Posts Tagged: communication theories

1. The book quotes Wimmer and Dominick’s idea of interpretive research as saying the purpose of interpretive research is “to understand how people in everyday natural settings create meanings and interpret the events of the world.”  How can this be applied to a practical way of doing research on social media such as Facebook and Twitter when the “natural setting” is a virtual community as opposed to a community that converses in the real world?

2. When observing a certain group of people it is important to have controls so that you are testing the affect of only one variable.  The book gives an example of studying students texting in class and how it affects their comprehension and retention of information.  There will almost always be something else that could distract a student besides texting such as a test in the next class.  Besides having a large sample size, how can a researcher be sure that their human subjects are indeed only being affected by your variable and not outside forces?

3. How can the knowledge of mass communication theories benefit a professional?  What would be the effects to the job performance of one who is educated in the theories as opposed to one who is only educated in the practical application of the job?