Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Communication Research Methods effectively balances how to understand research with how to conduct research. Its most compelling feature is its explanatory power: it makes research understandable to an audience that may not go on to graduate school or higher-level research."--Sandra L. French, Radford University "This is the only textbook in the field that provides a general survey of research methods through a commonsense foregrounding of qualitative research."--Jay Brower, Western Connecticut State University "Communication Research Methods provides a very detailed historical explanation of the development and current use of various communication research methodologies."--Richard C. Emanuel, Alabama State University
Table of ContentsPart 1. The What and Why of Communication Research 1. Introduction to Communication Research 2. Three Paradigms of Knowing 3. Ethics and Research Part 2. How to Explain and Predict Communication 4. Making Arguments for Association and Causality 5. Measuring and Designing Quantitative Social Science Research 6. Experimental Research: Predicting Causes and Effects 7. Survey Research: Explaining and Predicting Attitudes and Behaviors 8. Content Analysis: Explaining and Interpreting Message Categories 9. Analyzing and Interpreting Quantitative Data 10. Conversation Analysis: Explaining Talk's Structure and Function Part 3. How to Interpret, Evaluate and Reform Communication11. Making Arguments for Multiple Plausible Realities 12. Interviews and Focus Groups: Interpreting Guided Responses 13. Ethnography: Interpreting and Evaluating Cultural Communication 14. Discourse Analysis: Interpreting & Evaluating Language-in-Use 15. Rhetorical Criticism: How to Interpret Persuasive Texts and Artifacts 16. Critical Studies: Evaluating and Reforming Ideologies
