Get the big picture

A great way to get an overview of your topic is to visit Questia, the world’s largest online library where you can read full-text articles and books on hundreds of subjects. Within the topic of communication you’ll find such categories as:

• Film
• Legal and ethical issues in journalism
• Advertising
• Linguistics
• Written language

You can continue to drill down by category and gain a focus that will frame your approach and make research and writing easier. For example, in the category of legal and ethical issues in journalism you will find several sub-categories including the fairness doctrine. Further exploration will present you with books and articles such as The First Amendment under Siege: The Politics of Broadcast Regulation by Richard E. Labunski.

You’ll be able to read a sample from the book including this excerpt from the Introduction, “The special position that the First Amendment is granted in our system is a recognition of the paramount importance of the free exchange of ideas to self-government. Freedom of speech and press provisions of the First Amendment are designed to prevent interference with the exchange of information if citizens are to make intelligent decisions when choosing public officials and shaping policy.”

Find your resources at school

If you’re a student or teacher, be sure to check with your school librarian for a list of available resources. Many libraries subscribe to research databases such as EBSCO and LexisNexis where you can search for and read articles from a multitude of sources.

You may also find that your school hosts a web page with a list of online resources such as one from the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Department of Communication Studies. Its list of resources related to communication studies includes links to sites on advertising, digital media, and visual communication.

On the Web

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism creates its annual State of the News Media report, which in 2011 included a survey on how people use mobile technology to get local news.

A great resource for those interested in journalism is JournalistResource.org where resources abound for journalists, instructors and students. If you’re interested in research, you may want to read John Wihbey’s interview of Alison Head in his January 27, 2012 post titled, “Research chat: Information scientist Alison Head on student habits.” Head, a lead researcher of the University of Washington’s Project Information Literacy examines how students seek information.

“Yet educators may be surprised to learn that the most difficult part of course-related research is the beginning of the process, especially framing a research problem. When we surveyed more [than] 8,300 students at 25 U.S. institutions in 2010, more than 80% of respondents reported they had the most difficulty getting started on course-related research assignments. Another 66% could not define a research topic or narrow it,” Head explained.

Trade associations

College students who are preparing for a career in communications or journalism would do well to join a professional association such as the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s). Students can usually join such organizations at a discount rate and take advantage of numerous resources as well as the chance to meet and make connections with those who are established in the industry.

The 4A’s site hosts three blogs, one of which, the Inkblot is, “Less of a blog and more of a journal of ideas and observations, this is a place where industry professionals can share their thoughts on the state of the industry, where consumers can learn more about the creators of the products, brands, and campaigns they interact with every day, where advertising executives can mete out their knowledge and expertise, and where clients can visit to gain perspective on the effectiveness of campaigns.”

Search expert Barbara G. Friedman emphasizes the importance of knowing how to evaluate Web site reliability in her book Web Search Savvy: Strategies and Shortcuts for Online Research (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005, 158). In Credibility at a Glance, she notes that one “quick measure of a Web site’s credibility is to look at the domain.”

Barbara G. Friedman explains:

Many journalists apply a hierarchy of trust when judging the credibility of a site. It’s actually not all that different from the standards applied to traditional information sources. For example, government information is considered the most reliable, probably because there are copious checks of (and restrictions on) the contents of federal .gov sites, and of the individuals who develop and maintain them. The Web sites of U. S. Senators, for example, must meet with restrictions set forth by the Secretary of the Senate, and are monitored for compliance by the Senate Webmaster. Military sites also rank high on the trust scale, for the same reason.

Following “.gov” and “.mil” sites, university sites are among the most trusted. Academia is a fiercely competitive profession. Research that includes questionable or inaccurate data is challenged quickly and loudly. The contents of peer-reviewed journals are representative of the best research in a particular field. Keep in mind however, when using “.edu” sites that they can also be the personal pages of students and staff members. In that case, the credibility of a site’s content diminishes.

To learn where .org, .net and .com sites fall within this hierarchy of trust, check out Credibility at a Glance.

One critical factor to consider is “creator bias.” As Stebbins explains, “Every primary source has a creator and every creator has a point of view or bias. The bias in a source does not render it useless, but must be factored in when evaluating the information contained in a source. A photograph, for example, even before the days of computerized airbrushing, is influenced by the bias of the creator. Settings can be manipulated or the photographer can choose to take some pictures of an event and not others. When reading or viewing a primary source it is important to consider who the creator was and what their relationship was to the event or situation being recorded.”

Researchers, Stebbins notes, can ask questions like these:

• What was the creator’s view or purpose?
• What did the creator include and not include in his or her reporting?
• Was the source created on the spur of the moment or was more thought put into its creation?
• Did the creator see the event firsthand or did he or she report on what others related?
• Did the creator have a special interest in the event, or was he or she neutral?
• Was the creator producing something for his or her personal use, for a friend, or for the public?
• Is the language of the creator neutral or persuasive?

The author also explains how to analyze a primary source’s time and place, and internal and external consistency, what the creator decided to omit from the source, how to be selective in what you choose to use, and other factors. Learn more about each by checking out the discussion Critically Evaluate Primary Sources.

And remember, Stebbins emphasizes, to “Read critically and skeptically. Though some primary sources are believed to be more reliable than others, every source contains some weakness or bias. Think carefully about the social, political, and economic contexts in which a source may have been created.”