Communication Research Methodology

A Strategic Approach to Applied Research

Gary Pettey, Cheryl Campanella Bracken, Elizabeth B. Pask

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780415507448
• eBook ISBN: 9781136455575
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This introduction to communication research methods takes the student from the conceptual beginnings of a research project through the design and analysis. Emphasizing the correct questions to ask and how to approach the answers, authors Gary Petty, Cheryl Campanella Bracken, and Elizabeth Babin approach social science methods as a language to be learned, requiring multiple sessions and reinforcement through practice. They explain the basics of conducting communication research, facilitating students' understanding of the operation and roles of research so that they can better critique and consume the materials in their classes and in the media.

The book takes an applied methods approach, introducing students to the conceptual elements of communication science and then presenting these elements in a single study throughout the text, articulating the similarities and differences of individual methods along the way. The study is presented as a communication campaign, involving multiple methodologies. The approach highlights how one method can build upon another and emphasizes the fact that, given the nature of methodology, no single study can give complete answers to our research questions.

Unique features of the text:

• It introduces students to research methods through a conceptual approach, and the authors demonstrate that the statistics are a tool of the concepts.
• It employs an accessible approach and casual voice to personalize the experience for the readers, leading them through the various stages and steps.
• The presentation of a communication campaign demonstrates each method discussed in the text. This campaign includes goals and objectives that will accompany the chapters, demonstrates each individual methodology, and includes research questions related to the communication campaign.

The tools gained herein will enable students to review, use, understand, and critique research, including the various aspects of appropriateness, sophistication and utility of research they encounter.

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Part I

A New Language

Part I of this book discusses the overall process of science (which will continue throughout the book). The first five chapters should be seen as the foundation of the rest of the book and process, but, using our foreign language analogy, we only have some basic nouns and verbs and some of the grammar that we use to connect them.

We start in the Introduction considering the very nature of what science and research mean. We discuss how science has its own language and how some of the public confusion over science and scientific findings arise from confusion between common meanings of words and specific scientific meanings of those words. Finally, we briefly describe some of the historical traditions from which modern science emerges.

Chapter 1 introduces the basics of definition, theory and causality. Concepts are the way we talk about the world. In science, we need clear definitions of what we mean and don’t mean when we use a particular word. We will see that definitions come in three levels, with the one we are most familiar with being largely unuseful. We will see that theory is not someone’s opinion, but rather a set of relationships between carefully articulated concepts. Rather than opinion, theory is the best explanation for what we observe in the world. What causes something is often elusive. We will examine what it takes to be able to say that something is the cause of something else.

Chapter 2 takes the carefully defined ideas (concepts) we discussed in Chapter 1 and now looks at how we can observe these ideas in the world. Observation and measurement in our case are essentially interchangeable. We introduce probably the two most important concepts in science: validity and reliability. We discuss how when someone says something is valid, that really there are several criteria to use to judge such a statement. In the end, it is the degree to which sets of definitions can be seen as valid and reliable, rather than a yes or no answer to the question.

Chapter 3 is probably the toughest chapter in the book—especially if you’ve avoided science and mathematics. This chapter looks how hypothesis testing works. We will see that underpinnings of the process are logic and probability. When you understand this chapter, you will have a basic understanding of how all science works.

Chapter 4 presents the structures and importance of forming questions. We can only attempt to answer the questions we can state. Said another way, being able to state the question is half the battle. We often aren’t certain where to begin, what issues are the important ones? Which issues are not? This selection is about forming the questions. Part of the process is to consider how to select objects for study. How do we form the groups from the population to try to answer the questions we form? Different procedures will select different individuals, and different sets of individuals can lead to different conclusions. This is our first discussion of sampling.

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Finally, Chapter 5 focuses on how to describe groups. Science and research focuses on groups rather than on individuals. We need a way to describe two (or more) groups of individuals. How do we measure a group? This often becomes the basis for describing a group and usually how one group differs from another. Most commonly we use Descriptive Statistics. This will be our venture into the language of statistics, how they are used and what they mean.

HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW

We often start out each methodology class telling students that what they will learn during the semester is a new language. This is a useful model in several ways. Firstly, it assumes that there will be some memorization of terms (vocabulary); secondly, it anticipates that there is a grammar (relationship among concepts and hierarchy); thirdly, it assumes that it will be difficult to get started as we need some basic terms with which to begin building; finally, it should tell the student from the beginning that you will not master this material—in the same way you wouldn’t have a semester of Mandarin and then plan to enroll in a Beijing university. One semester of research, just as a new language, should give you a beginning appreciation of this new culture. So if you’ve had a foreign language, use a similar approach to mastering the new terms—whether it was flash cards or lists. Create study groups where you can practice using this new language. You will pick up some things faster than others, and other students will help you where you could use some clarification. Treat it as a new language and your studies will become clearer. Remember, one definition of a profession is that there is a language (jargon) associated with it. You are about to learn the language of research—and research is the language of applied communication.

We need to find a place to start—to give you some hooks on which we can hang this language. Someone once said that there is no good way to begin learning about science and research because each part is integral to every other part, so let’s begin here: What is science and research?

What Is Science?

The really tricky thing about learning this new language is that we already use many of the terms/concepts in our daily language—this is a problem. So we must unlearn the meanings of many of these terms, as the common usage complicates the understanding of the concept as we use it. So what is research? There is a common use of the word to gather information on a subject. That’s fine as it stands. But research in our language refers to something more specific: the set of procedures one uses to gather information to answer a question. At first blush, this sounds like the common meaning of the word, but two terms need further definition: procedures and question. Procedures refer to some of those things you probably already think about such as surveys and experiments, and we’ll talk more about them later on. For us now, the more important term is: question. This question is not the common use of the term but a specific use: it is the question associated with the scientific method. So that being the case, we need to start with the concept of science. But (aha) what is this concept thingy?

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Concepts are ways we group and talk about the world. Concepts are abstractions. They do not exist. Let’s repeat that. Concepts do not exist. Concepts have real world examples, but concepts are a generalized form of those real world examples. Take a simple (lower level) concept such as chair. We all know what a chair is, don’t we? If we were in a classroom, and we told you to move your chair to one side of the room, you’d probably quite easily follow our instruction and move your seating device to that side of the room. It’s easy because probably in our classroom there is only one form of the concept chair. And even more likely there is only one such device in the classroom that you would classify as “your chair.” But, what if we expanded the scenario a bit? What if you were at your grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving and she told you to go to the living room and bring a chair to the dining room for diner? It is likely that there are a variety of chairs in the living room. Which chair did she mean? Which chair will you choose? Well, in this simple example, there are a variety of chair forms in the living room. Will you bring the sofa? The rocking chair? Why didn’t you bring the antique child’s chair in the corner? Or maybe the soft cushion on the hearth by the fireplace? There are many forms that the concept chair can take, and most of them are dependent on the environment in which we find them. We might sit on a rock camping, a lawn chair at a concert or a theater seat in a movie, yet I think your grandmother would find it surprising if you brought anything but a dining room-type chair or a folding chair to the table. What we’re seeing is that function is often a better way to define things than form—as form (and sometimes a concept) varies by situation.

Chair is a concept. Let’s look briefly at one more. Dog. Imagine dog. You probably can see a dog in your mind’s eye. One such example of dog is a Newfoundlander. So to some, dog is usually black, gentle and large—males can weigh more than 160 pounds. Probably, the dog in your mind’s eye looks different. So what is dog? How would you describe (define) dog to an alien? If you’re clever you’re probably trying to think of the “scientific categorization” of dog. Let us help: Canis lupus familiaris (genus species subspecies). That is clever. But in the next chapter we will see that this is a label definition, a classification. So how would you describe dog? Barks? (Not all.) Four legs and a tail? (cat? cow? T-rex?) Mammal? You get the idea. All this, mostly because we’re trying to define the form of dog. What about the function? Well, some scholars would call the breeds of dog as being the greatest of human creation. All dog breeds are the same biologic dog. They can be interbred as subspecies of wolf; they can even be bred with wolves. So, what differs between them is their form. Humans have perhaps 15,000 years bred dogs for function: one good hunter to another; larger to larger; faster to faster and so on. Over time we have created different breeds that have different form and function: Blood Hounds for tracking; Labradors for hunting and the Newfoundlander for heavy work in and out of the water. So, a better way to describe dog to the alien might be by the functions for which we’ve bred them. No other creature has been shaped in so many ways to assist humans. We will revisit this definition in the next chapter as a way of how concepts are defined.

So, concepts are the building blocks of science. Their definitions are crucial to making discussion and examination of them useful. So, science is then using concepts to describe reality—using abstractions to describe a generalized reality. Let’s hold onto that.

Unfortunately, there is no one definition of science. We must get used to this in science generally. As we get better understandings, things change. Facts change. Science is a human creation to study our environment and ourselves. But the first people to write about science were not scientists, per se. The first writers were philosophers who wrote about many things—but often focused on what we could know and how we’d go about knowing.

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The Evolution of Modern Science

The history of science is a rich and remarkable story. We certainly cannot do it justice here, but we need to introduce two of the main strains of thought. The traditions are often labeled: the French and the German traditions. Each tradition started with...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Communication Research Methodology
• Title
• Copyright
• Praise
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Part I  A New Language
• Part II  Methodologies/Making Observations
• Part III  Data Analysis
• Index