Professor Ellen Helsper

This course is compulsory on the MPhil/PhD in Data, Networks and Society and MPhil/PhD in Media and Communications. This course is not available as an outside option.

This course is available for those who are on ESRC scholarships and students who are quantitatively oriented.

This course aims to provide students with methodological grounding in media and communications. Harvard style seminars combine insight into epistemology and ontology of academic research, alongside practical instruction in several methods commonly deployed in our field, including interviews, surveys, textual analysis and more. Recognising the interdisciplinary character of media and communications research, course content will draw from this arena as well as disciplines such as computer science, sociology, cultural studies, linguistics, psychology, and anthropology. The integral links between theory and method will be underscored, as will crucial issues of ethics and reflexivity. Support will be provided in the development of key skills, from crafting a research question through to study design and methods writing.

Please note, MC5M2 includes within it MY465: Intermediate Quantitative Analysis. This is a compulsory element and automatically included within the MC5M2 course code; no separate registration is necessary. Full details about this course, including structure, content, and assessment, can be found via the MY465 course page.

If students want more advanced quantitative analysis training, they can register for an additional course in WT (see MC5M2 handbook for course suggestions). These are not automatically included in the registration for MC5M2.

This course is delivered through a combination of lectures, seminars and workshops totalling a minimum of 50 hours across the AT and the WT. This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of term.

1. Advanced Principles of Social Research: A series of ten two-hour Harvard style student assisted seminars led by media and communications faculty in the WT. Students are required to participate in all ten workshops.

2. Intermediate Quantitative Analysis: Intermediate Quantitative Analysis: Students take MY465 Intermediate Quantitative Analysis delivered through a combination of classes and lectures totalling a minimum of 30 hours across the AT. This course is compulsory and automatically included when students register for MC5M2.

1. Advanced Principles of Social Research: All students are expected to complete advance readings and weekly assignments, and help prepare one seminar. Students submit their formative assignment consisting of a methods chapter in ST1.
2. Intermediate Quantitative Analysis: Self-guided computer exercises implementing statistics covered in the lectures with weekly online homework on the material covered in the lectures and exercises during the AT.

• Braun, V & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. London: SAGE.

• Brennen, B. S. (2017). Qualitative Research Methods of Media Studies. New York: Routledge.

• Couldry, N. (2000). Inside Culture: Re-Imagining the Method of Cultural Studies. London: SAGE.

• Costa, E., Lange, P. G., Haynes, N. & Sinanan, J. (2022). The Routledge Handbook to Media Anthropology. London: Routledge.

• Hansen, A & Machin, D. (2018). Media and Communication Research Methods. London: Springer.

• Jeppesen, S. & Sartoretto, S. (2020). Media Activist Research Ethics: Global Approaches to Negotiating Power in Social Justice Research. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave.

• Jøregensen, M. & Phillips, L. (2002). Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method. London: Sage Publications. 

• Kubitscho, S. & Kraun, A., eds. Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave.

• Mason, J. (2018). Qualitative Researching. 3rd edition. London: SAGE.

• Miller, T. Birch, M. Mauthner, M & Jessop, J. (2014). Ethics in Qualitative Research. London: SAGE.

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours) in the January exam period.

1. One assessment relating to Intermediate Quantitative Analysis: One exam in the January exam period for MY465 (see Methodology Department course guides).

Students must pass all components of MC5M2.