SENIOR SEMINAR: COMMUNICATION RESEARCH
COM 450, Spring 2012
CLASS WEBSITE:
Monday, 10:10 –12:05
Wednesday 10:10 – 12:05
Office: 1P / Room 232A
3S/119 and 5S/115
Office Hours: Monday, 1:00pm-2:15pm; Wednesday, 1:00pm–2:15pm
Dr. Christopher Anderson
Required Texts
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
Mass Media Research: An Introduction Roger D. Wimmer and Joseph R.
Dominick () (ISBN-10: 143908274X)
Online course reader of collected texts.
I understand that the Wimmer and Dominick book is expensive. However, we use it
every year, and you should be able to both purchase a used copy and sell your copy when
the semester is over.
Course Learning Objectives

Course Description
The capstone class for communications majors. The course provides an overview of
communications research and introduces students to basic research procedures,
paradigms, and methods. Students learn research goals, methodologies, and strategies in
communications. They use these tools to formulate a research problem of their own and
to conduct research in libraries, through media resources, and through fieldwork.
During your years at the College of Staten Island, you have been exposed to a variety of
perspectives on media and a number of theories and analytical lenses by which you can
think about communication process more generally. The senior seminar is designed to
prepare students to make the transition from “theory to practice,” helping you to gain
mastery of the basic research skills necessary to succeed in the communications field, all
the while not forgetting your analytical and theoretical roots.
In the field of communications, you will most likely have to: gather and analyze data,
document your sources, present your research findings, work in teams, and meet hard and
fast deadlines. You will also have to master some or all of the basic research methods:
literature reviews, variable analysis, surveys, content analysis, participant observation,
ethnography, focus groups, discourse analysis, and the analysis of “big data.” This class
will teach you to master these methods and practices. It will do so by asking students to
develop and carry out their own group research projects focusing on a particular trend or
phenomenon in communication (for example, students in previous classes discussed the
rise of the iPod and the growth of Facebook).
This class is an intensive capstone class, and thus involves a significant amount of group
work both inside and outside of class, as well as self-directed research.
Course Requirements
This is the grading breakdown for the course. To receive a passing grade for the class,
students must meet all requirements. Missed assignments will automatically result in a
failing grade.
Groups Assignments / Portfolio ............................................……… 30%
Midterm …………………............................................................... 25%
In-class Presentation …………………………………………… 15%
Final Paper …………………………………………………..
20%
Class Participation ………………………...……………………... 10%
Group Assignments Include
1. Proposal (Due)
2. Literature review (Due)
3. Sampling exercise (Due)
4. Midterm assessment (Due)
5. Coding sheet and instructions (Due)
6. Content analysis (Due)
7. Survey report (Due)
8. Final presentation (Due)
Individual Assignments Include
1. Midterm (in-class)
2. Final (paper)
Basic Breakdown of the Week
This class will meet Mondays and Wednesdays. In general, Mondays will consist of
lectures and in-class discussion, while Wednesdays will consist of group work and
making progress on your final project. It is important to keep in mind, however, that
most of your group work will need to be done outside of class.
How the Group Projects Will Work
Most communication research- indeed, most research, and most work generally- requires
you to work in teams, and this class is designed with that expectation in mind. You will
have [6?] group projects due over the course of the semester, projects which will build on
each other and culminate in your final in-class presentation (due the last week of class).
For all group projects you will need to work as a team and divide work evenly. For each
of the six projects you will have a different project manager, who accepts responsibility
for scheduling meetings, dividing up the work, and meeting deadlines. The project
manager will submit a 1-page memo to me, along with the actual assignment itself, in
which he or she chronicles the different meetings of the group, problems with roadblocks
encountered in completing the assignment, and a general analysis.
The groups will begin by picking a research topic. Over the course of the semester, they
will complete their assignments. These assignments will culminate in a 30-minute group
presentation, due the last day of class.
I will provide you with examples of each assignment. The literature review will need to
include an annotated bibliography of at least twelve sources. Survey reports and content
analysis reports should be professionally presented and include graphs and figures, as
well as a two-page narrative summarizing your findings. Field notes should include a
“self-reflection” section wherein you discuss your fieldwork.
Project manager memos will be addressed to me and take the form of an inter-office
memo. It should be at least one full page. You will chronicle the different meetings of the
group, problems with roadblocks encountered in completing the assignment, and engage
in a general analysis. This is not a chance for you to badmouth your fellow students.
Mid-Term
Students will complete a traditional mid-term exam, in class, on [xxxxx].
Final
For the final, each student will write a five-page paper that will serve as a self-reflection
on the semester as a whole. This paper will be due, in my mailbox, on the day reserved
for you to take your final exam (there will be no in-class final exam) (you cannot email
me your final paper). Your final paper is a chance to comment on the findings of the
group and, most importantly, offer suggestions for future research. How would you
improve the research if you had more time to engage in a fuller ethnographic, focus
group, and interview research. How would you evaluate your research methods and
findings? The final paper should be at least five pages.
Attendance
Students are expected to attend every session of the senior seminar. According to college
policy, unexcused absences exceeding 15% of course hours can result in a WU grade.
Bottom line: don’t miss class.
In the event that a student must miss a class due to religious observance or family
emergency, students must provide advance notice, in writing, of days missed. In the
event of class missed due to illness, students must provide the instructor with a doctors’
note. No exceptions.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a major—perhaps the major—academic offense a student can commit as an
undergraduate, graduate student, or as a scholar. Plagiarism is defined as either (1) failure
to acknowledge the source of ideas not one’s own or (2) failure to indicate verbatim
expressions not one’s own through quotation marks and footnotes. Plagiarism is a
growing problem on college campuses across the nation, largely due to growing
technological ease in accessing already composed papers and sources of information. For
this reason, I personally will be relentlessly unforgiving regarding any suspected cases of
plagiarism this semester—and I will check. There will probably not be a second chance
in this regard, and I will recommend the strict enforce university policy for all cases of
plagiarism. Bottom line: don’t do it. If you have any questions, please talk to me before
you write rather than afterward. For more information, see the CUNY Policy on
Academic Integrity: http://www1.cuny.edu/academics/info-central/policies.html. For a
guide on how to cite your sources well, see
http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/?option=com_content&view=article&id=130
Ironically, we will be discussing and critiquing elements of plagiarism during one of the
sessions of this class.
Schedule of Classes
January 30
Class Introduction and Student Group Formation
February 1
READING DUE: “The Scientific Revolution,” (excerpt) (Shapin)
LECTURE: What is science? Where did science come from?
February 6
READING DUE: “Science and Research,” (Wimmer and
Dominick, Ch. 1)
LECTURE: What is communication research?
February 8
READING DUE: “Technology and Modern Life,” (Shannon)
LECTURE: The literature review: what do we already know?
ASSIGNMENT DUE: Group project proposals (Assignment #1)
February 15
LECTURE: Bibliography, Citations, and Links
GROUP WORK: Building a bibliography
*** NOTE: No Monday class this week ***
February 21
READING DUE: “A History of Statistics in the Social Sciences,”
(Coven); “The Wisdom of Crowds” (excerpts) (Surowecki)
LECTURE: Variables, validity, and reliability
February 22
GROUP WORK: Library trip and further work on literature
review
*** NOTE: MONDAY CLASS THIS WEEK IS ON A TUESDAY***
February 27
READING DUE: “Sampling,” and “Research in the Electronic
Media” (Wimmer and Dominick, Ch. 4 and 14)
Lecture: A brief history of sampling and early audience
research.
February 29
GROUP WORK: Sampling exercise
ASSIGNMENT DUE: Literature review (Assignment #2)
March 5
READING DUE: “Content Analysis” (Wimmer and Dominick, Ch
6); “The Whole World is Watching” (excerpt) (Todd Gitlin)
LECTURE: Content Analysis
March 7
ASSIGNMENT DUE: Sampling exercise (Assignment #3)
GROUP WORK: Content Analysis: Identifying a corpus
(Library)
March 12
GROUP WORK: Midterm research assessment.
ASSIGNMENT DUE: Midterm Research Assessment
(Assignment # 4)
March 14
*** MIDTERM (IN-CLASS) ***
March 19
READING DUE: “Survey Research,” (Wimmer and Dominick,
Ch. 7); “Survey Research and Societal Change,” (Tourangeau).
March 21
GROUP WORK: Content analysis: coding Sheet and
instruction form.
March 26:
READING DUE: “Interview Techniques,” (Wimmer and
Dominick, Ch. 5)
LECTURE: Interview techniques
March 28
GROUP WORK: Content analysis: coding
ASSIGNMENT DUE: Coding sheet / Instruction sheet for
content analysis.
April 2
READING DUE: “Focus Groups as Qualitative Research,”
(Morgan)
LECTURE: Focus Groups
April 4
ASSIGNMENT DUE: Content analysis report.
SCREENING: “Kinsey.”
April 16
READING DUE: “,” (Wimmer and Dominick. TK) “Appendix:
On the Methods Used in this Study” (Gans)
LECTURE: Ethnography and Participant Observation
April 18
IN-CLASS DEBATE: Ethnography vs Surveys
April 23
READING DUE: “The Interaction Order,” (Goffman)
LECTURE: Narrative and textual analysis
April 25
GROUP WORK: Preparing a survey
April 30
READING DUE: “Six Provocations for Big Data,” (boyd and
Crawford)
LECTURE: Big data
May 2
[trip to high speed computational center?]
May 7
LECTURE: Research ethics
SCREENING: Stanford Prison Experiment
Assignment Due: Survey Report and supporting documents
May 9
*** FINAL PROJECT PRESENTATIONS, PART I ***
May 14
*** FINAL PROJECT PRESENTATIONS, PART I ***
*** FINAL PAPER DUE: MAY 21 ***