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MDIA 303: Mass Media Technologies

Media Uses & Effects Resources

For this portion of the research assignment, you'll need to find scholarly work regarding your technology. In some cases, this may come from any discipline. You can start with the databases I suggest for communication, but you might consider looking at other disciplines as well. For example, who might be studying the social experiences people have in regards to your particular technology? Most likely, it'll be sociologists. In addition to the databases below, check the list of Research Databases we have and choose one based on who could be studying your technology.

What is a scholarly article?

A scholarly article is how researchers (scholars) communicate the findings and analysis of their research. Scholarly articles:

  • Provide original research and analysis - these articles are based on studies or experiements, or analyze an artifact or event. Every scholarly article presents something new about the world we didn't know before.
  • Are written by scholars - scholars tend to hold PhDs, or other advanced degrees and are professors at universities.
  • Are published in peer-reviewed journals - you won't find these floating about on the internet, they have to be published in a journal. Most times you'll find them in the library databases.
  • Might be hard to read - they act as the primary conversation between scholars about a field of study. Since they are written by scholars, for scholars, they contain specialized language that might be hard for the lay person to understand