Communication theory. Research practice.
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Read media closely. Build a stronger study.
Explore communication theories and research methods with Dr. Uma Shankar Pandey. Choose a collection, follow a suggested route or go straight to a chapter.
Dr. Uma Shankar Pandey profusp.com
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Media & Communication Theory
Trace how media shape attention, how audiences make meaning and how institutions organise communication.
Models · Audiences · News · Platforms · Power · CultureExplore the collectionResearch Methods
Turn a research interest into a clear question, a suitable design and an account grounded in evidence.
Questions · Design · Measurement · Analysis · WritingExplore the collectionSuggested learning routes
A useful place to begin.
These are starting points.
Follow your own question.
Read a news story more closely
Follow the choices that make an issue visible.
Plan your first study
Give your inquiry a question, a focus and a method.
Connect theory with evidence
Move from an explanation to something you can investigate.
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Chapters run A–Z within each group.
01 / 46 chapters
Media & Communication Theory
46 chapters · Browse the collection or open a chapter below.
- Media, technology & networks
Actor–Network Theory
Trace the associations through which people, technologies and other entities participate in social action.
Open chapter - Audiences, learning & influence
Affect and Emotion in Media
Explore how feelings, bodily responses and emotional expression move through media encounters and public life.
Open chapter - News, opinion & representation
Agenda Setting
Examine how patterns of media attention relate to the issues people consider important.
Open chapter - Media, technology & networks
Assemblage Theory
Explore how heterogeneous elements come together, hold relations and change within media arrangements.
Open chapter - Critical & cultural perspectives
Birmingham School
Explore cultural studies, audience interpretation and the relationship between representation, identity and power.
Open chapter - Power, institutions & public life
Bourdieu’s Field Theory
Connect field, habitus and capital to examine positions and struggles within media and cultural life.
Open chapter - Critical & cultural perspectives
Chicago School
Connect communication with city life, social interaction, public inquiry and the making of communities.
Open chapter - Audiences, learning & influence
Cultivation Theory
Investigate how sustained patterns of media exposure relate to people’s perceptions of social reality.
Open chapter - Audiences, learning & influence
Diffusion of Innovations
Follow how an innovation spreads through communication, social relationships and decisions over time.
Open chapter - Media, technology & networks
Digital Media Theory
Investigate how digital forms, participation and data reshape media practices and the questions we ask.
Open chapter - Audiences, learning & influence
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Compare routes to persuasion and ask how motivation and ability affect the processing of messages.
Open chapter - Critical & cultural perspectives
Feminist Theory
Investigate how gender, representation and power shape media institutions, texts and everyday experience.
Open chapter - Critical & cultural perspectives
Frankfurt School
Examine critical accounts of the culture industry, mass communication and the organisation of modern life.
Open chapter - Foundations & models
Functional Theory of Media
Examine the roles media perform in society, alongside dysfunctions and questions about whose needs they serve.
Open chapter - News, opinion & representation
Gatekeeping Theory
Follow the choices that determine which events, voices and accounts become visible as news.
Open chapter - Foundations & models
Gerbner’s Model
Follow an event through perception and representation, asking how each step shapes the message.
Open chapter - Audiences, learning & influence
Individual Differences Theory
Consider how differences in experience, needs and dispositions shape responses to the same media message.
Open chapter - Foundations & models
Jakobson’s Model
Use six language functions to examine what an utterance does within a communication situation.
Open chapter - Audiences, learning & influence
Media Audience Theory
Compare ways of understanding audiences, from measured groups to active interpreters and participants.
Open chapter - Audiences, learning & influence
Media Dependency Theory
Explore how relationships among audiences, media and society shape dependence on information resources.
Open chapter - Media, technology & networks
Media Ecology Theory
Explore how media environments shape the conditions of perception, expression and social organisation.
Open chapter - Power, institutions & public life
Media Sociology
Connect media work and communication with institutions, professional routines and the organisation of society.
Open chapter - Power, institutions & public life
Media Systems
Compare how media institutions relate to political structures, professional practices and wider social conditions.
Open chapter - Media, technology & networks
Network Society
Connect networks, flows and communication power with changes in social and economic organisation.
Open chapter - News, opinion & representation
News Framing
Examine how selection, emphasis and interpretation give an issue a particular shape in news.
Open chapter - Power, institutions & public life
NWICO
Examine debates about unequal information flows and the New World Information and Communication Order.
Open chapter - Media, technology & networks
Platform Society
Examine how platforms organise visibility, participation and the institutions of everyday life.
Open chapter - Power, institutions & public life
Political Economy of Media
Follow ownership, labour and revenue to examine how resources and power shape media production.
Open chapter - Critical & cultural perspectives
Postmodernism
Examine debates about representation, knowledge and cultural life in a world of circulating images.
Open chapter - Power, institutions & public life
Propaganda Model
Examine how structural pressures and institutional filters shape patterns of news production.
Open chapter - News, opinion & representation
Public Opinion
Examine how opinions form, become visible and enter the conduct of collective life.
Open chapter - Power, institutions & public life
Public Sphere
Investigate the spaces and conditions through which people debate matters of shared concern.
Open chapter - Foundations & models
Rhetorical Theory
Investigate how speakers and texts address audiences, build arguments and seek a response.
Open chapter - Foundations & models
Ritual Model of Communication
Explore how communication sustains shared worlds through participation, symbols and recurring practices.
Open chapter - Foundations & models
Semiotics
Read signs, codes and systems of meaning in words, images and everyday media.
Open chapter - Foundations & models
Seven Traditions of Communication Theory
Find your bearings across seven approaches to explaining communication and its place in human life.
Open chapter - Audiences, learning & influence
Social Cognitive Theory
Connect observational learning, self-efficacy and agency with the environments in which people act.
Open chapter - News, opinion & representation
Spiral of Silence
Examine how perceived opinion climates and fear of isolation can shape willingness to speak.
Open chapter - News, opinion & representation
Stereotyping in Media
Question how recurring representations simplify social groups and shape the ways people recognise them.
Open chapter - Critical & cultural perspectives
Structuralism
Look beyond individual signs to the relationships and underlying systems that organise meaning.
Open chapter - Critical & cultural perspectives
Symbolic Interactionism
Follow how people interpret symbols, define situations and build meanings through interaction.
Open chapter - Media, technology & networks
Technological Determinism
Assess claims that technologies drive social change and examine the choices those claims can obscure.
Open chapter - Audiences, learning & influence
Third-Person Effect
Examine why people may judge others as more influenced by media than themselves.
Open chapter - Audiences, learning & influence
Two-Step Flow Theory
Trace how opinion leaders and interpersonal relationships help carry media influence through social networks.
Open chapter - Audiences, learning & influence
Uses and Gratifications Theory
Ask what people seek from media and how those purposes guide their choices and use.
Open chapter - Foundations & models
Westley–MacLean Model
Connect events, communicators, audiences and feedback in a model built around selection and mediation.
Open chapter
02 / 27 chapters
Research Methods
27 chapters · Browse the collection or open a chapter below.
- Writing & referencing
APA 7th Edition
Work through the conventions for citations, references and the presentation of academic writing.
Open chapter - Qualitative approaches
Autoethnography
Use personal experience as a starting point for investigating cultural practices and social relationships.
Open chapter - Research design & evidence
Case Study Research
Investigate a bounded case through evidence that illuminates its context, relationships and particular conditions.
Open chapter - Measurement & statistical analysis
Chi-Square Test
Examine categorical data with chi-square tests and interpret results alongside assumptions and practical meaning.
Open chapter - Research foundations
Choosing Research Methods
Match your question with an approach and explain why the chosen methods fit the study.
Open chapter - Analysis & interpretation
Content Analysis
Build a systematic way to examine messages through explicit units, categories and coding decisions.
Open chapter - Qualitative approaches
Digital Ethnography
Study digital practices in context and trace the connections between online activity and everyday life.
Open chapter - Analysis & interpretation
Discourse Analysis
Investigate how language works in context and how accounts organise meanings, identities and relations.
Open chapter - Qualitative approaches
Ethnography
Enter a social setting, observe everyday practices and build an account informed by sustained engagement.
Open chapter - Research design & evidence
Experimental Research
Plan comparisons that test causal claims and consider control, assignment and alternative explanations.
Open chapter - Qualitative approaches
Grounded Theory
Develop an explanation through iterative collection, comparison and analysis of data.
Open chapter - Measurement & statistical analysis
Hypothesis Testing
Connect hypotheses, evidence and statistical decisions while interpreting uncertainty and the limits of a test.
Open chapter - Research foundations
Literature Review
Bring studies into conversation, compare their claims and build the argument for your own inquiry.
Open chapter - Research design & evidence
Mixed Methods
Connect quantitative and qualitative evidence through a design that explains how the strands work together.
Open chapter - Analysis & interpretation
Narrative Analysis
Examine how stories arrange events, position speakers and make experience meaningful.
Open chapter - Qualitative approaches
Phenomenological Research
Explore lived experience and examine how a phenomenon appears to the people who encounter it.
Open chapter - Qualitative approaches
Qualitative Research
Explore meanings and practices through accounts, observations and interpretations grounded in their settings.
Open chapter - Measurement & statistical analysis
Questionnaire Design
Write questions that participants can understand and test whether the instrument captures what you need.
Open chapter - Research foundations
Research Gap
Locate what existing research leaves unanswered and turn that opening into a worthwhile inquiry.
Open chapter - Research foundations
Research Methodology
Connect assumptions about knowledge with research questions, designs and the evidence needed to support a claim.
Open chapter - Research foundations
Research Problem Statement
Turn a broad concern into a focused problem with a clear purpose and researchable boundaries.
Open chapter - Research design & evidence
Sampling Methods
Choose whom or what to study, justify the selection and assess the reach of your findings.
Open chapter - Measurement & statistical analysis
Scale Development
Move from a defined construct to items, testing and evidence about measurement quality.
Open chapter - Research design & evidence
Survey Research
Plan a survey that connects a defined population, suitable questions and a clear analysis strategy.
Open chapter - Analysis & interpretation
Thematic Analysis
Develop and interpret patterns of meaning through close engagement with qualitative materials.
Open chapter - Analysis & interpretation
Triangulation
Compare sources and perspectives, investigate disagreements and explain how different evidence informs your interpretation.
Open chapter - Writing & referencing
Writing Research Papers
Shape a clear argument and guide readers from the research problem through evidence to the contribution.
Open chapter
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