Introduction to Communication Research

Valuable Ancillaries Enhance the Learning Experience: Â Improved Instructor Resources on CD are available to qualified adopters and include thoughtful test questions, engaging student activities, a useful sample syllabus, and more. Â An accompanying reader, Intercultural Communication: A Global Reader (SAGE, 2004; ISBN: 0-7619-2899-5), is also available and can be used alone or in conjunction with this text. The readings support the major concepts of cultural values, language, identities, peace, and globalization that are presented in this vital book.Â Â Â

IRCDs are available for qualified instructors only. To request an IRCD for this book please contact Customer Care at 1.800.818.7243 (6 am â€“ 5 pm Pacific Time) or by emailing info@sagepub.com with course name and enrollment and your university mailing address to expedite the process.

Intended Audience: This text is invaluable for introductory courses in Intercultural Communication in departments of Communication, Sociology, Cultural Studies, and Business.

Since the publication of the first edition of Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology, the textual fabric in which contemporary society functions has undergone a radical transformation â€“ namely, the ongoing information revolution. Two decades ago, content analysis was largely known in journalism and communication research, and, to a lesser extent, in the social and psychological sciences. Today, content analysis has become an efficient alternative to public opinion research â€“ a method of tracking markets, political leanings, and emerging ideas, a way to settle legal disputes, and an approach to explore individual human minds.

The Second Edition of Content Analysis is a definitive sourcebook of the history and core principles of content analysis as well as an essential resource for present and future studies. The book introduces readers to ways of analyzing meaningful matter such as texts, images, voices â€“ that is, data whose physical manifestations are secondary to the meanings that a particular population of people brings to them.

Organized into three parts, the book examines the conceptual and methodological aspects of content analysis and also traces several paths through content analysis protocols. The author has completely revised and updated the Second Edition, integrating new information on computer-aided text analysis. The book also includes a practical guide that incorporates experiences in teaching and how to advise academic and commercial researchers. In addition, Krippendorff clarifies the epistemology and logic of content analysis as well as the methods for achieving its aims.

Author Klaus Krippendorff discusses three distinguishing characteristics of contemporary content analysis: that it is fundamentally empirically grounded, exploratory in process, and predictive or inferential in intent; that it transcends traditional notions of symbols, contents, and intents; and that it has been forced to develop a methodology of its own, one that enables researchers to plan, execute, communicate, reproduce, and critically evaluate an analysis independent of the desirability of its results.

Intended as a textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students across the social sciences, Content Analysis, Second Edition will also be a valuable resource for practitioners in a variety of disciplines.

Very thorough - but lamentable when it comes to discussing Text/Content Analysis Softwares........2006-02-07

Ideal for film appreciation and film and culture courses found in Cinema Studies, English, History, American Studies, or other departments, American Cinema/American Culture first examines the industry, its narrative conventions, and its cinematographic style.

Following this introduction, students are exposed to the sweep of film history in the U.S. using five genres as the bases for discussion and focusing on the point at which each had the greatest affect on the industry, film aesthetics, and American culture.

Finally, the book concludes with a look at Hollywood post World War II, giving separate chapter coverage to the effects of the Cold War, television, the counterculture of the Sixties, directors from the film school generation, and the trends of the Eighties and Nineties.

The first third of the book starts with the birth of film, moves quickly on to the Hollywood studio system, and walks us through the basics of film style (camerawork, lighting, editing, etc.). The second third covers the basics of film genre; there is a chapter about film noir, one on comedies, one on war films, and one on westerns. This second section was particularly useful to me. I could read each chapter, jot down a list of promising titles, hit my local video store, and I was good to go. The third section covers American film after World War II. In this section things seem a little compressed. 110 pages for 50 years of film? A lot is lost on the cutting room floor. But there's lots to dig into all the same. There's a chapter on Hollywood during the McCarthy years (yikes!), one on film's evolution during the emergence of television, a chapter on 1960s counterculture films, one on the film school directors of the 1970s and 1980s, and finally a pretty weak chapter on film in the 1990s. Oh yeah, and at the end of the book there's a handy glossary (in case you're ever stuck on what point-of-view editing is) and a pretty thorough index.

Again, not a book for someone who already has a good feel for film history. But definitely a great resource for someone new to film studies, or for someone who has trouble finding a movie at Blockbuster on Fridays. It did a great job getting me excited about movies, and I imagine its done the same for others.... A good companion to this text (or possibly an all-out replacement of it) is Scorsese's VHS/DVD, "A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies."

I also don't like the prose of the author, as he excessively uses sentences "in quotations". The writing structure is very formulaic and boring. The "5 paragraph essay" format is good for high school students learning to write, but imagine an entire book written that way. I can only read it for 15 minutes before losing interest.

Author Joe Turow's unique "media systems" approach reveals the forces that guide the creation, distribution, and exhibition of media. By showing students how the media operates—through a mass production process, rather than an assumed mass audience—and heightening their awareness of political and commercial influences, Turow encourages them to examine and think critically about everything they see and read.

The Second Edition emphasizes the necessity of media literacy by outlining the principles that students need to understand and skills they must acquire in order to exhibit the attributes of a media-literate consumer.