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Wimmer & Dominick, Mass Media Research, 8th ed, Wadsworth, 2006
I asked the bookstore to get the 8th or 9th edition, even though the 10th is the latest. There isn't that much difference; the 8th edition, the 9th edition or the 10th edition will work fine.

Other materials: Additional readings will be online or otherwise available. The class has a Canvas site.

Course overview

This class is designed to explore quantitative approaches to research methodology and to have students plan a research project using a quantitative approach. Much of the class will focus on issues in quantitative analysis, such as measurement, sampling, reliability, validity, research ethics, appropriate statistics and data analysis. We'll look at such questions as, What are the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative approaches? When are these methods appropriate and when aren't they? What issues must you address in designing a quantitative study? We'll focus most on content analysis and survey methods, the two most heavily used approaches in media research.

I would like this class to be both practical and analytical. It will involve analyzing and critiquing quantitative studies as well as developing skills in conducting such research.

A key goal of the class is to produce a research plan and a paper completed up to the point of data collection/results. In recent years, a number of students completed these projects in an advanced quantitative methods class in spring, and several led to conference presentations.
To reiterate, in this class you should develop:

• An appreciation for the types of research questions that can be approached quantitatively.
• An understanding of how to critique quantitative research
• Skills in planning content analyses, surveys and, to a lesser degree, experiments
• An understanding of basic statistical techniques and when they are appropriate
• A working knowledge of SPSS statistical analysis
• A quantitative research plan up to the point of data collection (introduction, lit review, methodology) that will be presented and discussed during the last week of class.

Class meets twice a week. I lean more toward discussion than lecturing, and class participation is important. I like to raise questions as much as, if not more than, provide answers. I'll expect you to have completed the readings by the time of the class and to be able to show your mastery of them in discussion. Throughout the term, we will discuss and critique your research plans. Five class meetings will be data analysis workshop sessions. We will use SPSS, which is on the lab computers; It's also available on GTF office computers.

Required work will include short papers or article critiques due throughout the term, a longer research paper (mentioned above) and a data exercise. There will be a presentation of the longer paper in the last week of class.

Short (2-3 page) papers: Critiques of articles and/or answers to take-home questions. The short papers will be due about every two weeks after the first couple of weeks. Each short paper will have a due date. I'll accept late papers only in case of unavoidable circumstances, and I might require documentation of such circumstances. I've spent too much time in the media to wink at deadlines. Also, because I've spent most of my career as a copy editor or as a teacher of copy editing, I tend to think less of papers that are full of errors in spelling, grammar or punctuation. Make sure to proofread.

In-class critiques: Students will lead a brief class discussion on an assigned research article. We will do this in groups.

Data exercise: A graded exercise based on work using SPSS in the lab.

Final paper: My hope is that you will plan a final research project that you can eventually complete and possibly use as a conference paper. The paper required for this class will be a research report without the Results and Conclusion sections. In other words, it will have an Introduction, a Literature Review, a Methods section and dummy tables. To produce such a paper, you will need to be working on the idea throughout the term. Many of you will probably want to base your research proposal on the final paper you did in Theory 1. That's fine. Remember, though, that this is not the same paper. The final paper/proposal for this class needs to be structured like a research paper and will include a detailed methods section. We'll discuss this more in class.

CITI Certification: If you haven't already done so, you'll need to complete CITI training, which is required by the University of Oregon's Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects (Oregon's IRB). You'll need to turn in a copy of your completion notice by the beginning of week 6 (Feb. 12). There are links below under Week 1.

Attendance: It should go without saying, but attendance is expected, and a good participation/evaluation grade depends on it. If you are going to miss a class because of illness, or because of an emergency, let me know about it by e-mail or phone before the class. If the weather is bad enough that I need to cancel class, I'll let you know by e-mail. I'll use the Duckweb e-mail list on the roster. Here is the university's general information on weather cancellations.

Your overall grade will be based on the following formula:

Short papers, data exercises	30 %
Research paper (Graded throughout the term)	50 %
Presentation/discussion	10 %
Class participation/attendance/evaluation	10 %

My background

I consider myself both a scholar and a professional. As a professional, I spent most of my career working as a daily newspaper copy editor and copy chief. As a researcher, I examine some of the issues I observed in practice as a professional. I study newsroom technology and organizational change, primarily from sociological and management perspectives, with an underlying aim of examining and critiquing media performance and quality. Most of my published work has used quantitative analyses, including content analysis and survey methods.

Portions of the work for this class may be done in teams or groups; most will be done as individuals. I will make it clear on each assignment what can be done in groups and what should be done as individuals. I expect you to follow accepted scholarly practice on citation of the work of others. There is no universal style rule for quantitative work--it tends to depend on the field, often on a given journal within a field, or even to which division you might submit a paper for an academic conference. Many journals ask for APA style; some want Chicago style. Occasionally, it's even a mix of styles. Newspaper Research Journal, for example, wants AP style in text and Chicago style in endnotes. I'd suggest using a style that's common in work that is similar to yours. Be consistent. Many reviewers look with disfavor on style inconsistency, as they do on poor writing in general.

Learning Environment

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