Communication Research Methods Research Articles

Audio-as-Data Tools: Replicating Computational Data Processing

The rise of audio-as-data in social science research accentuates a fundamental challenge: establishing reproducible and reliable methodologies to guide this emerging area of study. In this study, we focus on the reproducibility of audio-as-data preparation methods in computational communication research and evaluate the accuracy of popular audio-as-data tools. We analyze automated transcription and computational phonology tools applied to 200 episodes of conservative talk shows hosted by Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones. Our findings reveal that the tools we tested are highly accurate. However, despite different transcription and audio signal processing tools yield similar results, subtle yet significant variations could impact the findings’ reproducibility. Specifically, we find that discrepancies in automated transcriptions and auditory features such as pitch and intensity underscore the need for meticulous reproduction of data preparation procedures. These insights into the variability introduced by different tools stress the importance of detailed methodological reporting and consistent processing techniques to ensure the replicability of research outcomes. Our study contributes to the broader discourse on replicability and reproducibility by highlighting the nuances of audio data preparation and advocating for more transparent and standardized practices in this area.

Materiality assessment in sport – an opportunity and call for research

ABSTRACT Research question Materiality assessment is a tool widely used among practitioners to determine an organization's most important sustainability topics. The tool helps visualize trade-offs and develop a prioritization of issues based on stakeholder engagement and impact measurement. Ultimately, it aids in the creation of a sustainability strategy. Although widely used in practice, the tool has been absent from the sport management literature. Research methods In this rapid communication, we outline the steps of materiality assessment, the tool’s limitations, and research opportunities to overcome these issues. Results and Findings The tool’s limitations include a lack of theoretical foundations, imprecise methodological processes, and a lack of transparency in the process and output communication. Implications These limitations can perpetuate injustice, inaccurate results, mistrust, and allegations of greenwashing. However, while these issues present obstacles for practitioners, they also create research opportunities. Specifically, scholars can assist by creating a list of sport sector-specific material topics to be evaluated, identifying stakeholders and robust ways of engagement, developing a rigorous process for impact assessment, and aiding in the transparent reporting of results. Ultimately, by overcoming the limitations of materiality assessment, research can help advance practice and positively contribute to sustainable development.

Traditional African festival performances as a panacea for peace and security: the Obubra urban Ababum (cassava) festival as paradigm

ABSTRACT It has been asserted that some African and Nigerian cultural festivals are incapable of equipping community members with the requisite knowledge and skills to confront contemporary socio-political, economic and security challenges that hindered development in their communities. This paper serves as a rejoinder to enlighten the public on the powers of traditional festivals to forestall peaceful co-existence among people. The study seeks to determine whether African and Nigerian community festivals can be used as avenues for building peace, reconciliation and security development among embittered community members using the Ababum (Cassava) festival in Obubra Local Government Area, Cross River State, Nigeria, as a paradigm. The study utilized the participant observation and personal communication research methods for data collection. Data obtained from these sources were analyzed using the textual method. The findings showed that the cassava festivals were avenues where the community members in the Obubra Urban Ward dialogued and exchanged public opinions on how to attain peace and stability. Findings also showed an increase in knowledge, added awareness of the imperatives of peace, reconciliation and security consciousness among members of these communities studied.

How can health science popularization KOL better produce professional voices?

How can health science popularization KOL better produce professional voices?

Mixed method research in narrative journalism: use of journalistic narrative techniques in newspaper news stories to communicate scientific and technological information to non-expert audiences

This paper explores the centrality of the mixed methods approach in narrative communication research, the processes as well as challenges related to mixed methods in relation to the communication of scientific and technological information to non-expert audiences. Implications of mixed methods in narrative communication research are also discussed. In recent times, studies have been conducted on journalistic narrative techniques under the realm of narrative journalism and communication with non-expert audiences in the fields of health sciences, political science, sociology, and technology, just to name a few. A majority of these studies have paid little attention to the research methodologies employed in the fields. These studies have employed either a quantitative or a qualitative approach. This paper discusses the use of mixed methods in the use of journalistic narrative techniques in selected newspaper news stories that communicate science and technology to non-expert audiences.

Notes to tables

Oil and Energy TrendsVolume 48, Issue 4 p. 12-13 Notes to tables Notes to tables First published: 18 April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/oet.1_12989Read the full textAboutRelatedInformationPDFPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessClose modalShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume48, Issue4April 2023Pages 12-13 RelatedInformation RecommendedNotesTaxation Under the Early Tudors 1485–1547, [1]NotesAfter the Three Italies: Wealth, Inequality and Industrial Change, [1]NotesMilitary Geographies, [1]Scratch NotesAarti B. Arora, Rebecca L. Bubp, The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods, [1]NotesConstantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire, [1]

Review: Collins, Luke C. (2019). Corpus linguistics for online communication: A guide for research. Routledge.

Corpus Linguistics for Online Communication: A Guide for Research, published by Routledge, is a practical handbook for corpus-based online communication research. This volume introduces corpus-based online communication research methods for a variety of research topics with empirical case studies. The volume blends theoretical progress with practical application, making it a useful resource for researchers and scholars in online communication and related fields.

Methodological approaches applicable to patient-provider interaction analysis: A mini-review

Online platforms and smartphone applications that facilitate patient-provider communication are examples of how digital technologies support human interaction. Telehealth enables clinical encounters when physical consultations are not possible, and evidence confirms that face-to-face and remote healthcare encounters have comparable efficacy. Furthermore, research shows that patient-provider communication and relationship influence patient outcomes. However, we lack studies on what happens during these interactions, particularly in text-messages conversations, from a linguistic or behavioral perspective. Our research methods will evolve alongside our communication channels. Currently, there is an overall preference for qualitative methods in patient-provider communication research. Some authors argue that quantitative measures (clinical measurements, questionnaires) lack an understanding of the patients' experiences, whereas qualitative approaches (interviews, focus groups) provide the full picture. Others suggest their combination to interpret interactions thoroughly. As a result, it is often difficult for a communication researcher to choose between one or more approaches. We conducted a mini-review of qualitative approaches, such as corpus linguistics and conversation analysis, as well as quantitative approaches, such as analysis of variance and temporal pattern detection, for patient-provider communication analysis. Additionally, we distinguish relevant communicative features in synchronous or live interactions, such as video-calls, and asynchronous interactions, such as non-instant messaging. We further discuss these methods' potential for combination and their applications in digital communication research. We aim to guide researchers to choose a methodology for digital interaction studies. Our recommendations are based on these approaches' ability to answer a research question, and we suggest a mixed-methods approach in future digital communication research.

Teaching Qualitative Research Methods in Media and Communication: The Benefits and Limitations of Digital Learning Objects

Teaching qualitative research is often hampered by student uncertainties around how to apply methodological knowledge in practice. Digital learning objects (DLOs) may offer a solution to this problem, although they also come with limitations. This study assessed the student perspective on the strengths and limitations of six qualitative analysis DLOs in the field of media and communication. Drawing from a thematic analysis of 527 written student reflections on the use of these DLOs in learning practices, this paper found that DLOs were helpful in clearing doubts and cementing knowledge. Furthermore, they motivated students by increasing self-regulation and by providing a new learning environment that was perceived as showcasing “learning how to learn.” However, the DLOs also introduced new anxieties, destabilized the relationship between lecture and tutorial, and were not successful at fostering student reflexivity in relation to the research process. These findings provide practitioners with pedagogical insight into using DLOs to improve the learning experience of qualitative research.

Editorial: Geoscience communication – planning to make it publishable

Abstract. If you are a geoscientist doing work to achieve impact outside academia or engaging different audiences with the geosciences, are you planning to make this publishable? If so, then plan. Such investigations into how people (academics, practitioners, other publics) respond to geoscience can use pragmatic, simple research methodologies accessible to the non-specialist or be more complex. To employ a medical analogy, first aid is useful and the best option in some scenarios, but calling a medic (i.e. a collaborator with experience of geoscience communication or relevant research methods) provides the contextual knowledge to identify a condition and opens up a diverse, more powerful range of treatment options. Here, we expand upon the brief advice in the first editorial of Geoscience Communication (Illingworth et al., 2018), illustrating what constitutes robust and publishable work in this context, elucidating its key elements. Our aim is to help geoscience communicators plan a route to publication and to illustrate how good engagement work that is already being done might be developed into publishable research.

Who is Julia? Teaching audience analysis through the concept of audience persona

Audience analysis is essential for creating successful messages across communication fields. The audience persona is an effective tool for understanding the characteristics and needs of a target audience. Through this unit activity, students experience the process of persona development, build skills in data collection and analysis, and gain in-depth understanding of a specific audience in preparation for subsequent messaging assignments. Courses Strategic Communication, Public Relations, Content Marketing, Advertising, Public Speaking, Mass Communication, Social Media Communication, Mass Communication Research Methods. Objectives Through this unit activity, students will be able to (1) apply the principles of audience persona development, (2) build skills in data collection and analysis, and (3) gain in-depth understanding of a core audience group as the basis for crafting effective messages

Algorithms and taste-making: Exposing the Netflix Recommender System's operational logics

As the Streaming Wars continue to heat up, recommendation systems like the Netflix Recommender System (NRS) will become key competitive features for every major over-the-top video streamer. As a result, film and television production and consumption will increasingly be in the hands of semi-autonomous algorithmic technologies. But how do recommendation systems like the NRS work? What purposes do they serve? And what sorts of impacts are they having on film and television culture? To respond to these questions, this article will (1) examine how algorithms are impacting processes of taste-making and (2) re-evaluate some of the critical theoretical perspectives that have come to dominate the discourse surrounding algorithmic cultures. To do so, I join Bucher ((2016) Neither black nor box: Ways of knowing algorithms. In: S Kubitscko and A Kaun (eds) Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 81–98; (2018) If…then: Algorithmic Power and Politics. London: Oxford University Press) in adopting a relational materialist perspective of algorithms and proceed to reverse engineer the NRS; an experiment that exposes the system’s circular and economic logics while highlighting the complex and networked nature of taste-making in the film and television industry.

Fact or fake? Identifying ways of knowing everyday truths in research methods courses

This activity motivates students of communication research methods by challenging them to face their personal epistemologies. We introduce them to a set of formal ways of knowing and match these with their personal justifications for knowledge. Through this exercise, students learn that the scientific method is worthy of study not just to pass a social science focused research methods course, but also to have a deeper understanding of their personal knowledge. Courses Undergraduate Research Methods (quantitative and/or social science focus). Objectives By the end of the activity, students should be able to: identify examples of the four ways of knowing; compare and contrast the uses and relative rigor of the four ways of knowing; consume research and media reports with a skeptic’s mindset; establish interpersonal contact with classmates and the instructor; and gain motivation for learning the rest of the course material.

A qualitative metaresearch to (re)build the field: typology of objectives, theoretical perspectives and methods for communication research

As long as communication, especially digital communication, is of interest for consolidated fields such as sociology or political sciences and for fields of more recent creation such as librarianship, the field of communication research functions as an amnesic sub-discipline without disciplinary ambition (Pooley, 2020). In order to contribute to intellectually (re) constructing a field that can be useful to society, we are providing a typology of objectives, theoretical perspectives and methods generated from a distillation of volume 2 of Rethinking Communication (1989), “Paradigm Exemplars”, a volume specialized in meta-research in communication and considered as a continuation of the special volume of the Journal of Communication, "Ferment in the Field", published in 1983 (Surlin, 1991). The conceptual and procedural devices brought and grouped into those aimed at studying relationships between people and those aimed at studying relationships between people and media, are useful in a moment in which human relationships and relationships between people and media continue articulating societies, making necessary to review and redefine the ways of approaching them to further the scope of communication research, limited for decades, fundamentally, to the analysis of media content (Cáceres and Caffarel, 1992; Martínez-Nicolás and Saperas, 2011, 2016; Anderson and Middelton, 2015) through a content analysis that Krippendorff (2017) recommends to leave.

Is there a link between climate change scepticism and populism? An analysis of web tracking and survey data from Europe and the US

ABSTRACT Climate change and populism are two major phenomena in contemporary politics. Recent successes of populist parties and politicians, especially in Europe and in the US, have given rise to extensive debates in the academic literature and beyond. Yet the link between populism and climate change scepticism (henceforth ‘scepticism’), has so far received little attention. This paper examines the link between scepticism and populism by means of a unique dataset: a survey and detailed web browsing histories of participants from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the US, and the UK. The web tracking data includes more than 150 million website visits over a period of three months and the survey contains questions about political attitudes and attitudes towards climate change. We analyse the 8893 websites which contained ‘climate change’ and its cognates in the URLs and link these website visits and the content of these websites to the political attitudes and climate change orientation of those who visited them. The contribution is both methodological (linking surveys and web tracking data, including cross-country comparison) and substantive (uncovering links between populists, their climate change orientations, and the content of related websites they visited). Our analysis demonstrates the value of computational methods in political communication research and provides insights into the link between populists and climate change scepticism.

The tall order of teaching measurement reliability: Introducing classical test theory through observations of human height

Course Communication Research Methods. Objectives This activity provides students with an experiential introduction to measurement theory and the methods for assessing measurement reliability. First, multiple measurements of a person’s height are interpreted according to classical test theory. Second, the measurement of human height is used as an exemplar for understanding the various methods of establishing measurement reliability.

Reflexivity and Practice in COVID-19: Qualitative Analysis of Student Responses to Improvisation in Their Research Methods Course

The improvisations needed to adapt to COVID-19 teaching and learning conditions affected students and faculty alike. This study uses chaos theory and improvisation to examine an undergraduate communication research methods course that was initially delivered synchronously/face-to-face and then transitioned to asynchronous/online in March 2020. Reflective writings were collected at the end of the semester with the 25 students enrolled in the course and follow-up interviews conducted with six students. Thematic analysis revealed that available and attentive student-participant, student-student, and student-instructor communication complemented learner-centered and person-centered goals, but unavailable or inattentive communication, especially with participants and students in the research team, contributed to negative perceptions of learner-centered goals. Implications explore how communication research methods pedagogy may achieve greater available, attentive, and learner/person-oriented goals through modeling, resourcing, reflexivity, and appreciation in online and offline course delivery to enhance shifts in communication pedagogy, whether voluntarily or involuntarily initiated by faculty.

Celebrations at European Courts as Viewed by “Sarmatian” Travellers

This article considers the way inhabitants of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth perceived European court ceremonies as reflected in their travel notes. More particularly, the author analyses texts of the eighteenth century, where the ceremonies described are treated as some of the most important elements of symbolic communication between the authorities and society. Eighteenth-century travelogues provide a comprehensive idea of contacts with royal courts and social elites (political but also cultural and even academic), which does not comply with the stereotypical image of such situations. Starting with the late seventeenth century, court culture mostly relied on French models, which is why the article presents ceremonies at the court of Versailles described by travellers from the nobility, clergy, and from a woman’s perspective. The author also describes ceremonies and etiquette of the imperial court in Vienna, as well as the very specific ceremonial of the Roman court. The latter was characterised by the participation of the Pope. The analysis relies on intercultural communication research methods.

What's in a “welcome survey”? Designing a course welcome survey as introduction to research methods in Communication

Courses Quantitative research methods, research methods, basic communication courses. Objectives The goals of the exercise are for students (1) collaboratively to design a “real world” survey questionnaire, (2) to analyze survey questions and survey design to address if and how the survey meets its goals and (3) to evaluate the strengths and limitations of the welcome survey and of survey methods more broadly, and (4) for the instructor to collect information about students to promote learning throughout the course.

Researching Home-Based Technical and Professional Communication: Emerging Structures and Methods

With the massive shift to remote work, what does researching home-based workplace writing look like? We argue that the collapse of traditional work–life boundaries might allow for a renaissance of feminist research methods in technical and professional communication, specifically because the home is a domestic space largely associated with women. Inspired by methodologies like apparent feminism and examinations of positionality, privilege, and power, the authors suggest three research methods that help capture the intricacies of blurred personal and professional lives: time-use diaries, embodied sensemaking, and participatory data collection and coding. These methods seek to illuminate the invisible work of women, as well as the diversity and range of experiences of home-based workplace communicators.