Exploring Media Research
Theories, Practice, and Purpose
- Andy Ruddock - Monash University, Australia
From Donald Trump’s use of Twitter, to social media mourning, to cyber-bullying: the evidence of media influence today is all around us. As such, good media research is more important than ever, and crucially, is something all students can and should do.
Exploring Media Research is an eye-opening exploration of what it means to understand and do media research today.
Carefully balancing theory and practice, Andy Ruddock demystifies the process, showing you don’t need huge amounts of time or money to do meaningful media analysis. The book:
- Introduces students to the scope and seriousness of media influence
- Shows them how to tie their own interests to academic concepts and research issues
- Explains how to use this understanding to develop proper research questions
- Translates key theoretical concepts into actual research methods students can use to explore the media texts, events, markets and professionals that interest them.
Bringing theory to life throughout with a range of contemporary case studies, Exploring Media Research is a thoughtful and practical guide to gathering and analysing media data. It is essential reading for students of media, communication and cultural studies.
In Exploring Media Research, Andy Ruddock provides the theoretical, methodological, and ethical tools that enable scholars, students, and citizens to dissect the cultural power of media, and to apply this understanding to the creation of a more just society. Written in a direct and accessible style, this timely and provocative book firmly establishes Ruddock as one of the premier media scholars of his generation.
There can be no more pressing topic in current affairs today than the role of the media. From questions of warfare to public health, we get our information as citizens from these massively powerful institutions. But how do we interrogate those very entities whom we trust to interrogate others? Andy Ruddock explains all in a patient but crisp, historically-informed but very contemporary book. We are in his debt.
This is a book that is sorely needed: an introduction to media research that is both comprehensive and thorough in its theoretical reach, and absolutely contemporary in its examples, in its applications, and in its conceptualisation of the key targets for media research today.
This book simplify complex media research concepts
It helps researchers to gain a sense of direction when collecting pieces of information from the media.
