Getting Help

The single most important thing to know about research is that you can always get help from the Library!

Research Consultations

Need help with research for a paper, project, or other research-related task? Schedule an appointment with a Research Librarian and meet in-person or via Zoom. CLICK HERE to set up a research appointment.

Email

Beth Leahy is the subject liaison for Communication and Lane Wilkinson assists with most Communications research. For help with your research, email Lane at Lane-Wilkinson@utc.edu. 

Finding Top Journals

There are hundreds of peer-reviewed journals that may be of value to your research. If you want to read or browse a specific journal, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Set the Library Quick Search to Journals

Step 2: Search for your journal by title

Step 3: Click the title and scroll down for access options

IMPORTANT: Make sure you select the link that has the date-range you need. If there is no ending date listed, that means the journal runs to the latest issue. In the example below, the second link covers 1996 to the most recent issue.

Recommended Databases

The following databases are recommended for communications and mass media research. Each database has different strengths and weaknesses.

Communication Source

• A good first-stop
• Hybrid database (both citations and full-text)
• 820 journals indexed. Over 500 in full-text
• Good mix of empirical, interpretive, and some culturalist research

Taylor & Francis Journals

• All content is peer-reviewed.
• Full-text access back to 1997.
• References and citations are linked to both UTC databases and Google Scholar. 
  • If you find an article that works for your research, look at it's bibliography to find additional, relevant articles.

Project MUSE

• Full-text database
• Over 350 journals
• Good for more critical/culturalist research
• Includes many books from leading university presses

JSTOR

• Full-text database
• Almost 2,000 journals. Some back to the 17^th Century.
• IMPORTANT: Most journals are subject to a 3-5 year “moving wall.” JSTOR does not provide access to the most recent issues of a journal.

Google Scholar

• Google Scholar searches through the publicly available descriptions of books, articles, dissertations, and conference proceedings.
• A Google Scholar search only searches through titles, authors, and abstracts--not through the full text of articles.
• In order to download articles, you need to let Google know that you are a UTC student. You can do this by following the instructions at https://www.utc.edu/sites/default/files/2020-08/utc-library-collections-get-it-in-google-scholar_0.pdf
• Pay attention to the "Cited by" link under each article. It tells you which scholarly articles have cited the one you are interested in. THis is a great way to quickly expand your reference list.

Research in Mass Media and Communication is largely disseminated through scholarly journal articles. These articles typically apply a specific Communication theory in order to answer a research question about some media or communication related issue. Over the past few decades these journal articles have coalesced around a fairly standard rhetorical approach. The following outline should help you figure out how to present your Mass Communication research.

Step One: Lead with an exhibit

Mass Communication articles usually start with an exhibit: a clear example of some sort of phenomenon related to media and communication. This could take the form of a few paragraphs describing a specific piece of media, a specific trend on social media, a news report, or anything else that gives your audience a clear idea of the type of issue you are going to be dealing with. In the example below, the authors begin their paper by describing the way TikTok has become a major source for news about the war in Ukraine.

Step Two: Propose a research question

After a brief introduction, you will want to identify a research question. In the paper below, the authors want to investigate how TikTok's use of sound has influenced misinformation about the war in Ukraine.

Step Three: Propose a theoretical lens

Drawing on your knowledge of media effects and mass communication theories, you will next want to propose a theory that you think would be helpful in answering your research question. This is frequently called a theoretical lens: a lens through which you are going to view the issue you're studying. In the example paper, the authors invoke the theory of Computational Propaganda.

Step Four: Outline your research

After describing an issue, raising a research question, and proposing a theoretical lens, you will need to provide a general outline of your research, emphasizing how you collected data, how you analyzed it, and what you discovered. In the example paper, the authors take a paragraph to explain that they first adopted computational propaganda as a lens, then they describe their data collection method, then they describe method of analysis, and finally they give a broad overview of their conclusion.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO SEE THIS RHETORICAL APPROACH IN ACTION