Researchers are like detectives. Both are trying to find something out. Both are asking and answering questions. Both are trying to put together a puzzle to come up with a solution. In both, answering questions leads to more questions. And, in both, seeing patterns is crucial to solving the puzzle. Straight Talk about Communication Research Methods presents the foundations of research methods, the choices scholars make, and the methodological decisions driving communication scholarship to balance one's desire to know and inquire into interesting communication questions while instilling an enthusiasm about the process! Featuring a student friendly writing style, Straight Talk about Communication Research Methods is built on adult learning theory information is given in small chunks that build upon each other, repeating then expanding knowledge. Featuring updated information and examples, the new third edition of Straight Talk about Communication Research Methods: Is Modern! The text includes material on conducting research on, and involving, social and digital media. Is Practical! Examples of how students might use communication research methods in business and industry jobs after graduation are integrated throughout. Is Groundbreaking! The text features four Chapters that summarize new qualitative research methods along with comprehensive instructions on how to conduct these research methods. Is Interactive! A seamlessly integrated enhanced learning package provides both students and instructors access to online content, interactive exercises and more.

Despite the fact that focus groups are an ideal research tool for studying and employing group communication in action, many research practitioners and scholars have missed the opportunity to utilize them to their maximum benefit. Few researchers have the skills that enable them to approach focus group facilitation and analysis from a communication point of view. In this book, Dr. Christine Davis teaches readers how to take a project from an idea to the design, facilitation, and analysis stages. This book takes a unique communication perspective to apply group communication theories, knowledge of group processes, and a close discourse analysis approach to explain and understand the discursive aspect of focus groups. This book helps readers of all stages of experience - including those with no background in focus group research to those practitioners with more focus group expertise - understand how a communication approach to focus groups takes advantage of this discipline's rich scholarship in group communication and discourse analysis. This book will teach readers how to a. understand the nature of focus group research procedures from a communication point of view; b. understand how to translate RQs into a focus group protocol; c. use knowledge of communication theory and group process to understand how to facilitate different kinds of focus groups, prevent and overcome challenges in focus group facilitation; and elicit different outcomes and techniques when facilitating a focus group; d. use knowledge of communication theory and group process to recognize the merits of different approaches to focus group facilitation; e. use knowledge of communication theory and group process to recognize good- and poor-quality focus groups; f. understand how to transcribe / code / analyze focus group data from a communication (discursive) perspective; and g. understand how to write focus group findings.

Despite the fact that focus groups are an ideal research tool for studying and employing group communication in action, many research practitioners and scholars have missed the opportunity to utilize them to their maximum benefit. Few researchers have the skills that enable them to approach focus group facilitation and analysis from a communication point of view. In this book, Dr. Christine Davis teaches readers how to take a project from an idea to the design, facilitation, and analysis stages. This book takes a unique communication perspective to apply group communication theories, knowledge of group processes, and a close discourse analysis approach to explain and understand the discursive aspect of focus groups. This book helps readers of all stages of experience - including those with no background in focus group research to those practitioners with more focus group expertise - understand how a communication approach to focus groups takes advantage of this discipline's rich scholarship in group communication and discourse analysis. This book will teach readers how to a. understand the nature of focus group research procedures from a communication point of view; b. understand how to translate RQs into a focus group protocol; c. use knowledge of communication theory and group process to understand how to facilitate different kinds of focus groups, prevent and overcome challenges in focus group facilitation; and elicit different outcomes and techniques when facilitating a focus group; d. use knowledge of communication theory and group process to recognize the merits of different approaches to focus group facilitation; e. use knowledge of communication theory and group process to recognize good- and poor-quality focus groups; f. understand how to transcribe / code / analyze focus group data from a communication (discursive) perspective; and g. understand how to write focus group findings.

Christine Davis offers readers an insider's view of the practices of ten leading qualitative communication scholars, showing how they make critical decisions in the process of conducting research. Through interviews and reflective assessment of their key articles, these researchers make visible how they deal with theory, data collection, analysis, and writing up a study. These scholars represent the full range of qualitative communication research: social science, narrative, and performance. Davis provides additional context to offer the reader a practical understanding of how to navigate a qualitative research project.

This book examines the dialectic between fictional death as depicted in the media and real death as it is experienced in a hospital setting. Using a Terror Management theoretical lens, Davis and Crane explore the intersections of life and death, experience and fiction, to understand the relationship between them. The authors use complementary perspectives to examine what it means when we speak and think of death as it is conceived in cultural media and as it is constructed by and circulates between patients, health professionals, and supportive family members and friends. Layering analysis with evocative narrative and an intimate tone, with characters, plot, and action that reflect the voices and experiences of all project participants, including the authors' own, Davis and Crane reflect on what it means to pass away. Their medical humanities approach bridges health communication, cultural studies, and the arts to inform medical ethics and care.

Talking Through Death examines communication at the end-of-life from several different communication perspectives: interpersonal (patient, provider, family), mediated, and cultural. By studying interpersonal and family communication, cultural media, funeral related rituals, religious and cultural practices, medical settings, and legal issues surrounding advance directives, readers gain insight into the ways symbolic communication constructs the experience of death and dying, and the way meaning is infused into the process of death and dying. The book looks at the communication-related health and social issues facing people and their loved ones as they transition through the end of life experience. It reports on research recently conducted by the authors and others to create a conversational, narrative text that helps students, patients, and medical providers understand the symbolism and construction of meaning inherent in end-of-life communication.

This book examines the dialectic between fictional death as depicted in the media and real death as it is experienced in a hospital setting. Using a Terror Management theoretical lens, Davis and Crane explore the intersections of life and death, experience and fiction, to understand the relationship between them. The authors use complementary perspectives to examine what it means when we speak and think of death as it is conceived in cultural media and as it is constructed by and circulates between patients, health professionals, and supportive family members and friends. Layering analysis with evocative narrative and an intimate tone, with characters, plot, and action that reflect the voices and experiences of all project participants, including the authors' own, Davis and Crane reflect on what it means to pass away. Their medical humanities approach bridges health communication, cultural studies, and the arts to inform medical ethics and care.

Talking Through Death examines communication at the end-of-life from several different communication perspectives: interpersonal (patient, provider, family), mediated, and cultural. By studying interpersonal and family communication, cultural media, funeral related rituals, religious and cultural practices, medical settings, and legal issues surrounding advance directives, readers gain insight into the ways symbolic communication constructs the experience of death and dying, and the way meaning is infused into the process of death and dying. The book looks at the communication-related health and social issues facing people and their loved ones as they transition through the end of life experience. It reports on research recently conducted by the authors and others to create a conversational, narrative text that helps students, patients, and medical providers understand the symbolism and construction of meaning inherent in end-of-life communication.

Christine Davis offers readers an insider's view of the practices of ten leading qualitative communication scholars, showing how they make critical decisions in the process of conducting research. Through interviews and reflective assessment of their key articles, these researchers make visible how they deal with theory, data collection, analysis, and writing up a study. These scholars represent the full range of qualitative communication research: social science, narrative, and performance. Davis provides additional context to offer the reader a practical understanding of how to navigate a qualitative research project.

This book intertwines the author's personal story of her father's death with the story of her ethnography of a hospice organisation. It is an evocative narrative that seeks to understand and explain the process of communicating with the dying--and their families--and the ways that this communication potentially reinforces and enhances the humanity, life, and sanctity of relationships. The book takes a social constructionist approach to examine communication with and about people with terminal illness, and in so doing, illustrates and explains health communication theories in an understandable, concrete manner. The thesis of the book is that while some end-of-life communication helps maintain the humanness of the dying person, and with it, the essential relationship between the dying and their loved ones, not all end-of-life communication accomplishes this. Research suggests that hospice helps facilitate the process of treating patients as persons through the way they think about, interact, and communicate with patients. The main focus of this narrative book is to examine and describe the places where hospice staff, patients and families interconnect as persons beyond their social and patient roles.