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Mass Media

A guide to library resources and external sources of information in Mass Media.

Scholarly or not?

What is a scholarly journal?

Answer: A journal that has been created by academic authors and includes original quantitative and/or qualitative research and theoretical content.

      Examples

  • Journal of Research in Science Teaching
  • Harvard Educational Review
  • Early Childhood Research Quarterly

What is a trade journal?

Answer: A journal that was created for professionals. The articles address professional or work-related issues and help practicioners by summarizing research for best practices.

      Examples:

  •  The Reading Teacher
  • Principal Leadership
  • Teaching Children Mathematics
  • Technology & Learning          

Is my article scholarly?  

Look closely at the publication information on the article and in the journal.  If in doubt, ask me!

Periodicals

Editor & Publisher

Journal of Radio Studies

Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

Publisher's Weekly

The Quill

Television Broadcast

Television Broadcast's DigitalTV

Television Quarterly

General Databases

Depending on your research process, General Databases can either serve as a great starting point or a desperate last resort for locating information on your topic.

General Databases are valuable for a number of reasons:

  • Interdisciplinary works, which tend to fall in the cracks of scholarship, can often be located more easily in a General Database
  • General Databases usually index the most important journals in a given discipline.
  • General Databases usually provide access to the entire gamut of published information, from daily newspapers to scholarly journals.

Here are links to several general databases that can provide links or full text articles in a wide variety of sources.  Remember that in order to access any of the library's subscription databases from off-campus, you will be required to authenticate your session with your name and WIN number.