic Criticism
• Freud’s Contribution
• Smartphones and the Psyche: Applying the Theories of Erik Erikson
• Smartphones and the Self
• Neuropsychoanalysis: Freud and Neuroscience
• Jungian Theory
• Psychoanalytic Criticism: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 7. Discourse Analysis
• Defining Discourse Analysis
• Teun A. van Dijk on Discourse Analysis
• Spoken and Written Discourse
• Styles and Written Discourse
• Political Ideologies and Discourse Analysis
• Critical Discourse Analysis
• Advertising and Critical Discourse Analysis
• Multimodal Discourse Analysis
• Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis
• Fashion and Discourse Analysis
• A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of an Advertisement
• Discourse Analysis: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• PART III. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
• 8. Interviews
• The Prisoner Interviews Number Two
• What Is an Interview?
• Four Kinds of Research Interviews
• Why We Use Interviews
• How to Interview People
• Kinds of Questions
• Questions Investigative Reporters Ask
• The Structure of Conversations and Interviews
• Transcribing Recorded Interviews
• Making Sense of Transcribed Interviews
• Coding
• Problems With Interview Material
• Interviews: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 9. Historical Analysis
• What Is History?
• History as Metadiscipline or Specialized Subject
• Is History Objective, Subjective, or a Combination of the Two?
• The Importance of Fernand Braudel
• Kinds of Historical Research
• The Problem of Writing History
• The Problem of Meaning
• Historical Periods
• Baudrillard and Jameson on Postmodernism
• Postmodernism and Historiography
• The Historical and the Comparative Approach
• History Is an Art, Not a Science
• Doing Historical Research
• Historical Analysis: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 10. Ethnomethodological Research
• Defining Ethnomethodology
• Garfinkel’s Ingenious and Mischievous Research
• Norbert Wiley’s Interesting Perspective on Harold Garfinkel
• Using Ethnomethodology in Media and Communication Research
• Metaphors and Motivation
• Love Is a Game
• Humorists as Code Violators
• Techniques of Humor
• Ethnomethodology and the Communication Process
• Ethnomethodological Research: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 11. Participant Observation
• Defining Participant Observation
• Significant Considerations When Doing Participant Observation
• A Case Study of Participant Observation: Readers of Romance Novels
• Problems With Participant Observation
• Benefits of Participant Observation Studies
• Making Sense of Your Findings
• Writing Up a Participant Observation Study
• An Ethical Dilemma
• Ethics and Research Involving Humans
• Participant Observation: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• PART IV. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
• 12. Content Analysis
• Defining Content Analysis
• Why We Make Content Analyses
• Methodological Aspects of Content Analysis
• Aspects of Violence
• Advantages of Content Analysis as a Research Method
• Difficulties in Making Content Analyses
• Content Analysis Step-By-Step
• Content Analysis: Applications and Exercises
• A Cautionary Note From Denis McQuail
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 13. Surveys
• Defining Surveys
• Kinds of Surveys: Descriptive and Analytic
• The VALS Typology Survey
• Methods of Data Collection
• Advantages of Survey Research
• Problems With Surveys
• Surveys and the 2012 Presidential Election
• Surveys and the 2016 Presidential Election
• A Note on Media Usage Surveys: Shares and Ratings
• Open-Ended and Closed-Ended Survey Questions
• Writing Survey Questions
• Making Pilot Studies to Pretest Surveys
• Conducting Online Surveys
• Samples
• Obtaining Random Samples
• Evaluating Survey Accuracy
• Surveys: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 14. Experiments
• Everyday Experimentation
• Defining Experiments
• The Structure of an Experiment
• The Hawthorne Effect
• Advantages of Experiments
• Disadvantages of Experiments
• The “Black Rats” Case and Experimental Fraud
• A Checklist on Experimental Design
• What’s an Experiment and What Isn’t?
• Ethics and the Facebook Experiment
• Experiments: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 15. A Primer on Descriptive Statistics
• Levels of Measurement
• Descriptive Statistics
• Measures of Central Tendency
• Measures of Dispersion
• The Normal or Bell-Shaped Curve
• The Problem With Ratings
• A Cautionary Note on Statistics
• Using Statistics to Support a Claim
• Statistics and Comparisons
• Data on Media Use in America
• Smartphones
• The Problem of Interpretation
• Statistics and Problems Caused by Definitions
• Statistics: Applications and Exercises
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• PART V. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
• 16. Nineteen Common Thinking Errors
• Common Fallacies
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• 17. Writing Research Reports
• Keeping a Journal
• A Trick for Organizing Reports
• Outlines, First Drafts, and Revisions
• Writing Research Reports
• The IMRD Structure of Quantitative Research Reports
• Writing Correctly: Avoiding Some Common Problems
• Academic Writing Styles
• A Checklist for Planning Research and Writing Reports
• Conclusions
• Further Reading
• Glossary
• References
• Name Index
• Subject Index
• About the Author