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Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Professional Papers

This collection includes theses, dissertations, and professional papers from the University of Montana Department of Communication Studies. Theses, dissertations, and professional papers from all University of Montana departments and programs may be searched here.

Theses/Dissertations from 2024 2024

The Role of Face Threats in Understanding Target’s Interpretation of a Tease , Shawn M. Deegan

RETROSPECTIVE AND INTERACTIVE ANALYSES OF PARENT-ADOLESCENT STORYTELLING ABOUT ALCOHOL , Kiersten Marie Falck

A CASE OF WATER: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE LEGAL AND SOCIAL EFFECTS OF THE ARIZONA V. NAVAJO NATION SUPREME COURT CASE , Mykel Patrick Greene

To Revise Or Not To Revise: How Feedback Type, Interpersonal Liking, and Messenger Credibility Influence Revision , Rachel Jane Jensen

The National Football League's Problem , Marley R. Merchen

Menopause in The Public Sphere: The Consciousness-Raising Practices of Technical and Experiential Experts , Emma J. Murdock

Minimizing Toxicity and Maximizing Social Connection in Collegiate Esports Teams , Julia Kay Tonne

EXPLORING CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND SOLUTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IN ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENTS WITH CONSIDERATION TO COMMUNICATION ACCOMMODATION THEORY , Wendy K. Yeboah

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

COMEDY, CAMARADERIE, AND CONFLICT: USING HUMOR TO DEFUSE DISPUTES AMONG FRIENDS , Sheena A. Bringa

Navigating Toxic Identities Within League of Legends , Jeremy Thomas Miner

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

UNDERSTANDING MEDIA RICHNESS AND SOCIAL PRESENCE: EXPLORING THE IMPACTS OF MEDIA CHANNELS ON INDIVIDUALS’ LEVELS OF LONELINESS, WELL-BEING, AND BELONGING , Ashley M. Arsenault

CANCELING VS. #CANCEL CULTURE: AN ANALYSIS ON THE SURVEILLANCE AND DISCIPLINE OF SOCIAL MEDIA BEHAVIOR THROUGH COMPETING DISCOURSES OF POWER , Julia G. Bezio

DISTAL SIBLING GRIEF: EXPLORING EMOTIONAL AFFECT AND SALIENCE OF LISTENER BEHAVIORS IN STORIES OF SIBLING DEATH , Margaret C. Brock

Is Loss a Laughing Matter?: A Study of Humor Reactions and Benign Violation Theory in the Context of Grief. , Miranda B. Henrich

The Request Is Not Compatible: Competing Frames of Public Lands Discourse in the Lolo Peak Ski Resort Controversy , Philip A. Sharp

Patient Expectations, Satisfaction, and Provider Communication Within the Oncology Experience , Elizabeth Margaret Sholey

Psychological Safety at Amazon: A CCO Approach , Kathryn K. Zyskowski

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Discourse of Renewal: A Qualitative Analysis of the University of Montana’s COVID-19 Crisis Communication , Haley Renae Gabel

Activating Hope: How Functional Support Can Improve Hope in Unemployed Individuals , Rylee P. Walter

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

THE HOME AS A SITE OF FAMILY COMMUNICATED NARRATIVE SENSE-MAKING: GRIEF, MEANING, AND IDENTITY THROUGH “CLEANING OUT THE CLOSET” , Kendyl A. Barney

CRISIS AS A CONSTANT: UNDERSTANDING THE COMMUNICATIVE ENACTMENT OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE WITHIN THE EXTENSION DISASTER EDUCATION NETWORK (EDEN) , Danielle Maria Farley

FOSTERING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE IN COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION: EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE FOUNDATIONS TRAINING , Shanay L. Healy

Belonging for Dementia Caregivers , Sabrina Singh

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Making the Most of People We Do Not Like: Capitalizing on Negative Feedback , Christopher Edward Anderson

Understanding the Relationship Between Discursive Resources and Risk-Taking Behaviors in Outdoor Adventure Athletes , Mira Ione Cleveland

Service Failure Management in High-End Hospitality Resorts , Hunter A. Dietrich

Fear, Power, & Teeth (2007) , Olivia Hockenbroch

The climate change sublime: Leveraging the immense awe of the planetary threat of climate change , Sean D. Quartz

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

The Relationship Between Memorable Messages and Identity Construction , Raphaela P. Barros Campbell

Wonder Woman: A Case Study for Critical Media Literacy , Adriana N. Fehrs

Curated Chaos: A Rhetorical Study of Axmen , Rebekah A. McDonald

THE ROLE OF BIPOLAR DISORDER, STIGMA, AND HURTFUL MESSAGES IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS , Callie Parrish

Cruising to be a Board Gamer: Understanding Socialization Relating to Board Gaming and The Dice Tower , Benjamin Wassink

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

STEAMED: EXAMINATIONS OF POWER STRUGGLES ON THE VALUE FORUM , richard E. babb

Beyond the Bike; Identity and Belonging of Free Cycles Members , Caitlyn Lewis

Adherence and Uncertainty Management: A Test Of The Theory Of Motivated Information Management , Ryan Thiel

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Redskins Revisited: Competing Constructions of the Washington Redskins Mascot , Eean Grimshaw

A Qualitative Analysis of Belonging in Communities of Practice: Exploring Transformative Organizational Elements within the Choral Arts , Aubrielle J. Holly

Training the Professoraite of Tomorrow: Implementing the Needs Centered Training Model to Instruct Graduate Teaching Assistants in the use of Teacher Immediacy , Leah R. Johnson

Beyond Blood: Examining the Communicative Challenges of Adoptive Families , Mackensie C. Minniear

Attitudes Toward Execution: The Tragic and Grotesque Framing of Capital Punishment in the News , Katherine Shuy

Knowledge and Resistance: Feminine Style and Signifyin[g] in Michelle Obama’s Public Address , Tracy Valgento

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

BLENDED FRAMEWORK: BILL MCKIBBEN'S USE OF MELODRAMA AND COMEDY IN ENVIRONMENTAL RHETORIC , Megan E. Cullinan

THE INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL DRAMAS ON PATIENT EXPECTATIONS OF PHYSICIAN COMMUNICATION , Kayla M. Fadenrecht

Diabesties: How Diabetic Support on Campus can Alleviate Diabetic Burnout , Kassandra E. Martin

Resisting NSA Surveillance: Glenn Greenwald and the public sphere debate about privacy , Rebecca Rice

Rhetoric, participation, and democracy: The positioning of public hearings under the National Environmental Policy Act , Kevin C. Stone

Socialization and Volunteers: A Training Program for Volunteer Managers , Allison M. Sullivan

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

THIRD PARTY EFFECTS OF AFFECTIONATE COMMUNICATION IN FAMILY SUBSYSTEMS: EXAMINING INFLUENCE ON AFFECTIONATE COMMUNICATION, MENTAL WELL-BEING, AND FAMILY SATISFACTION , Timothy M. Curran

Commodity or Dignity? Nurturing Managers' Courtesy Nurtures Workers' Productivity , Montana Rafferty Moss

"It Was My Job to Keep My Children Safe": Sandra Steingraber and the Parental Rhetoric of Precaution , Mollie Katherine Murphy

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Free Markets: ALEC's Populist Constructions of "the People" in State Politics , Anne Sherwood

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

COMMUNICATIVE CONSTRUCTION OF EXPECTATIONS: AN EXAMINATION OF EXPECTATIONS REGARDING MOTHERS IN NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTION , Jordan A. Allen

Let’s talk about sex: A training program for parents of 4th and 5th grade children , Elizabeth Kay Eickhoff

"You Is The Church": Identity and Identification in Church Leadership , Megan E. Gesler

This land is your land, this land is my land: A qualitative study of tensions in an environmental decision making group , Gabriel Patrick Grelle

The Constitution of Queer Identity in the 1972 APA Panel, "Psychiatry: Friend or Foe to Homosexuals? A Dialogue" , Dustin Vern Edward Schneider

The Effect of Religious Similarity on the Use of Relational Maintenance Strategies in Marriages , Jamie Karen Taylor

Justice, Equality, and SlutWalk: The Rhetoric of Protesting Rape Culture , Dana Whitney Underwood

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Collective Privacy Boundary Turbulence and Facework Strategies: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of South Korea and the United States , Min Kyong Cho

COMMUNICATING ARTIFACTS: AN ANALYSIS OF HOW MUSEUMS COMMUNICATE ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY DURING TIMES OF CONTROVERSY AND FINANCIAL STRAIN , Amanda Renee Cornuke

Communication Apprehension and Perceived Responsiveness , Elise Alexandra Fanney

Improving Patient-Provider Communication in the Health Care context , Charlotte M. Glidden

What They Consider, How They Decide: Best Practices of Technical Experts in Environmental Decision-Making , Cassandra J. Hemphill

Rebuilding Place: Exploring Strategies to Align Place Identity During Relocation , Brigette Renee McKamey

Sarah Palin, Conservative Feminism, and the Politics of Family , Jasmine Rose Zink

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Salud, Dignidad, Justicia: Articulating "Choice" and "Reproductive Justice" for Latinas in the United States , Kathleen Maire de Onis

Environmental Documentary Film: A Contemporary Tool For Social Movement , Rachel Gregg

In The Pink: The (Un)Healthy Complexion of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month , Kira Stacey Jones

Jihad as an Ideograph: Osama bin Laden's rhetorical weapon of choice , Faye Lingarajan

The Heart of the Matter: The Function and Relational Effects of Humor for Cardiovascular Patients , Nicholas Lee Lockwood

Feeling the Burn: A Discursive Analysis of Organizational Burnout in Seasonal Wildland Firefighters , Whitney Eleanor Marie Maphis

Making A Comeback: An Exploration of Nontraditional Students & Identity Support , Jessica Kate McFadden

In the Game of Love, Play by the Rules: Implications of Relationship Rule Consensus over Honesty and Deception in Romantic Relationships , Katlyn Elise Roggensack

Assessing the balance: Burkean frames and Lil' Bush , Elizabeth Anne Sills

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

The Discipline of Identity: Examining the Challenges of Developing Interdisciplinary Identities Within the Science Disciplines , Nicholas Richard Burk

Occupational Therapists: A Study of Managing Multiple Identities , Katherine Elise Lloyd

Discourse, Identity, and Culture in Diverse Organizations: A Study of The Muslim Students Association (University of Montana) , Burhanuddin Bin Omar

The Skinny on Weight Watchers: A Critical Analysis of Weight Watcher's Use of Metaphors , Ashlynn Laura Reynolds-Dyk

You Got the Job, Now What?: An Evaluation of the New Employee Orientation Program at the University of Montana , Shiloh M. A. Sullivan

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

Because We Have the Power to Choose: A Critical Analysis of the Rhetorical Strategies Used in Merck's Gardasil Campaign , Brittney Lee Buttweiler

Communicative Strategies Used in the Introduction of Spirituality in the Workplace , Matthew Alan Condon

Cultures in Residence: Intercultural Communication Competence for Residence Life Staff , Bridget Eileen Flaherty

The Influence of Sibling Support on Children's Post-Divorce Adjustment: A Turning Point Analysis , Kimberly Ann Jacobs

TALK ABOUT “HOOKING UP”: HOW COLLEGE STUDENTS‟ ACCOUNTS OF “HOOKING UP” IN SOCIAL NETWORKS INFLUENCES ENGAGING IN RISKY SEXUAL BEHAVIOR , Amanda J. Olson

The Effect of Imagined Interactions on Secret Revelation and Health , Adam Stephens Richards

Teaching Intercultural Communication Competence in the Healthcare Context , Jelena Stojakovic

Quitting versus Not Quitting: The Process and Development of an Assimilation Program Within Opportunity Resources, Inc. , Amanda N. Stovall

Theses/Dissertations from 2008 2008

IMAGES AS A LAYER OF POSITIVE RHETORIC: A VALUES-BASED CASE STUDY EXPLORING THE INTERACTION BETWEEN VISUAL AND VERBAL ELEMENTS FOUND ON A RURAL NATURAL RESOURCES NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION WEBSITE , Vailferree Stilwell Brechtel

Relational Transgressions in Romantic Relationships: How Individuals Negotiate the Revelation and Concealment of Transgression Information within the Social Network , Melissa A. Maier

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

THE SOCIALIZATION OF SEASONAL EMPLOYEES , Maria Dawn Blevins

Friends the family you choose (no matter what: An investigation of fictive kin relationships amoung young adults. , Kimberly Anne Clinger

Public relations in nonprofit organizations: A guide to establishing public relations programs in nonprofit settings , Megan Kate Gale

Negotiated Forgiveness in Parent-Child Relationships: Investigating Links to Politeness, Wellness and Sickness , Jennifer Lynn Geist

Developing and Communicating Better Sexual Harassment Policies Through Ethics and Human Rights , Thain Yates Hagan

Managing Multiple Identities: A Qualitative Study of Nurses and Implications for Work-Family Balance , Claire Marie Spanier

BEYOND ORGANIC: DEFINING ALTERNATIVES TO USDA CERTIFIED ORGANIC , Jennifer Ann von Sehlen

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

Graduate Teaching Assistant Interpretations and Responses to Student Immediacy Cues , Clair Owen Canfield

Verbal negotiation of affection in romantic relationships , Andrea Ann Richards

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

Art of forgiveness , Carrie Benedict

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Dissertation

Students select their own project topic and can pursue a research-based project or a practical project.

Science Communication and Public Engagement Dissertation

Students can choose between a research project or practical project. Students will be instructed on the analysis and research methods required for a research project and this approach is consistent with their approach for students (on other programmes undertaking a Masters dissertation) with no previous knowledge of social science methodologies. The project will draw on relevant aggregated learning outcomes of the programme and students will develop, with supervision, an area of research or a science communication/public activity which they will analyse and reflect upon in a 12,000 word dissertation.

This article was published on 2024-08-05

• Schools & departments

Science Communication and Public Engagement MSc

Awards: MSc

Study modes: Full-time

Funding opportunities

Programme website: Science Communication and Public Engagement

Introduction to Postgraduate Study at the University of Edinburgh

Join us online on 25 September to learn more about Scotland, the city of Edinburgh and postgraduate study at the University.

Find out more and register

Programme description

The programme covers communication of all science, engineering, maths and technology.

About the programme

The fields of science communication and public engagement are currently enjoying unprecedented growth. The growth is driven by many situations present in modern society including:

• the need for effective public health and climate change communication and engagement
• a greater need to demonstrate and share the impact of publicly funded research
• the need for research to be valued and a desire for a stronger evidence base for policy decisions.

Many career opportunities are emerging at the interface between research/researchers and various stakeholder groups, and ever more creative methods and practices for engagement are being explored and utilised. The MSc programme covers communication of and engagement with all sciences, engineering, maths and technology together with non-science disciplines.

You will experience a variety of science communication and public engagement approaches and contexts. In the process, you will develop critical thinking skills and reflective practice.

The learning gained from one course is transferable to other courses, thus ensuring interconnection across the programme.

Please note this MSc is NOT a programme in communication science and does not specialise in marketing, advertising, or corporate communication

Programme structure

This MSc is a one-year programme, divided into three semesters. The final semester consists of a choice of research or practice-based project.

Teaching methods contain a blend of seminars with individual and small-group activities, together with practice-based sessions. Teaching styles will be designed to ‘model’ the practices in science communication and public engagement.

Compulsory courses

• Principles and Practice in Science Communication and Public Engagement (20 credits)
• Science, Society and the Media (20 credits)
• The Role of Social Media in Science Communication and Public Engagement (10 credits)
• Placement course (10 credits)
• Dialogue for Science Communication and Public Engagement (20 credits)
• Science Education (10 credits)
• Science, Policy and Practice (10 credits)
• Choice of Elective courses (10 credits)

Examples of elective courses include:

• Digital Making and Information Visualisation for Science Communication and Public Engagement (10 credits)
• Creative Arts and Science Engagement (10 credits)

Please note elective availability is subject to annual academic review and demand.

Following semester 2

• Dissertation (60 credits)

Career opportunities

There has been a significant rise in opportunities available for individuals with the specialist knowledge, skills and attributes necessary to pursue roles at the interface between research and publics.

These roles can be found in, for example, higher education institutions, museums, science centres, learned societies and consultancies for democratic decision-making.

Examples of specific roles include:

• engagement managers
• information and education officers
• policy and knowledge brokers

Entry requirements

These entry requirements are for the 2024/25 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2025/26 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2024.

A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in a science-related subject.

We will also consider your application if you have a UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in another discipline.

Students from China

This degree is Band A.

• Postgraduate entry requirements for students from China

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country
• English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency at a level that will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.5 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 23 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced ( CAE ) / C2 Proficiency ( CPE ): total 185 with at least 176 in each component.
• Trinity ISE : ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 70 with at least 62 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS , TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE , in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old* at the beginning of your programme of study. (*Revised 05 March 2024 to extend degree validity to five years.)

Find out more about our language requirements:

Fees and costs

Living costs.

You will be responsible for covering living costs for the duration of your studies.

Tuition fees

Scholarships and funding, uk government postgraduate loans.

If you live in the UK, you may be able to apply for a postgraduate loan from one of the UK’s governments.

The type and amount of financial support you are eligible for will depend on:

• your programme
• the duration of your studies
• your tuition fee status

Programmes studied on a part-time intermittent basis are not eligible.

• UK government and other external funding

Other funding opportunities

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding

Further information

• Phone: +44 (0)131 242 6460
• Contact: [email protected]
• Programme Director, Elizabeth Stevenson
• Contact: [email protected]
• Edinburgh Medical School: Biomedical Sciences
• The University of Edinburgh
• Medical School, Teviot Place
• Central Campus
• Programme: Science Communication and Public Engagement
• School: Edinburgh Medical School: Biomedical Sciences
• College: Medicine & Veterinary Medicine

This programme is not currently accepting applications. Applications for the next intake usually open in October.

Start date: September

Awards: MSc (12 mth FT)

Application deadlines

You can apply for this degree during a number of periods through the year. We limit the time we accept applications due to the high level of demand for places.

When you are able to apply depends upon your fee status.

Work out your fee status

If you don’t hear from us by the award deadline, your application is carried forward to the next admissions round for further consideration.

Deadlines for all fee statuses

Deadlines for UK/Scotland fee status

This round is only open to applicants who are eligible for the UK/Scotland fee rate, including the EU/EEA Pre-settled Scotland fee status.

If you apply with another fee status in this round your application will be rejected.

(Revised 16 May 2024 to update staged admissions wording)

• How to apply

Find out more about the general application process for postgraduate programmes:

Website navigation

Science communication msc.

• Postgraduate taught

Science Communication

Prepare for a range of science communication careers through academic and practical experience.

Prepare for a range of science communication careers through academic and practical experience – from journalism to policy

Develop your technical skills in our in-house TV and radio facilities

Gain industry insights on a work placement with a media company or science communication organisation

Course key facts

Qualification, 1 year, 2 years, september 2025, full-time, part-time, tbc overseas, delivered by, science communication unit, south kensington, minimum entry standard, 2:1 in a scientific or science-related subject, course overview.

Develop an informed, critical and creative approach to communicating science to professional media standards on this Master's course.

You'll study a combination of academic and practical modules in order to prepare you for a range of careers in science communication.

This course will further your critical understanding of communicating scientific ideas to the public.

You'll also advance your technical and conceptual skills by working in a range of media, and gain direct industry experience on a work placement or internship.

A significant component of the course will be an academic dissertation, where you'll apply your knowledge from the course to an element of investigative work.

If you wish to focus solely on broadcast media and filmmaking, we also offer an MSc in Science Media Production .

This page is updated regularly to reflect the latest version of the curriculum. However, this information is subject to change.

Find out more about potential course changes .

Please note:  it may not always be possible to take specific combinations of modules due to timetabling conflicts. For confirmation, please check with the relevant department.

Core modules

Optional modules.

• Work Placement
• Dissertation

You’ll take all core modules.

Science and its Social Contexts

Explore the contemporary debates surrounding science and its place in the world, and consider how scientific expertise in the public domain becomes controversial and contested.

Media Representation of Science

Assess how media texts are constructed in the coverage of science and the journalistic norms and practices that lead to this coverage.

Science Communication Practical Projects

In addition to an introduction to core skills and a term-long creative project, y ou will choose two strands in this module, which may include: Digital Media Campaigning; Exhibitions; Radio; Television; and Writing for Journalism. In each strand, you will work on practical projects that replicate professional output in that medium.

You’ll choose three optional academic modules. Please note, exact modules may vary from year to year.

Documentary Film

Engage with seminal works in the history of documentary film and develop a critical eye to recent developments in factual TV.

Museums, Heritage and Science

Explore issues surrounding the construction of meaning in visual and spatial media and examine the problems of presenting complex and controversial science in museums.

Examine key concepts from narrative theory to inform your narrative writing and consider important theoretical issues from a range of genres and media.

Science and Fiction

This module looks at the role of fiction in science communication, and the ways science and fiction have shaped each other over the centuries, covering literature, film, theatre, and games.

Science Communication and Global Justice

Critically examine perspectives on international development and the issues these raise for science communication.

Science Policy

Analyse the relationship between communication, science and policymaking and discover how public policy is determined.

Sound, Sign, Meaning in Radio

Consider influential works of radio documentary and drama to examine how audio media create visual images in listeners’ minds and the implications this has for the truth-telling power of the medium.

You'll carry out an attachment or internship with a science communication organisation, typically lasting three or four weeks.

This will enable you to gain experience of the real world of science communication and put in practice the knowledge gained on the course.

You’ll benefit from the supervision and guidance of professional science communicators and widen your range of contacts both in the media industry and in the world of science communication.

You’ll undertake a substantial piece of academic research that engages critically with the relevant scholarly literature and involves some element of investigative work.

The research must be written up in the form of a 10,000-word dissertation.

Teaching and assessment

Teaching and learning methods, assessment methods, entry requirements.

We consider all applicants on an individual basis, welcoming students from all over the world.

• Minimum academic requirements
• English language requirement
• International qualifications

2:1  in a scientific or science-related subject.

All candidates must demonstrate a minimum level of English language proficiency for admission to Imperial.

For admission to this course, you must achieve the  higher university requirement  in the appropriate English language qualification. For details of the minimum grades required to achieve this requirement, please see the  English language requirements .

We also accept a wide variety of international qualifications.

The academic requirement above is for applicants who hold or who are working towards a UK qualification.

For guidance see our accepted qualifications  though please note that the standards listed are the  minimum for entry to Imperial , and  not specifically this Department .

If you have any questions about admissions and the standard required for the qualification you hold or are currently studying then please contact the relevant admissions team .

How to apply

Applications open on friday 27 september 2024, application fee.

There is no application fee for MRes courses, Postgraduate Certificates, Postgraduate Diplomas, or courses such as PhDs and EngDs.

If you are applying for a taught Master’s course, you will need to pay an application fee before submitting your application.

The fee applies per application and not per course.

• £80 for all taught Master's applications, excluding those to the Imperial College Business School.
• £100 for all MSc applications to the Imperial College Business School.
• £150 for all MBA applications to the Imperial College Business School.

If you are facing financial hardship and are unable to pay the application fee, we encourage you to apply for our application fee waiver.

Read full details about the application fee and waiver

Aptitude assignment

When you apply online, you must complete an aptitude assignment for your chosen course.

This should be attached along with your personal statement, under the 'personal statement' section of the online application form.

Visit this page to access the compulsory aptitude assignment .

Application process and aptitude assignment

Find out more about how to apply for a Master course , including references and personal statements and the aptitude assignment.

After you apply you may be invited for an interview with members of our staff.

We interview all shortlisted applicants, these interviews will be held online.

ATAS certificate

An ATAS certificate  is not  required for students applying for this course.

Tuition fees

Overseas fee, as a guide, the fee for 2024-25 was £12,600, tbc per year, as a guide, the fee for 2024-25 was £6,300, inflationary increases.

You should expect and budget for your fees to increase each year.

Your fee is based on the year you enter the university, not your year of study. This means that if you repeat a year or resume your studies after an interruption, your fees will only increase by the amount linked to inflation.

Find out more about our  tuition fees payment terms , including how inflationary increases are applied to your tuition fees in subsequent years of study.

Which fee you pay

Whether you pay the Home or Overseas fee depends on your fee status. This is assessed based on UK Government legislation and includes things like where you live and your nationality or residency status. Find out  how we assess your fee status .

Postgraduate Master's Loan

If you're a UK national, or EU national with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, you may be able to apply for a  Postgraduate Master’s Loan  from the UK government, if you meet certain criteria.

For courses starting on or after 1 August 2024, the maximum amount is £12,471. The loan is not means-tested and you can choose whether to put it towards your tuition fees or living costs. 

The loan is not means-tested and you can choose whether to put it towards your tuition fees or living costs.

As a guide, the fee for 2024-25 was £28,600

As a guide, the fee for 2024-25 was £14,300, how will studying at imperial help my career.

Develop the skills needed to pursue a diverse range of careers in science communication.

During your time with the Science Communication Unit, you'll work alongside industry leaders and network with science communication experts

With specialised knowledge, you'll be highly sought after in a range of sectors.

Graduates are prepared for careers in journalism, public engagement, and press relations.

Other potential career paths include science policy, broadcasting, digital campaigning, museums and academia.

Further links

Contact the department.

• Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7594 8753
• Email:  [email protected]

Visit the Science Communication Unit website .

Request info

Find out more about studying at Imperial. Receive updates about life in our community, including event invites and download our latest Study guide.

Events, tasters and talks

Meet us and find out more about studying at Imperial.

Terms and conditions

There are some important pieces of information you should be aware of when applying to Imperial. These include key information about your tuition fees, funding, visas, accommodation and more.

Read our terms and conditions

You can find further information about your course, including degree classifications, regulations, progression and awards in the programme specification for your course.

Science Communication Resources

Are you looking for ways to communicate the impact of your research? The Graduate School has compiled a list of internal and external resources for students looking to improve their science communication. This list includes resources for communicating with colleagues, students, journalists, and the public.

Courses Open Broadly to Graduate School Students

BIOETHICS 605: Contemporary Issues in Bioethics and Science Policy :

The course will focus on 'Professional and Scholarly Writing' (Fall) and 'Communicating Science and Bioethics' (Spring). In the fall, we delve into how and where we express ideas about bioethics and science policy in writing. We begin from first principles: Why do we write? What can good writing do for us? How do we know when we're done? During the semester we will write clear, thoughtful, analytic and creative pieces in bioethics and science policy. The spring course provides students with practical training in the communication of scientific research and bioethical issues to the media, policy makers, and the general public. Recent instructors: Michael Waitzkin, Misha Angrist, Brian Southwell

BIOETHICS 591: Topics in Science Policy

During this independent research study, students will analyze science policy developments across government, including executive and agency actions, as well as proposed legislation and judicial decisions. Students will regularly produce policy brief summaries that overview the policy, explain the science at issue, present relevant background information, provide context concerning endorsements and opposition, and expound upon related legislation and governmental actions. Instructor consent required. Recent instructors: Nita Farahany, Gopal Sreenivasan, Jory Weintraub, William Krenzer, Thomas Williams, Sharron Docherty, Kearsley Stewart, Michael Waitzkin, Michael Clamann, Aubrey Incorvaia

PUBPOL 510S: Science and the Media: Narrative writing about Science, Health, and Policy

Those who write about science, health and related policy must make complex, nuanced ideas understandable to the nonscientist in ways that are engaging and entertaining, even if the topic is far outside the reader's frame of reference. Course examines different modes of science writing, the demands of each and considers different outlets for publication and their editorial parameters. Students interview practitioners of the craft. Written assignments include annotations of readings and original narratives about science and scientists. Course considers ways in which narrative writing can inform and affect policy. Prerequisites: a 200-level science course and/or permission of the instructor. Instructor: Angrist

Courses Open to Students in Specific Departments OR PROGRAMS

Pratt school of engineering.

EGR 790: Science Communication for Engineers

Special topics course. General engineering topics intended for graduate students only. Pratt graduate students only. Instructors: Marcie Pachino, Angus Bowers

Pratt also offers the following courses that may help engineering students build communication skills more broadly.

• EGR 505: Oral Communications for Engineers
• EGR 705: Academic Presentations for Engineers
• EGR 506: Academic & Professional Writing for Engineers I
• EGR 706: Academic & Professional Writing for Engineers 2
• EGR 790: PhD Writing for Engineers
• EGR 790: PhD Academic Presentations for Engineers

University Program in Genetics and Genomics

UPGEN 700: Critical Skills in Scientific Presentations

This is a required course for first year UPGEN program. In this course, students will focus on communicating science effectively to their peers. This course has a large peer to peer interaction component. Grading is based on class participation and a final "exam" which consists of an oral presentation. This course also has a career development component, consisting of a panel discussion with senior students in the UPGEN program on choosing a thesis lab, an overview of the preliminary exam process, and a panel discussion with UPGEN program alumni who have chosen diverse career paths. UPGEN students only.

Courses for International Graduate Students

The GS courses below are open to all graduate students who may be new to writing in academic English. Engineering students should take advantage of courses through Pratt's Graduate Communications and Intercultural Programs (GCIP).

• GS726: EIS Writing in STEM Fields
• GS 721: Oral Communication
• GS730: EIS Academic Writing II
• GS 731: Academic Presentations
• GS732: EIS Advanced Academic Writing for PhD Students

Duke Center for Data and Visualization Sciences offers workshops and data-related resources as well as online learning opportunities , where you can click on a topic area and then on a title to get links to videos and other resources.

Duke Graduate Academy virtual mini-courses : Duke Graduate Academy virtual courses, which are open to graduate and professional students and postdocs, often focus on Science Communication and related topics, such as “Science and Research Communication” and “Public Speaking for Everyone.”

Duke Program on Medical Misinformation : Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute hosts a workshops series for clinical practitioners discussing how to engage in empathetic and meaningful conversations with patients about medical misinformation. These workshops are for anyone who has a professional role that includes caring for, guiding, or consulting with patients.

English for International Students 1-on-1 Consultations : Assistant Dean and Director of EIS Brad Teague offers individual appointments focusing on course presentations, conference talks, oral exams, and interviews. Students should come to each session with a specific speaking task as well as a list of aspects of language they wish to work on. Students may receive feedback on pronunciation, word choice, grammar, and presentation skills.

Duke Science & Society has produced a five-part series introducing the fundamentals of science communication.

• Why Communicate about Science?
• Who Is Your Audience?
• What Should We Say about Science?
• How Can We Reach Audiences?
• When Should We Communicate about Science?

Duke Science & Society students and faculty have also put together a series of blog posts about SciComm as well as a video archive of workshops on topics such as “It’s Not What You Say, it’s How You Say It: Communicating Health Information to Teens,” and “Science Sonnets: The Poetry of Good SciComm.”

Duke Presenting Clinical and Translational Science (PCATS ): Principles and Techniques for Developing and Delivering Effective Scientific Presentations in video modules.

Effective Academic Posters : A poster is a great way to share a short, coherent research story which viewers can take in within a few minutes. Poster sessions are the key way that new ideas are shared in many disciplines and are often great ways to get feedback on your work. From Trinity College’s Undergraduate Research Support

Pratt Graduate Communications and Intercultural Programs : Any Duke graduate student can take advantage of the video library of past events on communication and intercultural strategies.

The Duke Research Blog welcomes contributions from graduate student bloggers interested in building their science communication skills. You'll gain feedback and coaching from expert science writers and a published clip to show for your effort. Contact Robin A. Smith or Karl Bates to learn more and get involved.

Write for The Graduate School's professional development blog : Would you like to share your terrific science communication experiences with your fellow graduate students? Read past posts by student contributors Jameson Blount , Hannah Kania , and Jacqueline Nikpour . New contributors welcome!

Duke GRADx Talks : All Graduate School students are invited to present in the annual GRADx Talks, held during Duke's Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week. Students in the sciences as well as engineering, humanities, arts, and social sciences are invited to share a question that drives their research in a presentation accessible to a broad audience. Read about the value of participating in a blog post from Chris Bassil .

Duke UCEM Research Summit : Sloan Scholars and Affiliates in their second year are invited to share a research question that drives them in a presentation accessible to a STEM audience. The University Center of Exemplary Mentoring (UCEM) serves students in the physical sciences and engineering.

Workshops, Conferences, and Professional Associations

American Association for the Advancement of Science Mass Media Fellowships : This highly competitive program strengthens the connections between scientists and journalists by placing advanced undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate level scientists, engineers and mathematicians at media organizations nationwide.

ComSciCon-Triangle : The annual local ComSciCon meeting. Read about ComSciCon-Triangle on The Graduate School’s Professional Development Blog.

ComSciCon : ComSciCon is a series of workshops   focused on the communication of complex and technical concepts organized by graduate students, for graduate students. ComSciCon attendees meet and interact with professional communicators, build lasting networks with graduate students in all fields of science and engineering from across the US and Canada, and write and publish original works.

SciPep Conferences : SciPEP ( Sci ence  P ublic  E ngagement  P artnership) seeks to ensure scientists are supported to be effective communicators and, if appropriate, active in engaging the public.

Science Communicators of North Carolina : SCoNC is dedicated to connecting science communicators and cultivating a love of science across North Carolina.

National Association of Science Writers : The National Association of Science Writers is a community of journalists, authors, editors, producers, public information officers, students and people who write and produce material intended to inform the public about science, health, engineering, and technology.

Online Training Modules and Resources

The Open Notebook : features science writing master classes, online workshops, blog posts about the craft of science writing, and resources to connect scientists and journalists.

Science Communications Lab : The Science Communication Lab is an innovative non-profit that uses film and multimedia storytelling to capture the wonder, nuance, complexity, and processes of science.

SciLine : SciLine aims to link local reporters with scientists.

Science Rising Resources for Training : Science Rising is a nonpartisan movement fighting for science, justice, and equity in our democracy. SR offers training resources for Science Communication.

Engagement and Storytelling : A digital guide to telling an engaging story about your project from the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.

NC State Science Communication Resources and Self-Education Workshops : North Carolina State University's Leadership in Public Science program has compiled a list of readings and online training workshops for science communication.

Storytelling in Science Writing : University of Guelph’s online module on narrative art in science writing.

Three Minute Thesis : University of Queensland, Australia offers a video series on scholars presenting their complex research in simple, 3-minute videos.

Triangle Area Science Communication and Outreach Resources : A spreadsheet of local Triangle-area Science Communication resources collated by a UNC graduate student.

Are we missing anything?

Know of any more science communication resources relevant to Duke graduate students? Drop us an email to suggest a new resource. 

Browse Course Material

Course info, instructors.

• Prof. Michael Short
• Jane Kokernak
• Christine Sherratt

Departments

• Nuclear Science and Engineering

As Taught In

• Nuclear Engineering
• Academic Writing

Learning Resource Types

Undergraduate thesis tutorial, teaching science communication.

In this section, Prof. Michael Short discusses the importance of teaching science communication and shares challenges students in 22.THT NSE Undergraduate Thesis Tutorial faced in this domain.

What is Science?

"If an individual discovers a law of nature, but doesn’t communicate it, that information dies with the individual and it returns to the domain of nature—it doesn’t become part of science."

During the course, I posed the following question to students: “What is science?” Students responded, “It’s following the scientific method,” and “It’s discovering the laws of nature.” I pushed them further, asking, “If someone does science in a forest, but doesn’t make a sound, did science actually happen?” This question confused students. “What the heck do you mean?” they asked.

I explained that individuals uncover the laws of nature and bring them into a collective body of knowledge, called science. If an individual discovers a law of nature, but doesn’t communicate it, that information dies with the individual and it returns to the domain of nature—it doesn’t become part of science. Science is equal parts careful discovery of the laws of nature and effective communication. They’re inseparable. Without either component, understanding does not advance.

Recognizing the Need to Teach Science Communication

In surveys, MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering alumni tell us that we need to improve our science communication efforts; they note that science communication is essential to the work they do in their careers and that they don’t feel adequately prepared.

I think the School of Engineering is now recognizing just how important it is to actively teach science communication. A few departments—so far, Biological Engineering, Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science—have launched communication labs staffed by Graduate Fellows who are both excellent communicators and content experts. This is progress.

We try to support our students in the course by requiring that they have their prospectuses reviewed by Graduate Fellows in the Nuclear Science & Engineering Communication Lab . Among other things, these Fellows help students communicate effectively with audiences in their specific academic fields.

Contextualizing Research for an Audience

Contextualizing their writing and oral presentations for specific audiences is one of the biggest communication challenges students in 22.THT NSE Undergraduate Thesis Tutorial face. Students tend not to have been taught to think about their audiences. I see this even at the graduate level. When students are asked to give a seminar, they present their research in its entirety. Sometimes, it’s just a slide full of words, and the goal seems to be to make it to the end of the seminar. That shouldn’t be the goal. The goal should be to communicate their knowledge effectively. Students need to think about how to ensure that their audience is engaging with the information they are presenting.

In written communication, writing for a particular audience is of central importance because it shapes the content of the paper, including the paper’s citations. Most students tend to assume that their readers understand what they’re writing about (which is not necessarily true) and, as a result, they don’t cite sources extensively enough. And then some of them cite sources too extensively. They’ll cite Ohm’s law, or the ideal gas law. If their audience is comprised of scientists, they can assume their audience knows these laws. No citations are necessary. It became apparent during the course that knowing when and how much to cite was a struggle for students. 

Identifying Credible Primary Sources

Students also struggled with identifying credible primary sources. Many, for instance, considered Wikipedia to be a credible primary source. Wikipedia is not a credible primary source. Wikipedia can lead students to credible primary sources, but it can also lead them to blogs and magazine articles – sources that are not peer-reviewed. Students were aware that the peer review process existed, but not all of them understood it in-depth. We showed them examples of peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed sources to help them learn to distinguish between these two different kinds of resources.

And then we complicated things: we told students that not every peer-reviewed source is credible. As an example, we showed students a list of predatory open-access journals, and selected articles at random to show what absolute garbage they were. There’s a running list of about 600 indexed scientific journals that are complete hogwash. They promise review in three to seven days. You have to pay to publish. New ones pop up every day, and you’ll find that you can trace most of them back to maybe 100 people that are running them as scam businesses. Students can easily mistake papers from these journals as legitimate scientific articles, if they don’t read carefully.

During one class session, we played journal roulette. I randomly selected journals from online sources, and asked the students how they could tell if they were credible or not. Students learned to look for certain clues, such as the use of flashing text, having to pay money to submit an article, promises of 3-7 day review turnaround times, or a disreputable or falsified editorial board, to help them know when a journal was not legitimate.

Honing Hypothesis-Based Writing

Students generally know that their prospectuses should include hypotheses, but almost none of the them had one in their first drafts. To help them, I asked questions, such as, “What are you testing?” and “Can you give me a yes or no answer at the end of your study?” Students were able to describe the phenomena they were investigating, but they had to think hard about the specific mechanisms they were testing.

It’s a wide-spread problem. I’ve spoken to program managers at the Department of Energy who have said that many times even experienced principal investigators don’t frame their work in testable ways. I was amazed by how much they had to stress the need for hypothesis-driven proposals. It helped me realize that we don’t explicitly teach this aspect of science communication here at MIT. We assume students pick it up along the way, or remember the importance of including hypotheses in their writing from their high school experiences. We shouldn’t make those assumptions. Just as we expect our students to know their audiences, we, as educators, should know our own audiences and realize that this particular aspect of science communication needs to be actively taught to the novice scientists in our classrooms.

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PERSPECTIVE article

Evaluation of science communication: current practices, challenges, and future implications.

• Wissenschaft im Dialog, Berlin, Germany

Scientifically substantiated evaluations are pivotal to ensuring the effectiveness and improvement of the growing number of science communication projects. Yet current evaluation practices are still lacking in various respects. Based on a systematic review of evaluation reports, an online survey of, as well as discussion rounds with science communication practitioners in the German-speaking countries, we discuss three main challenges of science communication evaluation: (1) There is a conflation of impact goals and measurable project objectives as well as a lack of precise definitions of objectives and target groups, which complicates the assessment of the projects' success. (2) Although many evaluations highlight the impact-oriented interest of those responsible, the methods chosen rarely allow scientifically valid evaluations of effects. The lack of comparative reference points and the partially unsuitable use of self-report measures are key issues in this regard. (3) The fact that few evaluation processes are made transparent and that formative evaluation designs are a rarity indicates a tendency to understand evaluations as the final ‘success story’ of a project rather than a learning process. This stands in the way of a constructive discussion of the actual impact of science communication. Our exploratory insights contribute to an understanding of the weaknesses of science communication evaluation and needs in the field. They also provide impulses for future improvements in the field for the stakeholders in practice, research, funding, and science management.

Introduction

For those dedicated to science communication, 2020 will probably be remembered as the year their fields took on new significance in the public eye. Science communication has already changed profoundly in recent years and has become increasingly institutionalized and diversified: New types of actors like the Science Media Centre (2012) have entered the field, and the networks for exchange in the science communication community are growing (e.g., European Citizen Science Association, 2021 ; European Science Engagement Association, n.d.). Apart from that, the variety of science communication activities and channels increases as new online communication services emerge and offer novel ways for interaction with audiences ( Schäfer, 2017 , p. 52). This trend can also be observed in Germany, where more and more science communicators experiment, for example, with Twitch ( Winkels, 2020 ) or Augmented Reality ( Weißschädel, 2020 ). At the same time, a rising number of academic and political institutions formulate position papers on science communication ( Ziegler and Fischer, 2020 ), and future directions of the field are intensively debated ( Bundesverband Hochschulkommunikation, 2020 ).

With this push for more science communication, demands for a thorough exploration of what it actually achieves, who it reaches, and what impact it has are also becoming louder. These questions have been of concern for experts of varying disciplines, such as risk communication (e.g., Breakwell, 2000 ), environmental communication (e.g., Kahan, 2014 ), or health communication (e.g., van der Sanden and Meijman, 2008 ). But as more resources are invested in science communication projects, some worry that this might lead to an increase in communication efforts without sufficient attention to their effects or motives ( Marcinkowski and Kohring, 2014 , p. 5 ff.; Weingart and Joubert, 2019 ). Especially now, the relevance of science reaching the public is even more apparent with many political measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic being informed by science. This calls for a critical examination of how projects need to be designed to fulfill their intended impact. An essential tool in this effort is meaningful evaluation. By that, we mean an evaluation practice that is based on a clear set of realistic and relevant goals, that puts an emphasis on a stringent and scientifically sound use of methods, that is transparent about the evaluation process and its limitations, and that reflects its results in order to formulate helpful recommendations for future action.

It is, however, no news that evaluation in science communication does not meet this standard: Many evaluations lack methodological rigor ( Jensen, 2014 ), are based exclusively on descriptive data ( Weitkamp, 2015 , p. 2), are unable to offer a long-term perspective ( King et al., 2015 , p. 2), and their traditional methods are often not suited for interactive settings ( Grand and Sardo, 2017 , p. 5). Science communicators are facing many challenges during evaluation and, also, when trying to improve their work on the basis of evaluation and scientific evidence ( Jensen and Gerber, 2020 ).

At the Impact Unit , a project by the German national organization for science communication—Wissenschaft im Dialog—and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, we have taken on the task to support evaluation practice in German science communication 1 by offering tools, creating opportunities for exchange, and addressing open questions at the interface between research and practice. For this, we rely on analyses that offer insight into science communication and its evaluation with an emphasis on the practitioners' perspectives. In this article, we want to share our observations, especially the challenges we have identified in the current evaluation practice, and reflect on the changes necessary to set adequate evaluation standards. These reflections are based on analyses and exchanges with various stakeholders, especially the following:

• An online survey with 109 German science communicators ( Impact Unit, 2019 ) 2 , focusing on the goals of science communication, their evaluation experiences and routines, their perceptions of the quality of evaluation, and the needs they identify for better evaluation.

• A systematic review of 55 evaluation reports ( Ziegler and Hedder, 2020 ) of German-speaking science communication projects, focusing on the projects' goals, objectives, and target groups, as well as motives and methods for evaluation.

• Several informal discussion rounds on challenges and needs (2019–2020), with stakeholders from science communication research, funding, and practice in Germany. These included practitioners with varying experiences in evaluation.

This article's claims underlie several constraints. Our analyses are mostly focused on the German case, relying on small sample sizes or only on publicly available sources (such as evaluation reports). Nevertheless, we have observed three challenges that come up consistently throughout all our analyses and exchanges. Based on our extensive reflection, we believe these to be central when working toward a better evaluation practice for impactful science communication. In the following, we outline these challenges, before discussing the roles of researchers, practitioners, and other relevant stakeholders within the academic system in overcoming them.

Strategic Approach To Project Design

Clear expectations of what a project is supposed to accomplish and why, are necessary criteria for a strategic project design and an informative evaluation of its effectiveness ( Spicer, 2017 , p. 21 f.). Strategic communication differentiates between goals, meaning general guidelines or end results, and objectives, which are the concrete communication outcomes desired ( Hon, 1998 , p. 105) that contribute to reaching the goals ( Hallahan, 2015 , p. 247). For science communication to be strategic, this implies “choosing one's goal for communication, determining interim communication objectives […], and then selecting tactics that have a realistic chance of meeting those objectives” ( Besley et al., 2018 , p. 709). But there are doubts whether science communication projects appropriately do so. Scholars question if the choice of activities and tactics is in line with the project initiators' communication objectives ( Stilgoe et al., 2014 , p. 6), while others see a disconnect between objectives and evaluated outcomes ( Phillips et al., 2018 ). Looking at the German case, we see similar issues reflected in the way objectives and target groups are defined.

For one, the phrasing of objectives lacks precision: There might be the formulation of a wish to raise awareness of an issue, without defining what it means ‘to be aware.’ Other projects might strive to ‘encourage’ people to think about scientific topics or to gain ‘more’ visitors, without giving reference points. This cautious phrasing lowers the bar to meet expectations but complicates the judgment of the success of a project or an activity's potential. Furthermore, broadly formulated objectives put the focus on detecting any effect instead of the size of specific effects ( Ziegler and Hedder, 2020 , p. 19 f.).

This room for interpretation might reflect a wish to maintain flexibility when it comes to managing expectations or even an uncertainty about where to actually set the bar, especially when exploring new formats or experimenting. According to our community survey, 73% of the participants stated that their projects are born mostly out of curiosity about a new activity and new ideas rather than chosen based on their fit to achieve predefined objectives ( n = 94; Impact Unit, 2019 , p. 19).

Part of the problem seems to be the process of breaking down goals into concrete objectives. Our review of evaluation reports shows that the practitioners are experienced in explaining their long-term missions ( Ziegler and Hedder, 2020 , p. 16 ff.) and positioning their projects within the big picture. Discussions with the practitioners left the impression that difficulties occur when they need to pick apart the mission and identify those puzzle pieces which are measurable within a time-limited activity—an issue that has also been brought up by Weitkamp (2015) and King et al. (2015) .

But this is not the only obstacle: Once objectives have been derived from goals, suitable tactics and activities need to be found and tailored to a specific target group. However, in our review of evaluations, target groups are mostly described in broad terms by referring to basic sociodemographic characteristics, prominently age and gender. More concrete descriptions of the desired audience are rare. Even when more specific demographics are defined, using terms like ‘main target group’ opens a backdoor to include others ( Ziegler and Hedder, 2020 , p. 19). Examples of this are the frequently mentioned target groups ‘school children’ or ‘the general public.’ Members of both groups are defined by a small set of indicators they have in common—being young and in school or being part of the public. However, this misses a chance of appropriately addressing the multiple subgroups they contain. As Schäfer and Metag point out, another look at the differences within, especially regarding science attitudes, can be informative for planning communication activities ( Schäfer and Metag, 2021 , p. 300) and, consequently, their evaluation. This does not mean that comprehensive target groups cannot be of interest, but it is advisable that their diversity is considered.

We believe it is important that practitioners recognize the value of a strategic mindset when planning their activities. Objectives should not serve as low hurdles that can be easily overcome but as motivation and orientation for what is important within the project. Similarly, target groups can help navigate the wide choice of communication activities when their special preferences and peculiarities are considered. With this in mind, defining goals, objectives, and target groups can offer the opportunity for reflection on a project and how it can be meaningfully evaluated.

Choice of Methods and Study Design

Many characteristics of the evaluations in our review, like their summative evaluation designs, posed research questions, and chosen data sources, indicate that the examination of effects is a key motivator ( Ziegler and Hedder, 2020 ). Whenever effects are in the focus of an evaluation and elaborated designs are necessary, a lack of precision of objectives and target groups can complicate the choice of study design and methods. Accordingly, the methodological flaws mentioned by Jensen (2014) also apply in our context: To gather insights into effects, reference points for comparison are essential. After all, no change, for better or for worse, can be determined with only one data point. A credible procedure to provide such comparisons would be repeated measures as in pre- and post-designs but also the use of control groups during evaluation. Looking at current evaluation practices, such comparisons are rare. Both the community survey and the evaluation report review show that control groups are seldom used in science communication evaluations. Pre- and post-designs come up more regularly-in roughly a third of the cases ( Impact Unit, 2019 , p. 22; Ziegler and Hedder, 2020 , p. 24). Consequently, for the remaining evaluations interested in effects, these can only be judged based on insufficient data as they rely on self-report, meaning survey participants' memory and ability to reflect and compare their feelings, judgments, and thoughts. This is exacerbated when third parties like teachers are asked to judge the effects of an activity on the target group (e.g., school students). Overvaluing these sources that can only offer indirect information increases the risk of redesigning formats while missing the real target groups' interests ( Jensen, 2014 , p. 2).

Since we did not witness the decision-making processes during these evaluations, we were not able to reconstruct the choices that were made. However, looking back on discussion rounds with practitioners, we felt that short-term planning seems to be a central factor. Choosing the right methods, defining suitable data sources, scheduling repeated measures, and preparing instruments require early evaluation planning. In reality, it is often too late for many of these decisions once practitioners (can) start planning evaluations. In such cases, they might inevitably turn to what is well-known, seemingly cost-efficient, and presumably easy to conduct. Limited knowledge about possible methods and data sources might result in evaluations being planned around what data one knows how to collect, instead of what information is of actual interest.

We are aware that measuring effects is ambitious. If it cannot be done properly, practitioners are better off focusing on examinations of descriptive findings that enable an informed reflection. However, methodological rigor is indispensable, no matter the interest of the evaluation. To make sure that appropriate conclusions are drawn, evaluations need to be systematically planned, starting with clear questions that lead to the data of interest, to the most valid data sources and, finally, to the best-fitting methods and time frames for data collection. Practitioners not only need time and resources to undergo this process but also the relevant information to base their decisions on.

Understanding of Evaluation

According to our survey, 36% of the science communicators in Germany agree that projects are evaluated often if not always ( n = 96; Impact Unit, 2019 , p. 21). Unfortunately, this does not mean that these evaluations are open to everyone to learn from. Our own search for accessible best practices in the German-speaking community demonstrated how difficult it is to find benchmarks in comparable contexts. Our examination of the first 50 findings of each of the 68 keyword combinations we searched for ( Ziegler and Hedder, 2020 , p. 36 ff) yielded a relatively small number of 55 science communication evaluation reports. This is not surprising though: As the community survey shows, evaluations are mostly used in order to reflect upon a project within the team (79%), improve future projects (64%), and their findings are commonly passed on to supervisors and/or funders (65%). Sharing findings for research purposes is not as established (18%; n = 72; Impact Unit, 2019 , p. 26). Also, the examples we found online were mostly reports of summative evaluations. Formative evaluations that would allow a deeper understanding of how a project is developed, reflected, and improved are scarce.

These observations may be related to a persistent framing of evaluations as ‘telling success stories.’ Following this logic, the evaluation process is not as valuable for outsiders as its results. A further reason for not making evaluations accessible is that it might invite criticism. Therefore, failed attempts or mediocre results, which could still stimulate learning, are not disclosed. In our discussion rounds, the practitioners expressed a worry about their work being assessed negatively by others, especially when evaluations are closely linked to the justification of budgets or funding.

In contrast to this, a constructive approach to evaluation needs to be based on curiosity about a project's potential and openness to learning from failures. Certainly, wanting to shift the idea of evaluation in a more productive direction where honest reflections and transparency are encouraged is not a controversial standpoint (e.g., Jensen and Gerber, 2020 ). Practitioners, researchers, and institutional stakeholders would agree that issues like time and resources pose a greater challenge than motivation. Difficulties arise when it comes to determining the practical implications and assigning roles and responsibilities within the science communication community in this process.

Implications For Future Practice

It has become clear that evaluations in science communication are still lacking in central aspects. In order to make evaluation a deliberately planned learning process that builds on existing knowledge, delivers insights into the impact of science communication, and thereby allows evidence-based decisions concerning its development and funding, profound changes need to be made. This will only be possible through the contributions of all the stakeholders in the field.

Practitioners can contribute decisively by strategically planning activities and allocating resources within projects. Their work needs to be based on a regular critical reflection and a motivation to apply the latest knowledge in the field. But practitioners should not be expected to do the same work as researchers; therefore, meaningful cooperation between research and practice is key. Even if practitioners are equipped with the right information and tools, social scientists' expertise will remain relevant to measuring impact and developing strategies for effective science communication. The contribution of scientists researching science communication includes not only enabling access to scientific results but also communicating findings that are especially relevant to practice. Moreover, the stakeholders at the management level of scientific organizations and research institutes, as well as the funders of and the policymakers for science communication, need to be clear about their science communication goals so that the practitioners are able to derive their project objectives accordingly. By providing the wider context, they become part of the conversation about appropriate goals of science communication.

Further training for practitioners plays an important role in improving evaluations. Consequently, there should be opportunities and support for learning within organizations and funding schemes, for example, in the form of training programs on evaluation and strategic project planning. Learning opportunities are also central to addressing methodological shortcomings in evaluation practice. Experts from social sciences and evaluation research can be of help by making instruments, measures, and scales more readily available. This allows practitioners to use scientifically sound examples as orientation, instead of designing their own instruments from scratch. Of course, this will not solve the need for guidelines and quality standards in evaluation, including minimum requirements concerning methodological rigor for a wide spectrum of methods and study designs. This task requires scientific expertise and, ideally, an international exchange but cannot succeed without funders and executives as a driving force to accept and implement these standards.

However, it is undeniable that elaborate evaluation designs cannot be conducted ‘on the side.’ Even though evaluation practice should embrace quality standards, it will not replace academic impact research. There needs to be a discussion of what can be expected from meaningful evaluations conducted by practitioners, at which point external experts or researchers are appointed, and where we draw the line between evaluation and research. Finally, we encourage the stakeholders from the management level, the funders, and the policymakers to demand meaningful and reasonable evaluation planning early on but also to provide sufficient resources for it. For practitioners to evaluate honestly and with enthusiasm, these stakeholders must show interest in a project's learning opportunities, not only in its final results.

Even though resolving these issues will take time, we are convinced that our field will benefit from a better understanding of how specific activities of science communication work, when to use them, and where to invest resources to actually make a difference.

Data Availability Statement

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found at: https://zenodo.org/record/4608091#.YGLT7mhCRhA .

Ethics Statement

Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.

Author Contributions

RZ conceived the concept for this perspective. IH contributed to the final conceptualization and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. LF, IH, and RZ revised the manuscript and contributed to the critical editing and finalizing of the manuscript. All authors approve the submitted version.

The project on which this report is based was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research under Grant No. 0150862. The responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Philipp Niemann (National Institute for Science Communication) and Markus Weißkopf (Wissenschaft im Dialog) for their valuable comments on a draft version of our manuscript. Further thanks go to our reviewers and our editor whose ideas have increased the value of the contribution immensely. We would also like to thank the practitioners and the funders in our workshops and roundtables for the insightful conversations about their experiences in evaluation, as well as the researchers in the field of science communication for the inspiring discussions that contributed to our work.

1. ^ The initiative's focus lies mainly on science communication as institutional communication of scientific organizations and research institutes, targeting publics outside of academia directly, therefore excluding science journalism. This is a pragmatic choice and does not deny the multifaceted nature of science communication taking place in different societal settings.

2. ^ The details of the survey, including data collection instruments and ethical procedures, are available in the public report ( Impact Unit, 2019 ). The dataset is available on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4608091 .

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Keywords: science communication, public communication of science and technology, evaluation, impact, impact of science communication, evaluation of science communication

Citation: Ziegler R, Hedder IR and Fischer L (2021) Evaluation of Science Communication: Current Practices, Challenges, and Future Implications. Front. Commun. 6:669744. doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2021.669744

Received: 19 February 2021; Accepted: 07 April 2021; Published: 07 May 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Ziegler, Hedder and Fischer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Ricarda Ziegler, ricarda.ziegler@w-i-d.de

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Science Communication

• Getting Started
• Finding Sources
• Reading Academic Papers & Articles

Writing Scientific Papers

• Presentations & Public Speaking

Books on Writing in the Sciences

• Block out time for writing
• Consider having regularly scheduled times to write
• Choose times according to when you tend to function best (e.g. morning, afternoon, evening)
• Use your own words
• When using others' words put the material in quotation marks if it's short, indenting as well if it's long.
• Always cite the source if a fact or idea is not your own
• If there is no recommendation APA is usually a safe bet for sciences.

From Nature, Writing Science Papers

• Avoid very long paragraphs and very long sentences
• Consider using headers, bullets, italics and boldface (but do not overuse)
• Make easy-to-understand graphics

Keep the title simple and specific to describe the contents, but not too technical so it can be easy to understand. Always try to be concise.

The abstract is short so remember not to cram too much detail into it. Try to use an attention grabbing first statement.

Introduction

Try to pick out the things that are most relevant to your work and explain how. Present the background of your work, getting straight to the most important issues.

Results and Discussion

Make your research & design sections concise but informative. Focus on the really important bits, not the minute details. Remember that discussion of strange results is often as valuable as focusing on the expected findings.

Make sure that your reference section is up-to-date by including current literature. Making use of reference citation management software like EndNote , Zotero , or Mendeley can make adding citations in the reference section and throughout the text much easier.

• Before submitting your manuscript to a journal, make sure you have read the final version several times
• It is always a good idea to ask others to read over your material and provide feedback

Adapted from http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/education/5202161/Tips_for_Writing_Better_Scientific_Papers.html http://www.research4life.org/training/authorship-skill/

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• Writing as an Engineer or Scientist (Penn State)
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• The Science of Scientific Writing

Adapted from Duke University Medical Center Library Scientific Writing Guide

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Media@LSE MSc Dissertation Series

This is a selection of the best dissertations authored by students from our MSc programmes.

These MSc dissertations have been selected by the editor and deputy editor of the Media@LSE Working Paper Series and consequently, are not the responsibility of the Working Paper Series Editorial Board.

No 313 The App Keeps the Score: Period-Tracking Apps, Self-Empowerment and the Self as Enterprise , Martina Sardelli

No 312  Envisioning Solidarity: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Chinese NGO Communications on Philanthropic Campaigns , Han Zheng

No 311  Examining the Western Media's Representation of Present-Day China Through the Lense of of Orientalism: A critical discourse analysis on BBC News’ coverage of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics , Danrong (Miko) Xiang

No 310  Bodies That Pain: An Emergent Resistance in Neo/Non-Liberal China. Exploring Weibo Hashtag Activism #FacingBirthInjuries From an Affective-Ethical Perspective , Jialu Sun

No 309  'The Algorithm Will Battle Against You': A Qualitative Study on Disabled Content Creators’ Perspectives and Understanding of the Challenges Presented by Algorithmic Systems on Social Media Platforms , Ishana Rhea Ramtohul

No 308  Why They Don't Trust Us: Chilean Mainstream Media, Metajournalistic Discourses and Repairing Journalism , Phillip Duran Pástene

No 307  A ‘Canary in the Coalmine' for Synthethic Media Regulation: The Emerging Threat of Deepfake Image Abuse , Olivia Otts

No 306  Communicating Inside to People from the Outside: How junior international employees in strategic communications companies in London perceive workplace well-being through internal communications , Nam Nghiem

No 305  The Voices That Build America: Theorizing the Labor Union as a Media Technology , Grace Nelson

No 304  "Art on Wheels": A Semiotic and Visual Discourse Analysis of Graffiti on Nairobi’s Matatus , Frank Mutulu

No 303  News Diversity and Morality in the Climate Reparations debate: A Quantitative Content Analysis of British and Irish News Coverage of the COP27 Negotiations about Loss and Damage , Marlene Jacobse

No 302  'We're all going through it': How the Construction of ‘Mental Health’ in One Pandemic HuffPost Series Positions Readers , Clare Lombardo

No 301 F rench Ecocinema and Young Audiences Environmental Mobilistations: An Exploration of the Intersection Between Film and Politics , Lola Messica

No 300  Balancing Digital Selves: Mediated Self-Presentation of Migrant Women in Germany on LinkedIn , Maya Hemant Krishna

No 299  Solidifying Social Immobility: Representation of Sex Workers within Human Trafficking Discourse in the Philippines , Olivia Austria Kemble

No 298  'Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together': Illusions of A Global village. A Critical Discourse Analysis of Meta Platforms’ Discursive Construction of the Global Citizen , Nelli Jouhki.

No 297  Enabling Empowerment by Establishing Indian Feminity , Sanskriti Bhhatkoti

No 296  The Forces of Development: Communicating Indigenous Identity in Brazil , Alan Gabrielli Azevedo

No 295  Can women really have it all? A Discourse Analysis of Neoliberal Feminist Discourse’s Roles in the Construction of Media Representation of Professional Working Women in Indonesia , Moudy Alfiana

No 294  Framing Utopia In Emerging Technology: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Financial Media Representation of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality , Chuyue Zhan 

No 293  Understanding Brand-Culture Interaction: A Social Semiotic Analysis of an Emerging Form of Brand Communications on Bilibili , Xinyu Yang 

No 292  ‘We don’t chase clicks, we chase public interest’: Investigative Journalism Between Democratic Ideals and Economic Realities , Lara Wiebecke 

No 291  A Health Risk Community or A Cultural Tourism Destination? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Intertextual Representation of Wanhua District in Taiwanese Mass Media Coverage of 2021 COVID-19 Outbreak in Taipei City and Official Tourism Promotion , Min Tu 

No 290  A Duality of Shifting Values in Journalism: ‘Responsible Capitalism’ and Public Service Mission – An Analysis of the News Trade Press , Hanna Siemaszko 

No 289  Mediated Social Class Identity Articulation and Performance Over Social Media , Shivani Rao 

No 288  Emotions running high – do they catch the reader’s eye? A quantitative content analysis on emotional frames in climate change news – the case of a significant global news publisher’s Cop26 coverage , Sara Nuder 

No 287  Selling Surveillance by Fixing Femininity: Exploring the Representation and Discursive Construction of the Gaze Between Women in Indian Advertisements , Vaishnavi Nair 

No 286  Development as its own Antithesis: Towards a Multi-disciplinary Exploration of the Neoliberalization of Development , Lisar Morina 

No 285  Can creative labor coexist under an industrial capitalist model? A qualitative analysis of worker subjectivity in production work in Vancouver’s film and television industry , Emily Mckenna Arbogast Larman 

No 284  Nothing to Hide – Everyone to Suspect: A case study of Neighbor, Neoliberal Security Governance and Securitization , Julia Kopf 

No 283  Building a Social Contract for the Network Society: A Discursive Study of How Meta Mediates its Relationship to Users and Society Through Public Policy Communications , Hunter Morgan 

No 282  Big Brother Watch’s campaign against COVID Pass and its implications for science communication , Zichen Jess Hu 

No 281  “Everyone Was Talking About It”: A Thematic Analysis of Audience Interpretation of Squid Game on IMDb , Junhan Gina Fu 

No 280  ‘An Existential Threat’: Right-wing Media and the Formation of Racialised Moral Panics , Sarah Campbell

No 279  ‘Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives’: A Critical Discourse Analysis of UK Government Covid-19 press conferences , Morwenna Backhouse

No 278  Datafied Gay Men’s Dating: Ordering of Sexual Sociality on Blued , Hao Wu

No 277  Calculating newsworthiness: Investigating the role that probability plays in newsification and journalistic decision-making , Selina Swift 

No 276  Platformisation as Development: Discourse and Justification in the South American Gig Economy , Lucas Stiglich

No 275  Branding for New Futures: Brand Activism’s Mediation of Collective Prospective Remembering , Kelly M. Smith

No 274 ‘It wasn’t meant to be mine, yea?’ – The impacts of automation on the Brazilian Welfare State A case study of the Covid-19 data-driven emergency aid Auxílio Emergencial , Melissa Lima Silva 

No 273  ‘Toward a better future’: A critical discourse analysis of the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting on the corporate websites of three large multinational corporations (MNCs) , Kanhai A. Parasharya 

No 272  Looking through the mirror: Finding Hybridity in Al Jazeera English’s Journalism Metadiscourse , Zoe Maria Pace 

No 271  How many more Emoji do we need? Examining the Unicode Consortium’s Vision of World Standard of Emoji , Yuka Katsumata 

No 270  Hate in the Mainstream: Proposing a ‘Keyness-Driven’ Framework to Surface Toxic Speech in the Public Domain , Pica Johansson

No 269  Mapping Networks of Moral Language on U.S. Presidential Primary Campaigns, 2016-2020, Kobi Hackenburg 

No 268  The Role of Selective Exposure in ‘A New Era of Minimal Effects’: The Mediating Effect of Selective Exposure on the Relationship between Personal Characteristics and Conspiracy Theory Beliefs , Eunbin Ha

No 267  ‘Thick girls get low’: Representations of gender, fatness, blackness and sexuality in music videos by Lizzo , Alexandra Grinfeld

No 266  We are raising our voices: The use of TikTok for the public self-representation of indigenous identity in Latin America , Camila Figueroa-Zepeda 

No 265  The Silenced Sound of Drill The Digital Disadvantage, Neocapitalist Media, and Hyper- Segregation , Alexandra Farje 

No 264  Blockchain Island: A critical discourse analysis of the colonial construction of a Puerto Rican crypto utopia , María De Los Milagros Colón Cruz

No 263 From Artists to Creators, From Music to Audio: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Spotify’s ‘Audio First’ Strategy , Ryan Carraro 

No 262  Imprisoned by Partisanship? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Media Bias of United States Print and Online Media in Reporting of Bipartisan Issues through the First Step Act , Kimberly Burton

No 261  “This Art of Being French” A Critical Discourse Analysis on Nostalgia and National Identity in Emmanuel Macron’s Speeches , Capucine Bourges 

No 260  Freedom for whom? Investigating notions of freedom in European media and communications policy, 1989-2021 , Jakob Angeli

No 259  ‘Inspire Creativity, Enrich Life’? A Critical Discourse Analysis on How Douyin Justifies Its Data Extraction and Shapes Public Values in The Platform Society , Jing An

No 258 Changing Humanitarianism For The Better? Virtual Reality and the Representation of the Suffering ‘Other’ in Humanitarian Communications , Francesca Liberatore Vaselli

No 257 We Are Humans Too: Refugees’ Perceptions of Representations of Migration in European News , Hannah Traussnigg

No 256 The Matter of Online Political Participation: A New Materialist Experiment on Emerging Adult Participatory Practices in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands , Hanne M. Stegeman

No 255 Rap Music As Evidence: A Prosecutorial Tactic of Institutionalizing Racism , Claire Ruder 

No 254 Put Students Before Your Public Image: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Strategic Communications in the University of Warwick Rape Chat Scandal , Clara Héroux Rhymes

No 253 Set The Record Straight: The Significance of Counter-Archives in Contemporary Struggles of Justice for Apartheid-Era Crimes , Ra’eesa Pather

No 252 Can Stories Change How We Feel About People: The Effect of Older People’s Online Personal Stories on Mitigating Younger Korean Ageism , Jeongwon Leah Park

No 251 The ‘Silent Majority': A Critical Discourse Analysis of Counter-Movement Key Opinion Leaders’ YouTube Coverage of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests , Limichi Okamoto

No 250 Man Up! A Qualitative Analysis of Representations of the Male Body on Instagram and Body Image Among Young Flemish Men , Femke Konings

No 249 Manufacturing The Mapped Metropolis: A Social Semiotic Analysis of Cartographic Representations of Gentrification and Displacement in New York City , Johanne Lahlum Hortman

No 248 The Police Have Confirmed all 39 Victims Were Chinese The Mis/Recognition of Vietnamese Migrants in Their Mediated Encounters Within UK Newspapers , Linda Hien

No 247 Brother A-Zhong For the Win: A Qualitative Analysis of Chinese Fan Communities’ Nationalist Practice of Cyber Expedition , Yannan Du

No 246 Police Facial Recognition in Progress: The Construction of The Notion of Accuracy in the Live Facial Recognition Technology Used by the MET Police in London , Romina Colman

No 245 Polarflation: The Inflationary Effect of Attention-Optimising Algorithms on Polarisation in the Public Sphere , Samuel Caveen

No 244 Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Examining How Representation and Accessibility Impact Each Other With Relation to Visual Impairment , Rebecca Sophie Brahde

No 243 Narrating Economics and The Social Vision of a $100 Billion Fund: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Financial Media Representation of Softbank’s Venture Capital Investments in Digital Technology , Carl Bakenhus

No 242 Look Back in Rebellion: Radical Transparency As Refusal of Surveillance , Beatrice Bacci

No 241  The Quantified (Female) Self: Examining the Conceptualisation of Female Health, Selfhood and Embodiment in Fitbit Strategic Communication Campaigns , Jourdan Webb

No 240  Transitioning from Analogue to Digital Broadcast: A Case Of Communicative Inequality , Boikhutso Tsikane

No 239  “Won’t somebody please think of the children?” A Critical Discourse Analysis of Representations of the Figure of the Child in Western Media Coverage of the Yemeni Conflict , Nadine Talaat

No 238  Embodying Disability: Problematising Empathy in Immersive Experiences of Non-Normative Bodies , Pablo Agüera Reneses

No 237  Democratising Bridge or Elite Medium: An investigation into political podcast adoption and the relationship with cognitive social capital , Steve Rayson

No 236  Manufacturing Consent: An Investigation of the Press Support Towards the US Administration Prior to US-led Airstrikes in Syria , Malavika Mysore

No 235  Intercultural dialogue, ordinary justice and indigenous justice in Bolivia: Between challenges, possibilities or utopias , Johanna Lechat

No 234  When a Woman Meets a Woman: Comparing the Use of Negativity of Female Candidates in Single and Mixed-Gender Televised Debates , Emil Støvring Lauritsen

No 233  “Let me tell you how I see things”: The place of Brexit and the Entente Cordiale in Macron’s strategic narrative of and for France on the international scene , Maud-Lily Lardenois-Macocco

No 232  The Pleasures of Solitude? A qualitative analysis of young Chinese women’s daily-life vlog viewing practices , Yue Jin

No 231  Hegemonic Femininity: A Laughing Matter? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Contemporary Stand-Up Comedy in the United States on the Issue of Female Reproductive Rights , Isabella Hastings

No 230  Nice People Take Drugs: An investigation into the communicative strategies of drug policy reform organisations in the United Kingdom from a social movement perspective , André Belchior Gomes

No 229  The Branded Muslim Woman: A Qualitative Study into the Symbolic Boundaries Negotiated around the Portrayal of Muslim Women in Brand Cultures , Nuha Fayaz

No 228  The Uncertain Decorum of Online Identification: Study in Qualitative Interviews , Samuel DiBella

No 227  Decentring Eurocentrism in Communication Scholarship: A Discursive Analysis of resistance in influential communication journals , Sara Demas

No 226  From Asthetic Criticism to News Reporting: Rethinking the concept of Ecstatic News through the Lens of French Print Cultural Journalism , Elisa Covo

No 225  Datafication of Music Streaming Services: A qualitative investigation into the technological transformations of music consumption in the age of big data , Jingwen Chen

No 224  Transnational, Gendered, and Popular Music in the Arab World: A Content Analysis of a Decade (2010-2019) , Dana J. Bibi

No 223  We the Ragpickers: A case-study of participatory video and counterhegemony , Suyash Barve

No 222  Audience Engagement with Ten Years and the Imagination of Hong Kong Identity: Between Text, Context and Audience , Zhi-Nan Rebecca Zhang

No 221  Straightening out Same Sex Marriage for ‘all’ Australians: A content analysis study of prejudices in Australia's campaign for marriage equality ,Tate Soller

No 220  In Search for ‘Liveliness’: Experimenting with Co-Ocurrence Analysis Using #GDPR on Twitter , Sameeh Selim

No 219  ¿Dónde está mi gente? A qualitative analysis of the role of Latinos in the context of the Hillary for America 2016 presidential campaign , Andrea P. Terroba Rodríguez

No 218 Red, White and Blue for Who? A critical discourse analysis of mainstream media coverage of Colin Kaepernick and Take a Knee , Kim M Reynolds

No 217   ‘Algorithmic Bias’ through the Media Lens: A Content Analysis of the Framing of Discourse , Rocío Izar Oyarzun Peralta

No 216  Civic State of Mind: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Celebrity Language on Citizenship and Democracy , Hannah Menchhoff

No 215  Encoding the Social: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Mark Zuckerberg's Construction of Mediated Sociality , Sam McGeachy

No 214  White for White: An Exploration of Gay Racism on the World's Most Popular Platform for Gay and Bisexual Men , Aubrey T. A. Maslen

No 213  Agent of Change? Malaysian Millenials' Social Media Consumption and Political Knowledge, Participation and Voting in the 2018 General Election , ZiQing Low

No 212  The Netflix Phenomenon in India: A qualitative enquiry into the urban Indian youth's engagement with Netflix , Richa Sarah George

No 211  Do the ‘Rich’ Get Richer? Exploring the Associations between Social Media Use and Online and Offline Political Participation Activities among Kenyan Youth , Eric Gatobu Ndubi 

No 210  The Weinstein Effect and mediated non-apologies: Evaluating the role of #MeToo public apologies in western rape culture , Eleanor Dierking

No 209  ‘No Script At All’. A Study of Cultural Context and Audience Perceptions of Authenticity in Reality Television , Yun Ting Choo

No 208  “It’s funny ‘cause it’s true”. A critical discourse analysis on new political satire on television in the United States , Darren Chan

No 207  In a Mediated Society, Can Indigenous Knowledge Survive? A Network Ethnography Examining the Influence of Internet Use on Indigenous Herbal Knowledge Circulation in a Remote Yao Community , Anran Wang

No 206  Beauty and the Blogger: The Impact of Instagram Bloggers on Ideals of Beauty and Self-esteem , Sanjana Ahuja

No 205  Memories of Babri: Competing Discourses and contrasting constructions of a media event , Sanaya Chandar

No 204  Habitus, Social Space and Media Representation: The ‘Romantic’ Contemporary Taiwanese ‘Wenyi Qingnian’ Discourse in the Local Lifestyle Magazine ‘One Day’ , Hoi Yee Chau

No 203  Stories Untold? A qualitative analysis uncovering the representation of girls as victims of conflict in the global south , Tessa Venizelos

No 202  What is the Norm? A study of heteronormative representations in Bollywood , Saachi Bhatia

No 201 Live Streaming and its Audiences in China: Making sense of authenticity , Qisi Zhang

No 200  Berniebros and Vagina Voters: Content Analysis of Gendered Facebook Communication in the 2016 U.S. Democratic Presidential Primary , Meredith Epstein

No 199  ‘Othering’ the ‘Left-Behind’? A Critical Discourse Analysis of the representation of Leave voters in British broadsheets’ coverage of the EU referendum , Louise S. Thommessen.

No 198  Social Media as Civic Deliberation Space: A content analysis study of the public discussion about the legalization of surrogacy on Weibo and Zhihu , Liu Yu

No 197  Stories of Dismantling the White Patriarchy: A thematic narrative analysis of the imagined futures in 2015 science fiction films , Kylie Courtney

No 196  Too Small to Succeed? The Case of #NoAlVotoElectrónico and the Limits of Connective Action , Juan Floreal Graña

No 195  How we remember and forget via Facebook: The Mediatization of Memento and Deletion Practices , Jacopo Villanacci

No 194  Mediated Japanophile? Media consumption and Chinese people’s attitudes towards Japan among different generations , Han Xiao

No 193  Digital Mediatization in the Lifestyle Sport Slacklining , Friedrich Enders

No 192  Recipe for Success: A qualitative investigation into the role of social capital in the gendered food blogosphere , Fiona Koch

No 191 Access and Beyond: An Intersectional Approach to Women’s Everyday Experiences with ICTs , Fatma Matin Khan

No 190  Not Manly Enough: A Quantitative Analysis of Gender Stereotypes in Mexican Political Advertising, 2010‐2016 , Enrique López Alonso

No 189  Loudspeaker Broadcasting as Community Radio: A qualitative analysis of loudspeaker broadcasting in contemporary rural China in the framework of alternative media  Shutong Wang

No 188  21st Century Cholos Representations of Peruvian youth in the discourse of El Panfleto  Esteban Bertarelli

No 187  Representations of Calendar Girls and An Ideology of Modernity in 1930s Republican Shanghai  Yifan Song 

No 186  Reality Television as a Neoliberal Technology of Citizenship? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Điều Ước Thứ Bảy  Vu Anh Ngoc Nguyen

No 185  Truth on Trial: Indigenous News Media and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada  Tomas Borsa

No 184  No Place Like Home: Analysing Discursive Constructions of ‘Home’ in Canadian Mainstream Newspaper Coverage of the Elsipogtog Protest  Brooklyn Tchozewski

No 183  Modiplomacy and Diaspower: The discursive construction of modernity and national identity in Narendra Modi’s communication with the Indian diaspora  Saanya Gulati

No 182  “The centre must hold”: Partisan dealignment and the rise of the minor party at the 2015 general election  Peter Carrol

No 181  ‘Rapefugees Not Welcome’. Ideological Articulations of Media Discourses on Migrants and Refugees in Europe: New Racism and Othering – A Critical Discourse Analysis  Monica Ibrahim

No 180  Constructing Connectivity: A Qualitative Analysis of the Representation of the Connected and Unconnected Others in Facebook’s Internet.org Campaign  Minji Lee

No 179  Space and Place: The Communication of Gentrification to Young People in Hackney  Kimberley Brown

No 178  Adherence to the protest paradigm? An examination of Singapore’s news coverage of Speakers’ Corner protests from 2000 to 2015  Joann Tan

No 177  The system is rigged: A discursive analysis of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders  Jessica Cullen

No 176   An Examination of American Mainstream Media Discourse of Solidarity and Citizenship in the Reporting of the Black Lives Matter Campaign  Eilis Yazdani

No 175  Are All Lives Valued? Worthy 'Us', Unworthy 'Others'. A Comparative Content Analysis of Global News Agencies’. Pictorial Representation of the Paris Attacks and the Beirut Bombings . Dokyum Kim 

No 174  Imperial remains: A Critical Discourse Analysis of a Televised Retelling of the Portuguese Colonial Period  Beatriz Serra

No 173  Unmasking USAID Pakistan’s Elite Stakeholder Discourses: Towards an Evaluation of the Agency’s Development Interventions  Anum Pasha

No 172  Boundary Work between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ Global News Agencies’ Double Standard on the Construction of Forced Migrants by Geographical Proximity  Woo-chul Kim

No 171  Why Did Our Watchdog Fail? A Counter Perspective on the Media Coverage of the 2007 Financial Crisis  Tran Thuy-Anh Huynh

No 170  Unmasking ‘Sidekick’ Masculinity: A Qualitative Investigation of How Asian-American Males View Emasculating Stereotypes in U.S. Media  Steffi Lau

No 169  The Silence of the Lamb: Animals in Biopolitics and the Discourse of Ethical Evasion  Sana Ali

No 168  The Tartan Other: A qualitative analysis of the visual framing of Alex Salmond and the Scottish National Party in the British Press  Ross Alexander Longton

No 167  The Unmasking of Burmese Myth in Contemporary Thai Cinema  Pimtong Boonyapataro

No 166  Neoliberal Capitalism, Transnationalism and Networked Individualism: Rethinking Social Class in International Student Mobility  Nguyen Quynh Tram Doan 

No 165  The New Media Elite: How has Participation been Enabled and Limited in Leaders Live Online Political Debates  Matilde Giglio

No 164  Constructing a Sense of Place through New Media: A Case Study of Humans of New York  Mariele O’Reilly

No 163  The failure of cosmopolitanism and the reinforcement of hierarchical news: managing the visibility of suffering throughout the Multimodal Analysis of the Charlie Hebdo versus the Baga terrorist attacks  Maria Paola Pofi

No 162  Imagining (In)security: Towards Developing Critical Knowledges of Security in a Mediated Social World  Kathryn Higgins

No 161  Tweens Logged In: How Social Norms and Media Literacy Relate to Children’s Usage of Social Media  Kalina Asparouhova

No 160  Finding Ferguson: Geographic Scale in the United States’ National Nightly Network News  John Ray 

No 159  Solidarity as Irony: Audience Responses to Celebrity Advocacy  Isabel Kuhn

No 158  Phantasmagoric Nationalism: State power and the diasporic imagination  Felicia Wong 

No 157  Investigating Music Consumption ‘Circuits of Practice’  Eva Tkavc Dubokovic

No 156  A complex history turned into a tale of reconciliation: A critical discourse analysis of Irish newspaper coverage of the Queen’s visit to the Republic of Ireland  Ciara Spencer

No 155  Economic power of e-retailers via price discrimination in e-commerce: price discrimination’s impact on consumers’ choices and preferences and its position in relation to consumer power  Arina Vlasova

No 154  Exploring the Boundaries of Crowd Creation: A study on the value of voice in neoliberal media culture  Ana Ecaterina C. Tan

No 153  “Songs of Guilt”: When Generosity is to Blame - A Content Analysis of the Press and Social Media Reactions to U2’s “Songs of Innocence” Giveaway on iTunes  Alessandro Volonté

No 152  Hybridity within Peer Production: The Power Negotiation of Chinese Fansub Groups  Zongxiao Rong

No 151  Writing On the Wall: Conversations with Beirut's Street Artists  Zeina Najjar

No 150  'Gaining Control with the Power of the Gun and Maintaining Control with the Power of the Pen': A Content Analysis of Framing the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) in the  People's Daily   Yuanyuan Liu

No 149  Let My Voices be Heard: A Qualitative Study of Migrant Workers' Strategies of Mediation Resistance in Contemporary China  Yijun Chen

No 148  'Popular Politics': A Discourse Theory Analysis of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa's TV/radio Program Citizen Link  Veronica Leon Burch

No 147  A Comparative Analysis of Chinese, Western and African Media Discourse in the Representation of China's Expansion of Economic Engagements in Africa Tong Wei

No 146  Ideological Trafficking of God and the Other  Sultana Haider

No 145  The Maasai and the Internet: Online Civil Participation and the Formation of a Civic Identity in Rural Kenya  Stine Ringnes Wilhelmsen

No 144  Wood in Water Does Not a Crocodile Make: Migrants Virtual Place-making, Ontological Security and Cosmopolitanism in the Transnational Social Field  Sheetal Kumar

No 143  Droning On: A Critical Analysis of American Policy and News Discourse on Drone Strikes  Sadaf Khan

No 142  The Impact of Mass Media Sentiments on Returns and Volatility in Asset Markets: Evidence from Algorithmic Content Analysis  Panu Kuuluvainen

No 141  Problematising the Self-Representation of Race and Gender in Vines: Who has the Last Laugh?  Shaikha Nurfarah Mattar

No 140  Corporate Public Apologies, or Capitalism in Other Words  Nina M Chung

No 139  Agenda Setting and Framing in the UK Energy Prices Debate  Nicholas Davies

No 138  'It is of Inestimable Benefit': Communicating American Science Policy in the Post-Cold War Era  Mercedes Wilby

No 137  Beyond Twenty Cents: The Impact of the Representation of Violence on the Coverage of the Brazilian Protests of June 2013 by the Mass Media  Margarida Gorecki Telles

No 136  Framing Françafrique: Neo-colonial Framing Practices in  Le Monde 's Coverage of the French Military Interventions in Mali and the Central African Republic  Lucie Gagniarre 

No 135  Representing Persia: A Discourse Analysis of The American Print Media's Coverage of Iran  Kyle Bowen

No 134  From Fat Cats to Cool Cats: CEOs and Micro-celebrity Practices on Twitter  Julia Regina Austmann

No 133  Critically Imagining Ineternet Governance: A Content Analysis of the  Marco Civil da Internet  Public Consultation  João Carlos Magalhães

No 132  The Ambiguous ICT: Investigating How Tablet Users Relate to and Interact with Their Device  Jessica Blank

No 131  Threats, Parasites and Others: The Visual Framing of Roma Migrants in the British Press  Grace Waters

No 130  Fifty Years of Negativity: An Assessment of Negative Compaigning in Swedish Parlimentary Election Campaigns 1956-2006  Gustav Gidenstam

No 129  The Talking Dog: Representations of Self and Others in Japanese Advertising  Eryk Salvaggio

No 128  The Selfie Protest: A Visual Analysis of Activism in the Digital Age  Clare Sheehan

No 127  Negativity and Australian Political Discourse: A Case Study of the Australian Liberal Party's 2013 Election Television Advertising  Clare Creegan

No 126  What are You Laughing at? A Social Semiotic Analysis of Ironic Racial Stereotypes in  Chappelle's Show  Cindy Ma

No 125  Reconsidering Agenda Setting and Intermedia Agenda Setting from a Global Perspective: A Cross-National Comparative Agenda Setting Test  Christoph Rosenthal

No 124  Big Data Exclusions and Disparate Impact: Investigating the Exclusionary Dynamics of Big Data Phenomenon  Charly Gordon

No 123  Tabloidisation of the Norwegian News Media: A Quantitative Analysis of Print and Online Newspaper Platforms  Celine Storstad Gran

No 122  Red, White and Afro Caribbean: A Qualitative Study of Afro-Caribbean American Identity During the Olympic Games  Ashley Gordon

No 121  The City without Gates: Facebook and the Social Surface  Andrew Crosby

No 120  Yes I Do Mind: Constructing Discourses of Resistance against Racial Microaggressions on Tumblr  Abigail Kang

No 119  Tensions in Urban Street Art: a Visual Analysis of the Online Media Coverage of Banksy Slave Labour  Elisabetta Crovara

No 118  The Sticky Case of Sticky Data: An Examination of the Rationale, Legality, and Implementation of a Right to Data Portability Under European Competition Law  Paul T. Moura

No 117  Pinning Pretty: A Qualitative Study of Pinterest Users' Practices and Views Elizabeth White

No 116  Comparing Perceptions of NGOs and CSR: Audience Evaluations and Interpretations of Communications  Gitanjali Co Devan Anderson

No 115  What is Web-Populism doing to Italian Politics? The Discursive Construction of 'Grillini' vis-a-vis the Antagonist Other  Isadora Arredondo

No 114  Yellow Skin-White Prison: A Content Analysis of French Television News Broadcast  Ngo Bossoro

No 113  A Revisionist Turkish Identity: Power, Religion and Ethnicity as Ottoman Identity in the Turkish series Muhteşem Yüzyıl  Esra Doğramacı 

No 112  Behind the Curtain: Women's Representations in Contemporary Hollywood  Reema Dutt

No 111  From  Liberal Conservative  to  Conservative Conservative : David Cameron's Political Branding  Ignacio José Antonio López Escarcena

No 110  'Micropolitics' and Communication: An Exploratory Study on Student Representatives' Communication Repertoires in University Governance  Nora Kroeger

No 109  Ideology No More: A Discourse of Othering in Canadian Mainstream Newspaper Representations of the Idle No More Movement  Christian Ledwell

No 108  Media Representation of Nationalism and Immigration: A Case Study of  Jamie's Great Britain  Xin Liang

No 107  You're Not Alone : Virtual Communities, Online Relationships & Modern Identities in the Military Spouse & Blogging Community  Elizabeth M. Lockwood

No 106  Harperist Discourse: Creating a Canadian 'Common Sense' and Shaping Ideology Through Language  Mashoka Maimona

No 105  The Spiral of Silence and Social Media: Analysing Noelle-Neumann's Phenomenon Application on the Web during the Italian Political Elections of 2013 Cristina Malaspina

No 104  Participatory Culture on YouTube: A Case Study of the Multichannel Network Machinima  Bryan Mueller

No 103  Up the Cascade: Framing of the Concession of the Highway between San Jose and San Ramon  Marie Garnier Ortiz

No 102  Science in the Headlines: The Stakes in the Social Media Age  Sasjkia Otto

No 101  Representing Disease: An Analysis of Breast Cancer Discourse in the South African Press  Lauren Post

No 100  Blob  and Its Audience: Making Sense of Meta-Television  Giulia Previato

No 99  Streaming the Syrian War: A Case Study of the Partnership between Professional and Citizen Journalists in the Syrian Conflict  Madeline Storck

No 98  Immigration Policy Narratives and the Politics of Identity: Causal Issue Frames in the Discursive Construction of America's Social Borders  Felicity P. Tan

No 97  Behind 'gift-giving': The Motivations for Sharing Fan-Generated Digital Content in Online Fan Communities  Mengchu Wang

No 96  Smartphone Location-based Services in the Social, Mobile, and Surveillance Practices of Everyday Life  Carey Wong

No 95  The Impacts of Design on Voluntary Participation: Case Studies of Zimuzu and Baike  Li Zeng

No 94   Mediated Politics and Ideology: Towards a New  Synthesis. A case study from the Greek General Election of May 2012  Angelos Kissas

No 93   E-Arranged Marriages:  How have Muslim matrimonial websites affected traditional Islamic courting methods?  Ayesha Ahmed

No 92   Hospitality in the Modern Mediapolis: Global Mediation of Child Soldiers in central and east Africa  Bridgette Bugay

No 91   Media Framing of the 2009-2010 United States  Health Care Reform Debate: A Content Analysis of U.S. Newspaper Coverage  Christina Brown

No 90   Behind the Laughter: Mediating Hegemony through Humour  Ningkang Wang

No 89   Saving Europe online?  European identity and the European Union’s Facebook communication during the eurozone crisis  Johannes Hillje

No 88   Like it? Ritual Symbolic Exchange Using Facebook’s ‘Like’ Tool  Kenneth J. Gamage

No 87   Understanding representations of low-income  Chinese migrant workers through the lens of photojournalists  Lee Zhuomin

No 86  The Modernization of Irish Political Campaigning: The 2011 General Election  Liam Murphy

No 85   Online Freedom?Film Consumption in the Digital Age  Luane Sandrin Gauer

No 84   Audience Reception of Charity Advertising:  Making Sense, Interpreting and Decoding Advertisements That Focus on Human Suffering  Magdalini Tsoutsoumpi

No 83  Beneath the Anthropomorphic Veil:  Animal Imagery and Ideological Discourses in British Advertising  Manjula Kalliat

No 82   Mobile Discourses:  A Critical Discourse Analysis on  Reports of Intergovernmental Organizations Recommending Mobile Phones for Development   Maria Paola de Salvo

No 81   We the People:  The role of social media in the participatory community of the Tea Party movement  Rachel Weiler

No 80   SOPA Deliberation on Facebook:  Deliberation and Facilitation or Mere  Mobilization?  Ray Wang

No 79   Discerning the Dominant Discourse in the World Summit on the Information Society  Ria Sen

No 78   The impact of online health information on the doctor-patient relationship. Findings from a qualitative study  Susanne Christmann

No 77   The Influence of Weibo Political Participations on the Political Efficacies of Weibo Users  Wenxu Wang

No 76   In what Forms and Patterns does Inequality Exist in  the Weibosphere?  Xiao Han

No 75   Creating Scandal to Avoid Panic:  How the UK Press Framed the News of the World Phonehacking  Scandal   Zuzanna Natalie Blaszkiewicz

No 74  Measuring media pluralism in the convergence era: The case of News Corp’s proposed acquisition of BSkyB  Davide Morisi

No 73  Observers, Witnesses, Victims or Activists? How Inuit Voices are Represented in Mainstream Canadian Newspaper Coverage of Global Warming  Patricia H. Audette-Longo

No 72  Global journalism, local realities: Ugandan journalists' views on reporting homosexuality  Rachael Borlase

No 71  Why pay if it's free? Streaming, downloading, and digital music consumption in the "iTunes era"  Theodore Giletti

No 70  Peacebuilding and Public Service Media: Lessons from Star Radio and media development in Liberia  Elizabeth Goodfriend

No 69  The Discourse of Protest: Using discourse analysis to identify speech acts in UK broadsheet newspapers  Stefan Brambilla Hall

No 68  Life With or Without the Internet: The Domesticated Experiences of Digital Inclusion and Exclusion  Mark Holden

No 67  We are all well (and undisrupted) in the shelter - the 33 of us: Narratives in the rescue of the Chilean Miners as a Live Media Event  César Antonio Jiménez Martínez

No 66  Critical Failure: Class, Taste and the Value of Film Criticism  Moses Lemuel

No 65  The Story of Egypt: Journalistic impressions of a revolution and new media power  Thomas Ledwell

No 64  Political Fandom in the Age of Social Media: Case Study of Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential Campaign  Komal H. Parikh

No 63  Against all odds: Evidence for the 'true' cosmopolitan consumer A cross-disciplinary approach to investigating the Cosmopolitan Condition  Saskia Scheibel

No 62  Relating to 'Ohio' in Political Advertisements: Interpreting Representations of Culture in Narratives, Myths, and Symbols from Democratic Spots in the 2010 Gubernatorial Campaign  Daniel Schwarz

No 61  Youth Understanding of Climate: Towards a theory of social adaptation to climate change in Africa  Hardi Shahadu

No 60  Translating China:A case study of Chinese-English translation in CCTV international broadcasting  Yueru Zhang

No 59  From watchdog to lapdog?The impact of government intimidation on the public watchdog performance of peace media in processes of democratisation  Michael Spiess

No 58  From Hardback to Software: How the Publishing Industry is Coping with Convergence  Lauren Christina Sozio

No 57  Witnessing War: Blogs from Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan  Jessica Siegel

No 56  Mediated Cosmopolitanism? The Other’s Mediated Dialogical Space on BBC World’s Hardtalk  Andrew Rogers

No 55  Reconceptualising IT? Policy Learning and Paradigms of Sustainability in the ICT Policy of the European Union  Jussi Nokkala

No 54  ‘Alive with Possibility’: Brand South Africa and the Discursive Construction of South African National Identity  Yasuko Murai

No 53  The Journalistic Identities of Liveblogging A Case Study: Reporting the 2009 Post-Election Protests in Iran  David McDougall,

No 52  Blogging the Gap: A survey of China bloggers  Kerry Arnot

No 51  Young People’s Adoption and Consumption of a Cultural Commodity – iPhone  Hui Jiang

No 50  Preserving the Liberal World Order in an Age of Globalization: Representing the People’s Republic of China in the American Prestige Press  Jasmine Chan

No 49  In the Name of Allah?  Alison Jarrett

No 48  An Investigation into the Meaning of Locally Produced Entertainment Media to Lebanese Women:A Concentration on the Film Sukkar Banat (Caramel)  Carol Haidar

No 47  ‘Discuss This Article!’ Participatory Uses of Comment Sections on SPIEGEL ONLINE: A Content Analysis  Eilika Freund

No 46  Fleeting Racialisation?: Media Representation of African Americans During the California Proposition 8 Campaign  -  App 1  -  App 2  Tiana Epps-Johnson

No 45  The Big Society Will Not Take Place: Reading Postmodernism in Contemporary Conservative Discourse  Matthew Eisner Harle

No 44  Situating the imagination:Turkish soap operas and the lives of women in Qatar  Dima Issa

No 43  guardian.co.uk: online participation, ‘agonism’ and ‘mutualisation’  Mariam Cook

No 42  Freedom or intervention: What is the role of the regulator in achieving competitive pay-TV markets?  Yi Shen Chan

No 41  The united states of unscreened cinema: The political economy of the self-distribution of cinema in the U.S.  Bajir Cannon

No 40  Constructing the virtual body: Self-representation, self-modification and self-perfection in pro-eating disorder websites  Gillian Bolsover

No 39  The Altruistic Blockbuster and the Third-World Filmstar  Olina Banerji

No 38  The Modernisation of Australian Political Campaigns: The Case of Maxine McKew  Evie Watt

No 37  Platform-based Open Innovation Business Models: Bridging the gap between value creation and value capture  Michael Seminer

No 36  Transmit/Disrupt: Why does illegal broadcasting continue to thrive in the age of liberalised spectrum?  Justin Schlosberg

No 35  Domestic Conflict or Global Terror? Framing the Mumbai Terror Attacks in the U.S. Print Press  Kamla Pande

No 34  Information plurality, the financial sector, and the fate of Reuters News agency: Policy and problems surrounding the Thomson Reuters merger  Leila Lemghalef

No 33  The Contested Framing of Canada’s Military Mission in Afghanistan: The News Media, the Government, the Military and the Public  Brooks Decillia

No 32  UK community radio: policy frames and outcomes  Helen Charles

No 31  Bunny Talk: Teenagers Discuss The Girls Next Door  Jennifer Barton

No 30  Psephological Peer Production  Tim Watts

No 29  Domestication of the Cell Phone on a College Campus: A Case Study  Madhuri Shekar

No 28  The Visuals of Violence  Sofie Scheerlinck

No 27  All Work and No Play - Does it Make Jack a Dull Boy?  Ece Inanç

No 26  Perusing Perez: How do Taste Hierarchies, Leisure Preferences and Social Status Interact among visitors to Perez Hilton's Celebrity Gossip Blog?  Ellen Hunter

No 25  Exploring the 'Americanization of Political Campaigns: Croatia's 2003 and 2007 General Elections  Milly A. Doolan

No 24  Acts of Negotiation  Rajana Das

No 23  Banal Environmentalism: Defining and Exploring an Expanded Understanding of Ecological Identity, Awareness, and Action  Ryan Cunningham

No 22  Letting the Other Solitude be Heard: On the Media's Role as a Forum for Multilingual Conversation in Canada  Marc Chalifoux

No 21  Multilateral Institutions and the Recontextualization of Political Marketing: How the World Intellectual Property Organization's Outreach Efforts Reflect Changing Audiences  Sandra Bangasser

No 20  Branding in Election Campaigns: Just a Buzzword or a New Quality of Political Communication?  Manuel Adolphsen

No 19   A Study on Self-regulatory Initiatives in China's Internet Industry  Lijun Cao

No 18   An Exploration of the 2006 Electoral Campaign for the Re-election of Walter Veltroni for Mayor of Rome  Maddalena Vianello

No 17   Creating Global Citizens? The Case of Connecting Classrooms  Mandeep Samra

No 16   Audience Reception of Health Promoting Advertising  Cristian Raftopoulou

No 15   The Game of (Family) Life: Intra-Family Play in the World of Warcraft  Holly Peterson

No 14   Global TV and Local Realities: Constructing Narratives of the Self  Sunandini Pande

No 13   Twitter: Expressions of the Whole Self  Edward Mishaud

No 12   Crowdsourced News: The Collective Intelligence of Amateurs and The Evolution of Journalism  Melissa Metzger

No 11   To Support or Distort: An Analysis of Ontario Referendum Campaign Websites  Anna Mather

No 10   Political Handbags: The representation of women politicians  Eva Markstedt

No 9   Free Speech, Political Correctness and the Public Sphere in a Talk Radio World  Michele Margolis

No 8    Propaganda, Grassroots Power, or Online Public Sphere?  Zheng Liu

No 7   Preventing Drug Abuse in China: Anti-Drug Campaigns in the Eyes of a Drug User  Bo Li

No 6   Taming Technology: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Families and Their Domestication of the Internet  Josh Hack

No 5   Keeping up Appearances: Candidate Self-Presentation through Web Videos in the 2008 US Presidential Primary Campaign  Nisha Gulati

No 4   The End of the Media's '"War on Terror"? An Analysis of a Declining Frame  Dominik Cziesche

No 3   Fantasizing Reality: Wetware, Social Imaginaries, and Signs of Change  Jennifer Cross

No 2   The Colbert Nation: A Democratic Place to be?  Kristen Boesel

No 1   Media Constructions of Extreme Female Thinness  Nelly Abranavel

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Dissertation examples

Listed below are some of the best examples of research projects and dissertations from undergraduate and taught postgraduate students at the University of Leeds We have not been able to gather examples from all schools. The module requirements for research projects may have changed since these examples were written. Refer to your module guidelines to make sure that you address all of the current assessment criteria. Some of the examples below are only available to access on campus.

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• Perceptions of South African freelance copywriters on cross-cultural communication on the Upwork digital platform  Moyo, Busani ( 2024-02-01 ) This qualitative study explores and describes the perceptions of South African freelance copywriters on cross-cultural communication on the Upwork digital platform. The study seeks to examine these perceptions with the aim ...
• Exploring the use of internal communication channels in the South African Police Service (SAPS): Inanda police station post covid-19  Msomi, Siyabonga Welcome ( 2024-02-19 ) The study investigated the use of internal communication channels within the South African Police Services (SAPS) at Inanda Police Station post-COVID-19, to highlight the potential for successful use and identify the ...
• Towards a corporate social responsibility communication framework : a responsible leadership perspective in FTSE4GOOD organisations  Walsh, David ( 2024-02-29 ) This study addresses the evolving landscape of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) communication within organisations and its intricate connection to responsible leadership. As stakeholder expectations undergo dynamic ...
• Qualitative exploration of political parties addressing salient issues utilising YouTube during 2019 general elections  Mamabolo, Mahlatse Ngwaseladi Margaret ( 2024-02-19 ) Given the importance of issue salience and the growing use of social media, this study integrated media framing theory with salient theory to create a better understanding of how issues relating to political parties play ...
• Analyzing bullying as an internal communication phenomenon at greater Letaba Municipality, South Africa  Rabothata, Linah Motsatsi ( 2023-05 ) The problem of workplace bullying remains a persistent concern in many organisations including public sector organisations. Different perspectives have been considered in previous work on addressing the issue to include ...
• Media accountability mechanisms in South Africa : a critical study of the regulatory bodies for print, broadcast and online media, and a model for regulation  De Vega, Taryn Isaacs ( 2023-11 ) Media accountability mechanisms in South Africa – a critical study of the regulatory bodies for print, broadcast and online media, and a model for regulation, investigates the effectiveness of the media-initiated regulatory ...
• Technology as extensions of man : the use of Marshall McLuhan’s tetrad of media effects in an analysis of the metaverse: a media ecological perspective  Davie, Therise Bertha ( 2024-02-14 ) This study explores the implications of Marshall McLuhan's perspectives on the Metaverse, focusing on virtual reality from a media-ecological standpoint and viewing technology as extensions of human capabilities. It delves ...
• Students' perceptions on the adoption of online communication channels within a South African higher learning institution  Marakalala, Mary Mmule ( 2023-06 ) This study sought to establish students’ perceptions regarding the adoption of online communication channels for virtual learning at the University of Johannesburg. The study also explored the efficacy of online communication ...
• The portrayal and influence of polygamy in a television series, Uthando Nes'Thembu  Gumede, Sandile Michael ( 2022-11 ) This is a mixed method study that investigates the portrayal and influence of polygamy in a television series, Uthando Nes’thembu. The television programme is unique in the Southern African television space, with the show ...
• A critical discourse analysis of the coverage of the low matric pass rate in rural Eastern Cape : the case study of the Daily Dispatch  Joxo, Amkela Angel ( 2023-11 ) Matric learner's poor academic performance is one of the main challenges that South Africa is faced with, particularly, in the Eastern Cape. In this study, the coverage of the Daily Dispatch newspaper on the low matric ...
• The significance of centralised communication on a decentralised organisation : a case on railway safety regulator  Malete, Keatlegile Godwill ( 2023-09-21 ) The rationale for the study was to explore the significance of centralised communication in a strategically decentralised organisation. Organisations either centralise or decentralise their functions as part of adapting ...
• An analysis of the implementation of communication integration in Metropolitan Life Insurance in South Africa  Sokana, Nozimanga ( 2023-04 ) This study evaluated communication implementation within Metropolitan Life Insurance (“Metropolitan”) in South Africa. In the current volatile and competitive market setting where companies have similar offerings, compounded ...
• Investigating Covid-19 twitter sentiments during the 2021 vaccine roll-out in South Africa  Jimoh, Sinenhlanhla ( 2022-01 ) Vaccination is a vital component in the control of a pandemic like COVID-19. However, to a certain extent, COVID-19 vaccines have been met with public fear and scepticism, thereby making it difficult for communication ...
• An analysis of the extent of cyberbullying awareness among the stakeholders in the selected public school in Gauteng, South Africa  Noguba, Nwabisa ( 2023-08-07 ) Lack of technological infrastructure and poor adoption of digital literacy in South African schools have been cited as some of the factors that impede the success of cyberbullying awareness implementation and monitoring ...
• A textual analysis of three, South African, online newspapers (2021-2022) on the representation of the Economic Freedom Fighters  Legodi, Nancy Mapule ( 2023-07 ) This study, entitled “A textual analysis of three, South African, online newspapers (2021-2022) on the representation of the Economic Freedom Fighters”, is a cross-sectional, mixed methods textual analysis investigating ...
• Tracking the diffusion and adoption of ICTs among SMMEs in the agribusiness sector in Tshwane, South Africa  Kgaabi, Kwena Dominic ( 2022-10-24 ) Small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) are key catalysts for advancing inclusive growth and development in South Africa. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have transformed and revolutionised the way ...
• Brand communication and its influence on brand loyalty in the banking industry : an evaluation of First National Bank Customers  Ndlovu, Zamabomvu Tracey ( 2023-05 ) This study was conducted with the aim to investigate whether brand communication is effective in influencing South African customers to remain loyal to a specific bank, in this case, First National Bank, or if there ...
• Practice of participatory communication : asset based community development legacy project in Lusikisiki, Eastern Cape  Maphumulo, Andile Bongeka ( 2022-11-30 ) The purpose of the study was to explore the practice of participatory communication by the South African National Road Agency (SANRAL) on the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) project in Lusikisiki, Eastern Cape ...
• A conceptual framework for social-media crisis communication to build stakeholder relationships in Ghana  Tella, Fortune ( 2023-01 ) People are spending more time on social media, which means that public-relations professionals need to pay more attention to managing the reputation of their organisations. However, many Ghanaian organisations are not ...
• Developing a framework for public relations practice : an examination of gender issues among female PR practitioners in Ghana  Abudulai, Justice Issah ( 2023-01 ) This study aimed to develop a current and appropriate framework for Public Relations (PR) practice among female practitioners in Ghana by investigating gender issues in PR among female practitioners in Ghana. Data were ...

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178 Communication Research Topics For Your Paper

Imagine what the world would be without communication! How would we get along? I guess there would be no sense in existing after all. That is just a tiny snippet of how important communication is in everyday life. Exchanging information is a key component of coexistence as it creates order and a sense of satisfaction in the end.

However, communication as a discipline cuts across all other niches in the academic world. Students from an Engineering course would also take up communication as a unit of study. Students delve into the transmission, representation, reception, and decoding of information communicated to a greater extent.

Situations When You May Need To Write A Communication Paper

Various scenarios call for a communication paper either as an assignment or a research project in college. The communication papers needed for every situation vary in format and outline. Here are some of the cases when communication papers are necessary:

When writing a resume or cover letter In presentations and reports Internal or external communication in a company Writing a thesis statement

When writing communication papers in these different scenarios, students can develop the following aspects:

Understand the various communication phenomena Ability to direct communication messages towards accomplishing individual and organizational goals Understand various types of communication such as rhetoric, interpersonal or organizational

Such an assignment is peculiar because it deals with students’ communication processes. Therefore, the student can easily relate a communication assignment to the real-world environment.

You will have to conduct extensive digging before writing your paper like any other research project. In writing a communication research paper, you will benefit from the importance of communication in general, such as building better relationships and finding the right solutions to various problems.

It takes a lot of time to create a high-quality writing, so you have all the right to ask dissertation writers for hire to help.

Guidelines On Structure And Step By Step Tips On Writing

To have an award-winning communication paper, you need to understand that structure is always at the heart of it all. A great communication paper follows the structure below:

Solid intro : Begin by presenting a captivating introduction by highlighting the facts, questions, or problems that you will explore in the body. The reader should find more than a million reasons to proceed with your essay by reading the first two lines. A strong thesis statement is also necessary for the introduction. An insightful literature review : It shows the theoretical basis of your research project, thus giving it validity. An in-depth literature review will give room for exploration and further research. Main body : This is where we expect to find all your findings, methodological steps, concepts, analyses, and the outcome. Discussion and conclusion : Depending on your professor’s instructions, you can divide this into two parts or put it as one. In either case, this section will consist of the strengths and weaknesses of your research and any future development or improvements. You could also compare the results found in your research with what other authors have discovered.

Provided you have all your facts at hand, a communication research paper will be the easiest you will ever handle in college. Nonetheless, you can order a custom paper from various online writing experts.

If you want to make an impression with your communication research paper, here are some tips to consider:

Select a thought-provoking and captivating research topic Have a working outline with all the arguments and examples/evidence in place Ensure that you exhaust reading all the possible research materials on your topic Such papers are always in the first person except in unique cases

You can review some of the samples on our essay writer to familiarize yourself with the structure and outline of a communication research paper.

Let’s now explore 178 of the hottest communication research topics to ace your project:

Top Interpersonal Communication Research Topics

• Evaluate the different relational patterns of interaction theory
• How to achieve coordinated management of meaning
• Discuss the fundamentals of pedagogical communication
• How does technology relate to interpersonal communication?
• Key constructs of openness and closeness
• Establishing identities in the identity management theory
• Evaluate the contribution of interpersonal communication scholars
• How mental representations influence how people interpret information
• Conceptualizing the process of social interaction
• Discuss the various behavioral interaction patterns among siblings
• Why do individuals modify their communicative behavior?
• Describe why new environments present a challenge for most people to communicate effectively
• The role of eye contact and gestures in interpersonal communication
• Varying effects of nonverbal and verbal acts of interpersonal communication
• Effects of different cultures on interpersonal communication strategies

World-Class Communication Research Topics For College Students

• Understanding the historical research methods in communication
• Discuss the relationship between technology, media, and culture
• Evaluate the various revolutions in human communication
• Discuss the developments made in the invention of human speech and language
• The role of image-making, cinema, and media entertainment in communication
• How to overcome communication barriers among students
• Steps in encouraging participation in meetings
• How employees contribute to the information flow in organizations
• How to evaluate a report based on its findings
• Sources of error during nonverbal communication
• How the media can match the channels of communication to their audience
• Ensuring audience attention during a presentation
• The impact of graphics in communication strategies
• How to interpret non-verbal signals
• Developing communication methods that match a given purpose

Possible Topics For Communication Research

• How to develop realistic communication strategies
• Discuss the economics of finance in communication processes
• How exposure to radio and TV impacts communication
• How to manage controversial issues in communication
• Why speaking with confidence is still difficult for many people
• The effectiveness of communicating with words and body language
• Why defining your purpose is key in any communication process
• Why explanatory communication is more difficult than informative communication
• The place of communication in long-distance relationships
• Communication strategies that influence people
• How to use communication effectively for conflict resolution
• Developing your self-esteem for effective communication
• Effects of redundancy in communication processes
• The place of responsibility in developing communication messages
• How to acquire effective communication skills in college

Latest Communication Topic For Research

• The role of persuasive dialogue in negotiations
• Why everyone must learn proper expression strategies
• Effects of emoji and other characters in enhancing textual conversations
• The role of propaganda in shaping communication tones
• Evaluate the unique political language used in America versus Africa
• The continuing impact of the internet on interpersonal communication
• How images are enhancing communication
• Discuss the effects of gender victimization on communication
• Evaluate the development of modern digital communication
• How to effectively communicate during a war or crisis
• How hacking is transforming communication of encrypted messages
• Effects of stereotyping in developing communication messages
• Is virtual reality ruining effective communication?
• Evaluate language as a barrier in communicating messages
• The role of empathy in communicating to victims of a disaster

Top-Notch Communication Research Paper Topics

• The role of diplomacy in fostering better relations among countries
• Why aided communication may not achieve the intended purpose
• Effects of using a translator in the communication of critical messages
• Evaluate the development of audio-visual devices for communication
• The dangers of failing to notice barriers to communication
• How stigma and prejudice impact effective communication
• Discuss the impact of having a common language in a country
• How social classes affect communication messages
• Factors that hinder communication between fighting political sides
• How to develop strong communication skills in a marketplace
• Why opinions may prevent one from seeing the true picture
• Discuss the role of fantasy and exaggeration in communication
• Differences between oral and verbal messages in conveying information
• The role of attitude and mood in enhancing effective message delivery
• How the media sets the communication pattern of a given society

Highly Rated Mass Communication Research Topics

• Discuss the essence of social media among PR practitioners
• The role of mass media in rebranding a nation
• Challenges to media freedom and their impact on proper communication
• Discuss the effects of news commercialization and their credibility
• How TV advertisements impact children and their development
• Compare and contrast between animation and real-people adverts in mass media
• How the internet affects professionalization in news media
• How mass media messages contribute to the development of religion in Africa
• Evaluate the radio listenership patterns between men and women
• How does mass media contribute to an emerging democracy
• Discuss how the media enlightens the public on issues of concern
• The role of mass media in communicating development messages
• Why mass media is critical before, during, and after elections
• Assess the influence of community radio in remote areas
• How mass media contributes to national integration

Good Communication Research Topics

• What determines consumer preference patterns in the 21 st century?
• Effective communication strategies for creating awareness against drug abuse
• Prospects and challenges of local dialects in communication
• Evaluate the influence of television on public opinion
• Discuss the growing cyberactivism in the digital age
• How social media is contributing to misleading information
• Challenges facing teachers when communicating to pre-school students
• Discuss the impact of information overload on the credibility of information
• Evaluate communication patterns among the youth in the US
• Assess the effects of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on communication patterns
• How public perception influences communication strategies
• Explain how mothers learn to communicate with and understand their babies at such a tender age
• The role of music in shaping communication models
• How to overcome the challenge of top-down communication in companies
• Management of information on online media for effective use

Business Communication Research Paper Topics

• Discuss the increasing role of influencers on brand marketing
• Why company blogs are essential in attracting new clients
• Evaluate the differences between face to face and virtual business meetings
• The growing popularity of social media in business marketing
• Why every company should have a partner relations department
• Dealing with complaints in a relaxed and useful manner
• Why online project management is the future of business
• Discuss why it is necessary to have company retreats
• Explore the role of digital document sharing in speeding up business communication
• Effects of relying on online communication at the expense of physical meetings
• The role of effective business management in the performance of an organization
• How staff motivation improve the overall working environment
• Discuss the place of corporate social responsibility in a company
• Effective ways of handling crisis in a large company
• Explain why trust is important in any business partnerships

Intercultural Communication Research Topics

• Discuss how Muslims interact with Christians at a social level
• Evaluate the reception of instructions from a man to a woman
• How Americans interact with Africans at the basic level
• Discuss how an American Democrat would associate with a Chinese politician
• Discuss the impact of marginalization in developing communication messages
• How migration and immigration affect communication patterns
• Effects of social stereotyping in communication
• How do Western communication models differ from those of Africa?
• Impact of discriminatory communication messages
• How to organize an effective intergroup come-together
• How the media represents various groups in its communication
• Effects of the growing intercultural norms
• The role of language attitudes in inhibiting effective communication
• Evaluate how ethnographic perspectives affect communication messages
• Why it is difficult to solve intercultural conflicts

Additional Interpersonal Communication Topics For Research Paper

• The role of interpersonal communication in team member satisfaction
• How collaboration and teamwork enhances business success
• Discuss how interpersonal communication enhances problem-solving skills
• The role of trust in interpersonal communication
• Effects of confusion, negativity, and conflicts on interpersonal communication
• How to deal with workplace miscommunication effectively
• The role of personalizing information
• How to improve internal communication channels in a company
• Discuss the role of interests in communication patterns
• Challenges when implementing modern communication solutions
• Evaluate how jargon and inattention make internal communication difficult
• The role of feedback in interpreting messages correctly
• Discuss the influence of environmental factors in communication
• Why miscommunication may result in a disconnect among a group of people
• Discuss the role of skills and knowledge in effective communication among leaders

Interesting Communication Research Topics

• How can effective interpersonal communication be a catalyst for action
• Why a focused and intentional approach is necessary for effective communication
• Discuss why online dating is not successful in most cases
• Evaluate the role of non-verbal communication and customer satisfaction
• Why is it important to have a list of communication networks?
• Effects of lack of personal contact when it comes to communication
• Discuss the various forms of human interactions and their influence on communication
• The role of clear communication during an organizational change process
• Why online communication is not as effective as physical meetings
• Evaluate the roles and issues involved in a nurse-patient communication
• The role of TV shows in determining how people relate to each other in the society
• Effects of the digital divide in communication paradigms
• The relationship between quality leadership and effective communication
• Why is email still not yet an effective communication medium?
• Effects of integrating marketing communication

General Communication Studies Research Topics

• Discuss the differences in body language between male and female
• The role of communication in familiarizing with someone
• How online gaming communication affects one’s interpersonal communication
• Why a leader without proper communication skills may not succeed
• The role of communication in achieving an organization’s vision
• How mobile phone conversations are turning around interpersonal communication
• Discuss the role of different personality types in communication
• Is there a difference between language and communication?
• Discuss how communication in the military is different from that in a normal setting
• Compare and contrast between written and spoken forms of communication
• Why family communication is critical for a peaceful coexistence
• Shortcomings to understanding foreign languages
• Discuss the effectiveness of web-based communication

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Communication Science: Theses and Dissertations

• Theses and Dissertations
• Reference Sources
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Directory of Open Access Repositories (openDOAR)

Open Access Theses and Dissertations

To find electronic versions of master and doctoral theses submitted to the Department of Communication Science since 2005: go to the library catalogue and enter Communication Science as keyword; in the window to the right, change the View Entire Collection default to UNISA Theses and Dissertations, and click search.

Dissertations are useful for benchmarking, generating reading lists and identifying research opportunities.

South African

• Current and Completed Research This link opens in a new window The Current and Completed Research database provides information on approximately 150,000 South African current and completed research projects, including theses and dissertations. Covers all fields of science in South Africa since 1919.
• UCTD (Union Catalogue of Theses and Dissertations) This link opens in a new window The Union Catalogue for Thesis and Dissertations (UCTD) contains bibliographic records of theses and dissertations at master and doctorate level submitted to universities in South Africa. Honorary doctorates are also included. Coverage: 1918-present.
• UnisaETD: electronic theses and dissertations This link opens in a new window This is a collection of theses and dissertations submitted since 2003 in electronic format to the University of South Africa. The copyright of the items in this collection belongs to the University of South Africa.

International

• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses: Global This link opens in a new window The largest single repository of graduate dissertations and theses Includes 3.8 million works – grows by 100K each year International scope – deposits from universities in 88 countries. Designated as an official offsite repository for the U.S. Library of Congress,
• WorldCat Dissertations and Theses This link opens in a new window This database provides fast and convenient access to the dissertations and theses available in OCLC member libraries. Many of these are available electronically, at no charge, directly from the publishing institution.
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