JoMC 245
Mass Comm Theory
Prof. Rhonda Gibson
Pathfinder prepared by Barbara Semonche, 
September 2005

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Surveying the 
Literature Landscape

Understand your topic; read assigned text(s) and recommended readings. Note key concepts. Prepare thesaurus (keywords, search terms, names of scholars, and the like.)

Become acquainted with major scholarly journals in your field. [Note: the following is a selected list.] 

• American Communication Journal (ACJ) 1997 -
• Communication Abstracts
• Communication Research 
• Communication Theory
• Critical Studies in Mass Communication
• The Iowa Guide
• Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media
• Journal of Communication
• Journal of Mass Media Ethics
• Journal of Media Economics
• Journal of Media Psychology
• Journalism & Mass Communication Monographs
• Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
• Mass Comm Review
• Media History
• Media Psychology
• Media, Culture, & Society
• New Media & Society
• Newspaper Research Journal
• others?

How does one find the current issue of these journals? 

• Go to this URL http://www.lib.unc.edu. Select "Advanced Search." On the next screen, highlight "Journal Title," then type in the journal title. Finally,  press the "search" button. 
  Should you discover that neither Davis Library nor our Park Library have the journal you need, your next step is to go to http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/eid and click on "W" for WorldCat. Search for your journal title in that database.

Which online databases offer access to scholarly journals' archives? 

• E-Journals http://www.lib.unc.edu. Click on the link to "E-Journal Finder." On the next screen, type in journal title, press enter, and note where you can locate archives (citations, abstracts, full-text.)
  
  
• Online Databases (electronic resources for scholarly, popular, and trade publications) http://www.lib.unc.edu. Click on the link to "Article Databases," then click on the letter corresponding to the name of the database. Also, you may click on "Research by Subject" to discover the databases and research guides available for "Journalism and Mass Communication." [Note, see list of likely databases below.]

WorldCat   12th century - to date
         WorldCat is a union catalog of more than 39 million records representing the electronic holdings of several thousand libraries. This database includes bibliographic records for books, dissertations, journals, audio-visual materials and manuscripts, some written as early as the 12th century. Note: This database does not include individual articles, stories in journals, magazines, newspapers, or book chapters.
             
Infotrac Web: Expanded Academic [Note: limit results to refereed journals] - 1980 - to date
         InfoTrac SearchBank Indexes provides access to three (3) databases. Many citations include the full-text of the article. The databases are: General BusinessFile Internat'l, 1982-; Expanded Academic ASAP, 1980-; LegalTrac, 1980-.

Communication and Mass Media Complete - 1915 - to date
         CMMC completely indexes and abstracts over 300 journals covering the study of communication and mass media, and selectively indexes another 100 journals. Full text of over 200 journals is also available. CMMC combines two earlier indexing tools, CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association) and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Penn State) and adds additional journals not covered by those two.
          
Sociological Abstracts - 1963 - to date
          A primary resource for accessing the latest research sponsored in sociology and related disciplines (e.g., journalism and mass communication) in the social and behavioral sciences.
          
ERIC via EBSCO Host (NCLive)-1967- to date
          Covers education-related research from conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs. Includes selected AEJMC conference papers. 

Digital Dissertations 1861 - to date
           ProQuest Digital Dissertations, or Dissertations Abstracts, indexes U. S. dissertations from 1861 to as recent as last semester. The full text of dissertations done at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1997 on are available for free downloading in PDF format. Citations for dissertations from 1980 on include 350-word abstracts, while masters' theses from 1988 forward have 150 word abstracts. For both dissertations and theses, from 1997 on, the citations also provide 24 page previews in PDF format. The database covers work done at more than a thousand institutions, primarily in the United States but also in Canada and Great Britain, and at other European universities for recent years

ABI Inform Global via ProQuest (NCLive)   1971 - to date
        ABI/INFORM Global is a business and management database providing extensive coverage of North America and the world. Find research on advertising, marketing, management, economics, human resources, finance, taxation, computers, and more. Also, information on 60,000+ companies.

PsychoINFO - 1887- to date
          Produced by the American Psychological Association, PsycINFO covers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines. Includes indexing for over 1,300 journals worldwide in more than 20 languages, as well as book chapters.
         
JSTOR (E-Journals): Social Sciences/Cultural
Studies. Coverage varies. Contains full text articles.
         JSTOR provides an image archive of important scholarly journal literature in nearly all the humanities and social sciences disciplines, international and foreign areas studies, and many of the sciences. A retrospective digitization project, it provides a collection of complete backfiles of hundreds scholarly periodicals, starting with the first issues. A moving end-date wall excludes the most recent 2-5 years of currently available journals

Other Online Resources:

• AEJMC Scholarly conference papers database Searchable conference papers by faculty and grad students since 1994 to date. Select "Search the Archives." Suggested keyword(s): (mass comm theory); (mass communication theory)
   
• Questia Promoted as "The World's Largest Online Library." Now with over 50,000 books and 399,000 journal, magazine, and newspaper articles. All books and articles are available in their entirety - search every page
   
• GOOGLE SCHOLAR
   
• "Defining Communication Theories" (web document from McGraw Hill)

Develop an appropriate thesaurus of search terms: (selected listing)

• mass communication theory
• media effects
• media messages
• media bias
• content analysis
• research methods
• case studies
• media uses and gratifications theory
• diffusion of innovation
• Internet addiction
• [names of mass media theories, e.g., agenda-setting theory, spiral of silence theory, information theory, Wesley-MacLean model, etc.]
• four theories of the press: Authoritarian theory, Libertarian theory, Social Responsibility theory, Soviet-Totalitarian theory)
• "Defining Communication Theories" (web document from McGraw Hill)

Discover the scholarly literature review process

• What is the literature review? 
• Any tips on conducting scholarly lit reviews? 
• How about an example of a lit review?
• How do I cite print and online sources? [Note: beware of errors in published citations; it is wise to verify the accuracy of the citations with the print versions of the journals.]
• The Iowa Guide

Bibliographies

• Annotated Bibliographical Format
• How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography
• The Process of Preparing an Annotated Bibliography
• Tutorial on RefWorks at Davis Library [Note: students must register to use RefWorks and to take a tutorial.]

Interlibrary Loan (from Davis Library)
[Note: First-time users of ILL must register, then you may request material by completing an ILL form on the Davis Library web site. Expect a delay of several days to 3-4 weeks.]

Selected Reference Books:

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Handbooks and Guides

Scholarly Integrity and Plagiarism

• American Journalism Review, June/July 2005
• Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions
• Guide to Writing Research Papers: MLS-Style (Statement on Plagiarism)
• LexisNexis CopyGuard press announcement (August 22, 2005) (Product designed with iParadigms to help detect plagiarism and copyright infringement and protect intellectual property.