Media Research Techniques

Arthur Asa Berger is Professor Emeritus of Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts at San Francisco State University, where he taught between 1965 and 2003. He has published more than 100 articles, numerous book reviews, and more than 60 books. Among his latest books are the third edition of Media and Communication Research Methods: An Introduction to Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (2013), The Academic Writer’s Toolkit: A User’s Manual (2008), What Objects Mean: An Introduction to Material Culture (2009), Bali Tourism (2013), Tourism in Japan: An Ethno-Semiotic Analysis (2010), The Culture Theorist’s Book of Quotations (2010), and The Objects of Our Affection: Semiotics and Consumer Culture (2010). He has also written a number of academic mysteries such as Durkheim is Dead: Sherlock Holmes is Introduced to Sociological Theory (2003) and Mistake in Identity: A Cultural Studies Murder Mystery (2005). His books have been translated into eight languages and thirteen of his books have been translated into Chinese.

• PART ONE: RESEARCH PROJECTSGuided Research ProjectsResearch LogsContent AnalysisNewspaper Comics PagesSurvey InterviewsMedia UtilizationSocial RolesTelevision Soap Opera CharactersDepth InterviewsFavorite Singers and RecordingsRhetorical AnalysisMagazine AdvertisementsLibrary ResearchAudiences of Radio Talk ShowsFocus GroupsReasons for Attending FilmsExperimentsHumorParticipant ObservationVideo Game PlayersHistorical ResearchImages of Shopping Malls in the Popular PressComparative AnalysisImages of Disneyland (and Disneyworld) in the American Popular and Scholarly PressPART TWO: WRITING AND THINKINGWriting with StyleAvoiding Common Writing ErrorsAvoiding Common Reasoning ErrorsWriting a Research Report