David[e1] C. Wheeler
Dr. Sherry Southard
English 7730 ( Project 2a)
February 20, 2008
Stones In the Dark: Diamonds or Coal?
Beginning
Research has been a part of my work experience for decades, and a basic approach has always served me well. Once a topic is selected, I usually seek out as many resources as possible, gathering information from each. Close analysis of a body of information allows it to “speak” for itself. As I internalize the material, a pattern begins to emerge leading to a tentative conclusion. This is, of course, a somewhat recursive process; each tentative conclusion requires further analysis and often further information gathering. Each new body of information often modifies the conclusion(s) that arose out of that which went before it. Each question answered usually poses another that demands investigation.
I chose “Stones In the Dark: Diamonds or Coal?” as a title because I have come to view secondary research as a process of discovery, evaluation, and elimination. This activity has taught me that the process is somewhat like feeling around in the darkness, knowing I have found something but not quite sure what it is. The stones must be brought into the light to determine whether they are diamonds – useful in the research process – or coal – useless, no matter how interesting they may be. Merely having many sources is not sufficient for effective secondary research; each must be examined – brought into the light – to determine its value and usefulness.
Tightening the Focus
I soon became aware that, to research the topic of international communications, I would have to modify my basic approach; the topic is simply too broad. I suspect that such modification may be necessary to any scholarly research endeavor. When I began searching for sources, I found nearly 200 hits in Journal of Business Communication alone in the last ten years. When I added the International Communication Gazette, the number rose to over 500 – far too many for my usual procedure. When I limited the search to only the last five years, I still had far too many hits to evaluate. Expanding the number of journals of course only intensified the problem. Searching in Journal of Business Communication, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Business Communication Quarterly, and Journal of Communication Inquiry using the keywords “International” and “Communication” and limiting the search to only the last five years yielded nearly 400 hits. The necessity of sharply defining the topic became abundantly clear!
Adding the keyword “technology” to “international” and “communication” did help narrow the field somewhat. Searching the same four journals yielded 232 articles published in the last five years. Looking down the list, however, quickly showed that many of them were unrelated to the actual study of international communication as facilitated by technology. For example, one article was titled “Willingness to Try a New Communication Technology: Perceptual Factors and Task Situations in a Health Care Context.” The hit came because the abstract included a reference to an international medical journal. Another approach was obviously needed, as hits logically unrelated to my topic proved to be the norm rather than the exception.
Rather than searching all fields of the entries, I tried searching only the titles, using all three keywords, but found no hits. Better results were obtained when I searched using only “international” in the title and both “technology” and “communication” in all fields; there were 10 hits. Typical was “Professional Communication in International Settings” by Steven E. Gump, published in Business Communication Quarterly, June, 2004, which (according to the Abstract of the article) investigated the impact of technology on business communications.
Shifting the focus from “technology” by making “marketing” a keyword in all fields returned only five hits, only one of which had any direct bearing on the subject at hand: “Teaching Culture: The Challenges and Opportunities of International Public Relations” by Sydel Sokuvitz and Amiso M. George, published in Business Communication Quarterly, January, 2003. Clearly, changing the keywords used in searching would limit the number of hits and tighten the focus of the material returned, but the keywords must be carefully chosen.
Expanding the Scope
Having established that many resources could be obtained and sifted by using a Boolean search of the online journals available through the ECU library, it was time to investigate additional sources. One search avenue is Google Scholar, using the “Advanced Search” feature. I had the same problem as the journal search, but multiplied one thousand-fold! An initial search using keywords “International Communications” returned 2,190,000 hits! Even clicking on “Recent Articles” only reduced the number to 465,000. Such a plethora of hits necessitated initiating the refining process again.
Searching only titles for the words “International communications” returned 2,290 hits; confining the search to only recent articles reduced the number to 352, still a rather large number through which to sift. Many of the recent entries dealt with medical topics, specifically with the need for better international communication in the area of organs available for transplant. One rather provocative article was an essay in a book on media (The Anthropology of Media: A Reader) titled “The Global and the Local in International Communications” by Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi. The author begins with a quote from Marshall McLuhan including the statement: “As electrically contracted, the globe is no more than a village,” which no doubt gave rise to the current buzz-word, “global village.”
Turning to Amazon.com as a source for books and other print media, a search of their database using keywords “international communications” returned 28,901 items. Sorting them by relevance helped somewhat, but the number of publications through which to weed remained huge. The first item was a $34.50 paperback titled International Communication: Continuity and Change, by Daya Kishan Thussu, published in 2006.
The International Communications Association publishes a number of journals that should yield a rich variety of viewpoints. Their Journal of Communicationis a general forum for communication scholarship examining a variety of issues in communication theory and research. The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication is web-based, publishing scholarship dealing with electronically-mediated topics. Communication, Culture, & Critique publishes research examining the role of communication and cultural criticism in today’s world. Human Communication Research concentrates on seeking to advance understanding of human symbolic processes. The Table of Contents of the current issue includes “Exposure to Television Portrayals of Latinos: The Implications of Aversive Racism and Social Identity Theory,” “The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep,” and “Observing Purchase-Related Parent–Child Communication in Retail Environments: A Developmental and Socialization Perspective.” Clearly, this journal – and this Association – investigates a wide spectrum of issues in communications, many with international implications.
Wrapping It Up
I could go on, page after page, documenting my emerging understanding of secondary research in a scholarly environment. Most of my research over the last three decades has been related to a very limited field, and thus to a very limited array of resources. This present experience has to a degree been one of frustration and of feeling overwhelmed by the sheer mass of material that is out there, and the monumental task of extracting those items – and only those items – that contribute to a greater understanding of the chosen topic.
The mass of material through which to sift is huge, and most of it is useless. Some is patently corrupt because it springs not from scholarship but from someone’s prejudices, and is purely creative writing. Some is valid, but unrelated to the subject at hand. Most can be quickly discarded by the insertion of precisely chosen keywords into search engines.
In conclusion, I stand by my original method of conducting research with an additional step. Rather than just gathering as much material as possible, I see the necessity of carefully selecting the material to include. Many writings that have been published that, rather than contributing to greater understanding, will instead inject misunderstanding into the mix. The diamonds must be separated from the coal before the process of analysis and synthesis is begun.
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