"Mixed Methods Perspectives on Communication and Social Media Research addresses the need for a discipline-cum-methodology-tailored book that navigates the current research spectrum of communication and social media ("CommSocMed"). It examines contemporary and relevant issues that intertwine the exp
...
ansive spheres of CommSocMed. Authored by professionals with extensive academic and in-depth research and industry experience, the book highlights research-based themes that mirror qualitative and quantitative methodologies vis-à-vis socio-cultural, political, educational, and organisational issues and challenges. The first two sections present the mutually interwoven disciplines of CommSocMed where research works cover a comprehensive range of designs such as narrative analysis, case study, recombinant memetics, discourse analysis, visual semiotics, ethnography, content analysis, feminist theory, descriptive-survey, descriptive-correlational, model-building/testing, experimental, and mixed methods. The third section is a concluding segment which synthesises all the scholarly contributions in this volume." (Publisher description)
more
"Whatever level of experience you have, this classic text will provide you with the key skills you need to complete a visual methods research project, understand the rationale behind each step, and engage with the contexts and power relations that shape our interpretation of visual images. With a cl
...
ear step-by-step approach that is easy to dip in and out of, the book features: key examples in every methods chapter to demonstrate how the methods work in practice and with different visual materials; 'focus’ and ‘Discussion’ features that help you practice your skills at specific parts of the methods and understand some of the method’s complexities; guidance on researching using digital visual media, such as Instagram and TikTok, integrated throughout the book." (Publisher description)
more
"Social media platforms are increasingly looked at as means to investigate social phenomena like collective events, issues or causes. Digital methods – techniques exclusively focused on online data and shaped by the environment hosting these data – have become part and parcel of these investigat
...
ions, often approaching platforms as hybrid assemblages of users, infrastructures, and algorithms. In its ‘online groundness’, this type of digital methods research, however, often tends to skim over the socio-cultural, contextual dimension of both wider social phenomena and social media uses and practices. In this paper, we advance a threefold contribution aimed at both sparking future efforts to address this limitation and aligning digital methods inquiry with contemporary epistemological debates that counter universalistic views of platforms and data. First, we question the degree to which digital methods can inform social investigations of collective events, issues or causes. Second, we advance a digital methods paradigm that addresses platforms as socio-cultural artifacts rather than hybrid assemblages. Finally, by reflecting on how we accessed, handled, and explored 9,000 Instagram visuals and around 400,000 Facebook comments to understand influences on middle class understandings of food consumption in Brazil and South Africa, we illustrate a way to design culturally sensitive digital methods research built on ‘quanti-quali’ practices." (Abstract)
more
"Die Rezeption von Filmen und Fernsehsendungen ist sowohl vom Wissen und den Emotionen der Zuschauer:innen als auch von sozialen Kontexten abhängig. Es reicht daher nicht aus, die "Sprache" von Film und Fernsehen zu analysieren, sondern es müssen auch die Form, die Gestaltung, die Dramaturgie und
...
der Inhalt auf die Kontexte der Rezeption bezogen werden. Dieses Standardwerk von Lothar Mikos ist eine erprobte Anleitung zur Durchführung von Film- und Fernsehanalysen. In der 4. Auflage neu hinzugekommen sind u. a. eine Beispielanalyse zum transmedialen Storytelling in der Echtzeiterzählung "DRUCK" sowie ein Vergleich zur transatlantischen Narration in den Serien "Borgia" und "Die Borgias". (Verlagsbeschreibung)
more
"This report aims to introduce techniques and procedures of NLP (Natural Language Processing), the computational preparation and analysis of text data, to map the public voice and aid development. First, the report introduces essential concepts of communication and elaborates on the theoretical foun
...
dations of natural language analyses. Second, the report reviews research on NLP of social media text data by showcasing studies that have applied the techniques to the Sustainable Development Goals. Third, the report reviews specific NLP techniques, including data preprocessing, and dicusses libraries and programming procedures. It also reviews concepts such as keyword extraction to identify relevant terms, topic modeling to detect common themes, and text classification to recognize language features. These NLP techniques are showcased in two case studies. The first shows how topic modeling can be applied to derive insights on the public debate over climate change in Australia. The second demonstrates how text classification can be leveraged to analyze public sentiment on COVID-19 in the Philippines. Finally, the report discusses the challenges and limitations, as well as the potentials, of NLP." (Foreword)
more
"Controversy Mapping is the first book to introduce readers to the observation and representation of contested issues on digital media. Drawing on actor-network theory and digital methods, Venturini and Munk outline the conceptual underpinnings and the many tools and techniques of controversy mappin
...
g. They review its history in science and technology studies, discuss its methodological potential, and unfold its political implications. Through a range of cases and examples, they demonstrate how to chart actors and issues using digital fieldwork and computational techniques." (Back cover)
more
"Internet access is exploding around the world. In the 10 years up to 2021, the proportion of people around the world with access to the internet grew from 33 to 63%, and by 2022 the number of active social media users hit 4.62 billion. Policymakers and opinion formers have an opportunity to tap int
...
o the wealth of digital media intelligence that is created and to use that intelligence to advance a sustainable development agenda. But like any research practice, gathering digital media intelligence has its challenges. In this briefing we describe some of the pitfalls and how to avoid them, drawing on examples from a partnership between IIED and Marble Global, a digital research consultancy that works with organisations seeking to affect positive change." (Page 1)
more
"[This book] guides the reader in what different kinds of qualitative research can be applied to social media data. It introduces students, as well as those who are new to the field, to developing and carrying out concrete research projects. The book takes the reader through the stages of choosing d
...
ata, formulating a research question, and choosing and applying method(s). Written in a clear and accessible manner with current social media examples throughout, the book provides a step-by-step overview of a range of qualitative methods. These are presented in clear ways to show how to analyze many different types of social media content, including language and visual content such as memes, gifs, photographs and film clips. Methods examined include critical discourse analysis, content analysis, multimodal analysis, ethnography and focus groups. Most importantly, the chapters and examples show how to ask the kinds of questions that are relevant for us at this present point in our societies, where social media is highly integrated into how we live. Social media is used for political communication, social activism, as well as commercial activities and mundane everyday things, and it can transform how all these are accomplished and even what they mean. Drawing on examples from Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Weibo and others, this book will be suitable for undergraduate students studying social media research courses in media and communications, as well as other humanities such as linguistics and social science based degrees." (Abstract)
more
"Thoroughly revised and updated, this third edition integrates perspectives from the social sciences and the humanities, focusing on methodology as a strategic level of analysis that joins practical applications with theoretical issues. The Handbook comprises three main elements: historical accounts
...
of the development of key concepts and research traditions; systematic reviews of media organizations, discourses, and users, as well as of the wider social and cultural contexts of communication; and practical guidelines with sample studies, taking readers through the different stages of a research process and reflecting on the social uses and consequences of research. Updates to this edition include: an overview of the interrelations between networked, mass, and interpersonal communication; a new chapter on digital methods; three chapters illustrating different varieties of media and communication research, including industry–academic collaboration and participatory action research; presentation and discussion of public issues such as surveillance and the reconfiguration of local and global media institutions." (Publisher description)
more
"Shaped by academic fields, industries, national contexts, technologies and platforms, and languages and cultures, for over two decades netnography has impacted the research practices of scholars around the world. In this volume, thirty-two researchers present nineteen chapters that examine how they
...
have adapted netnography and what those changes can teach us. Positioned for students and researchers in academic and professional fields, this book examines how we can better use netnographic research to understand the many ways networked technologies affect every element of contemporary business life and consumer existence. Netnography Unlimited provides an unprecedented new look at netnography. From COVID-19 to influencer empathy, gambling and the Dark Web to public relations and the military, AI and more-than-human netnography to video-streaming and auto-netnography, there has never been a wider or deeper treatment of technocultural netnographic research in one volume. Readers will learn what kind of work they can do with netnography and gain an up-to-date understanding of the most pressing issues and opportunities." (Publisher description)
more
"Development Research in Practice: The DIME Analytics Data Handbook is intended to teach all users of development data how to handle data effectively, efficiently, and ethically. An empirical revolution has changed the face of development research over the last decade. Increasingly, researchers are
...
working not just with complex data, but with original data—data sets collected by the research team itself or acquired through a unique agreement with a project partner. Research teams must carefully document how original data are created, handled, and analyzed. These tasks now contribute as much weight to the quality of the evidence as the research design and the statistical approaches do. At the same time, empirical research projects are expanding in scope and scale: more people are working on the same data over longer time frames. For that reason, the central premise of this book is that data work is a “social process,” which means that the many people on a team need to have the same ideas about what is to be done, when, where, and by whom so that they can collaborate effectively on a large, long-term research project." (Introduction)
more
"In this review of the literature I have attempted to show how researchers in different areas of communication have conceptualized and operationalized trust and trust-related concepts. Trust has been associated most with the concept of credibility, but other words that have been used to operationali
...
ze it include believability, accuracy, honesty, truthfulness, trustworthiness, sincerity, competence, expertise, reliability, and goodwill, to name some. The concept of trust, just as credibility, is multi-dimensional, and it seems to depend on the context, the person, and the task that is evaluated, as one may not necessarily trust another with a personal secret but may trust that person to complete a work-related task well. As might have become evident to the reader, our discipline's interest in measuring trust has been mostly utilitarian: trust as a means to an end (e.g., persuasion, credibility, and effectiveness of the communicator, to name some). While not all of the trust-related research in communication has been self-serving, it has focused mostly on the benefits that communicators can derive from growing others' trust in them, and less on the benefit that the act of trusting may have on others beyond the communicator, or other possible outcomes stemming from trust. One of the few exceptions has been in the instructional communication literature, where measures of trust have been used to study levels of student satisfaction, development and learning; interpersonal communication, where measures of trust have been used to study satisfaction in relationships between friends and romantic partners; and health communication, where communicating trust in the patient-provider interaction can increase the patient's self-awareness and sense of well-being. The mostly transactional and utilitarian view of trust that has dominated so far is perhaps a reflection of the increased professionalization of the discipline, the need for practical applications within the business setting and the cultures that sustain them and are in turn sustained by them. It would be interesting for future research to consider trust from the perspective of the person who is doing the trusting what impact does trust have on them beyond being persuaded and returning as consumers of information and products? It would be interesting for future research to approach the study of trust from that perspective as well as from non-traditional (read non-Western/Anglo-Saxon) socioeconomic and cultural perspectives." (Conclusion, page 21)
more
"This set of questions offers a framework for buyers to use when evaluating the offerings of different online sample providers. It updates and replaces the 2012 ESOMAR publication, 28 Questions to Help Buyers of Online Samples. The questions identify the key issues to consider, introduce consistent
...
terminology, explain why each question should be asked, and note the issues buyers should expect to be covered in an answer. The intended use of these questions is that they form a basis for a conversation between buyer and sample provider, rather than simply being used as a checklist to compare offerings across providers. The questions do not cover B2B samples, nor do they attempt to cover specific requirements for different types of research such as pricing, new product development, ad testing etc. When online access panels were first introduced in the 1990s, the model was relatively simple: a buyer provided sampling specifications to a panel owner who drew a sample (from that panel). Over the intervening 25 years, online sample selection has changed in two fundamental ways. First, buyers can now access a a broader set of sources that now includes participants in loyalty programmes and rewards communities within “Get Paid To’ sites, customer lists, intercepts from offer walls, affiliate networks, social media, and other platforms, as well as traditional panels that may or may not be owned by the provider. Second, buyers have the option to access these sources directly via self-service tools, rather than relying on a sample provider to generate the sample on their behalf. There have been other important changes as well. Online research has become truly global and mobile devices have become a common data collection platform. The use of online samples has broadened beyond surveys to include qual/quant applications, communities, passive data collection, and so on. Concerns about privacy and data protection have led to a much-changed regulatory environment that imposes new requirements on both sample buyers and sample providers. Quality assurance techniques have become increasingly sophisticated. As a consequence, the number of issues that buyers must consider when choosing a sample provider has increased substantially." (Purpose and scope, page 3)
more
"This guideline describes the ethical responsibilities of researchers, regardless of the type of organisation in which they work, when engaged in primary data collection, that is, when collecting data from or about a data subject for the purpose of research. It includes quantitative and qualitative
...
methods that involve direct questioning of data subjects, but also methods of passive data collection in which the researcher observes, measures or records an individual’s actions or behaviour. In all cases the key distinguishing features of primary data collection are (a) some direct interaction with data subjects (such as to gain consent) and (b) the purpose being research. Methodologies included, but not limited to, are surveys, focus groups, in-depth interviews, ethnographic studies and some forms of observational research, including mystery shopping. Its audience includes anyone conducting research in any setting. This guideline also is meant to provide guidance for those who commission research to ensure that they are fully aware of their responsibilities and to set expectations about what is and is not possible given established ethical and legal requirements." (Introduction, page 4)
more
"Radio shows which invite audience participation via short message service (SMS)—interactive radio–SMS—can be designed as a mixed methods approach for applied social research during COVID-19 and other crises in low and middle income countries. In the aftermath of a cholera outbreak in Somalia,
...
we illustrate how this method provides social insights that would have been missed if a purely qualitative or quantitative approach were used. We then examine the strengths and limitations associated with interactive radio–SMS through an evaluation using a multimethod comparison. Our research contributes an application of a mixed methods approach which addresses a specific challenge raised by COVID-19, namely utilizing media and digital technologies for social research in low and middle income countries." (Abstract)
more
"This open access handbook presents a multidisciplinary and multifaceted perspective on how the 'digital' is simultaneously changing Russia and the research methods scholars use to study Russia. It provides a critical update on how Russian society, politics, economy, and culture are reconfigured in
...
the context of ubiquitous connectivity and accounts for the political and societal responses to digitalization. In addition, it answers practical and methodological questions in handling Russian data and a wide array of digital methods. The volume makes a timely intervention in our understanding of the changing field of Russian Studies and is an essential guide for scholars, advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying Russia today." (Publisher description)
more