COMM 304Research Literacy and Media

3 credits · Communications · Penn State

COMM 304 Research Literacy and Media (3) This course provides an introduction to the logic and methods of social science research as it is employed to study topics in media. Students will be introduced to key principles of social scientific reasoning, including aspects of concept explication and effective measurement, evaluation and demonstration of causality, and reliance on empirical data. Core standards of evidence are presented for both quantitative and qualitative data, but a focus is placed on statistical evidence and reasoning. Topics include effective question wording, ethical treatment of research participants, experimental research designs, sampling and survey research, content analysis, and sound interviewing techniques. In addition, students address key ideas in statistical analysis, including principles of inference, common descriptive statistics, and widely used tests of both bivariate and multivariate relationships. In addition, significant attention is paid to evaluating research done by others. Students read and assess original research and consider the merits of such research. Based on this training, students should be prepared to better understand the results presented in social scientific research, particularly within the field of media studies, and apply this knowledge to future coursework. Beyond this, students learn how to critically evaluate quantitative research when presented in media content, such as public opinion polling, and when making professional judgments about sound organizational strategies as a response to research conducted by others. At the end of this course, students should be better prepared to engage with the increasingly complex array of data available to modern companies and citizens and distributed through the media ecosystem.