SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

CMNS 363-6

APPROACHES TO MEDIA AND AUDIENCE RESEARCH

Prerequisites:

60 credits including one of CMNS 220, 221 or 223, AND CMNS 260.

This six-credit course will present a broad range of approaches to media and audience research. The aim will be to introduce both the principles and procedures of practical research. Qualitative and quantitative approaches will be explored as the course reviews the diverse field of audience research: its historical development from effects studies through uses and gratifications studies to contemporary developments like reception and ethnographic research. Lectures will combine theoretical presentations with case studies.

This course involves intensive lab work, worth one half of the 6 credit hours each week. Involving the design, conduct and analysis of applied research projects, the course requires students to form research teams which will self-select and organize. Each group will choose and define a research problem in media and audience analysis, review relevant literature and propose a researchable topic. Students are expected to acquire practical knowledge of skills of audience analysis procedures including survey and focus group methods. Findings are presented in class.

Before the first lecture, students are encouraged to choose a research area around one of the fields in 363: subculture and style; race and representation; gender, self-esteem and the media; globalization and Canadian identity; post-materialism and anti-consumerism; standards of taste, ethics or censorship or war/peace and the media.

Grade Assignments:

1. Project Proposal 10% due week 4
2. Focus Group Report 25% due week 7
3. Survey Field Work & Tabulations 25% due week 10
4. Final Group Presentations 20% due weeks 11 and 12
5. Final Essay (individual) 20% due ____________

Required Texts:

Asa Berger, 2000, Media and Communication Research Methods, Thousand Oaks: Sage
*Custom Lab Courseware ( CC)

The School expects that the grades in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices with respect to both levels and distributions of grades. The school follows Policy T10.02 with respect to intellectual honesty and academic discipline (see SFU Calendar, General Regulations).