Research Resources  > Subject Guides
 

Subject Guide for Journalism and Mass Communication

Class: Journalism 4871 - Global Media Empires

Professor: Mody

Date: Friday, October 28, 2005

• UK - Sudan Relations
• Ownership of the Guardian
• Research on Guardian Coverage of Genocides
• Accessing International Newspapers Online
• Accessing Library Resources from Off-Campus
• APA Style Guide - PDF "Cheatsheet"
• Constructing Keyword Searches (truncation, parentheses, etc)

Please feel free to contact me with any questions:

Stephanie Lichtenauer

stephanie.lichtenauer@colorado.edu

(303) 492-0682

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK - http://www.fco.gov.uk/

The British equivalent to the U.S. Department of State that provides information on UK relations with other country. Includes a section of profiles by country (including Sudan).

 

Guide to United Kingdom Government Sources - http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/govpubs/for/british.htm

Produced by the Government Publications Library at CU, a thorough collection of internet resources about the British government.

 

World Bank - http://www.worldbank.org/

Includes country profiles that detail the relationship that the World Bank and its partners have with each country. Also includes other vital data, statistics and news on each country.

 

CIA World Factbook - http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

Contains country reports produced by the CIA that include information on the economy, people, geography, communications, transportation, military and transnational issues.

 

 

Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Includes information on the history of the newspaper, the newspaper's values, the editorial code and the code of conduct for the paper's reporters.

 

Guardian Media Group - http://www.gmgplc.co.uk/

Includes information on the ownership of the newspaper, including the Board of Directors and Current Trustees, and the management of the Guardian Foundation.

 

Hoover's Online

A database that contains financial information about companies all over the globe, including the Guardian Media Group. Includes yearly financial data and information on the key people in the organization.

 

 

 

Search Tips

When looking for research on these topics, you need to brainstorm the terms that would be used to describe this type of research. Some example keywords:

 

Location:         Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo

General:          genocide, civil war, disaster, humanitarian, relief

Newspaper:   Guardian, UK, British, English

Media:             newspaper, media

Research:      content analysis, frame analysis

 

Many of the databases you'll be searching will also use descriptors or specific words or phrases that they've assigned to a particular topic (much like subject headings in a library catalog). Using these descriptors can help you find other similar articles.

Searching for Articles

Communication Studies Article Databases

 

ComAbstracts

The major index in Communications; no descriptors or full text

 

Communication Studies: A SAGE Full-Text Collections

A small full-text collection of communications journals

 

Communication Abstracts

Includes descriptions of published communication research

 

Political Science Article Databases

 

PAIS International

Index of publications of international bodies, US and other governments on global policy and social issues.

 

International Political Science Abstracts

Index of political science articles from around the world

 

General Article Resources

 

Academic Search Premier

Index of nearly 4,000 academic journals, with full text available for many

 

Google Scholar

Uses Google search technology to search a wide variety of sources for academic material

Searching for Books

To look for books that the CU Libraries have, you want to search Chinook, the library catalog. You'll want to do keyword searches similar to the keyword searches you were using to look for articles.

 

Instead of using descriptors in article databases, you can use the subject headings provided in Chinook to try and find other articles on a particular day. Some of the applicable subject headings I found are below - these are not ALL of the subject headings that might be relevant, just a selected list. You can search by subject in Chinook for these headings.

 

Related to specific events:

• Kosovo Serbia – History – Civil War –1998 1999 – Press Coverage
• Yugoslav War, 1991 – 1995 – Press Coverage – Serbia
• Genocide – Rwanda – Press Coverage
• Rwanda – History – Civil War, 1994 – Press Coverage

General:

• Mass Media and War
• War in Mass Media
• Disasters – Press Coverage
• War – Press Coverage
• Violence – Press Coverage

Another tip for finding research through books is to consult the bibliography of books that are related to your topic - sometimes called "citation-chasing." The author of these books has gone to a lot of work to compile the resources they used to write the book - you can use the bibliography or list of works cited to find similar or related research.

To find international newspapers, you can either look the newspaper title up in the E-Journal Finder, or go directly to one of the databases listed below. Since Factiva is a new database, many of the newspapers contained in the database aren't listed yet in the E-Journal finder, so it is wise to check both places.

 

E-Journal Finder - http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/research/ejournalfinder.htm

Search the E-Journal Finder by newspaper title to locate databases that provide a specific newspaper's content.

 

Factiva

Factiva provides global content, including Dow Jones and Reuters newswires.  Factiva offers multiple language interfaces and multilingual content covering nearly 9,000 sources from 152 countries in 22 languages, including more than 120 continuously updated newswires.  More than 900 of these sources are available on or before the date of publication.

 

Lexis-Nexis Academic
Interdisciplinary database that contains the full text of national, international, and regional news, newswires, transcripts, magazine articles, legal and business information, public opinion polls, and other sources.

 

ProQuest Newspapers
Full text of 300+ U.S. and international news sources. Includes coverage of 150+ major U.S. and international newspapers such as The New York Times and the Times of London, plus hundreds of other news sources and news wires.

 

The easiest method of accessing library databases from off campus is through the use of the VPN (Virtual Private Network). Current CU-Boulder students, staff, and faculty need to install the VPN software on their computer and login to the VPN using their IdentiKey account.

 

Complete instructions on downloading and using the VPN software can be found at the ITS VPN Information Page: http://www.colorado.edu/its/vpn/ . For questions (and answers) about using the VPN, please call the ITS Help Desk at (303) 735-HELP.

 

 

Constructing Keyword Searches

Here are some of the general tricks you can use while construction keyword searches. Not every trick works in every database - if you have questions, you can check the database's help menu or send me an email.