Question: What value lies in a reference work? Why should you bother to consult these books?
Answer: Reference books help create a framework around your topic. They can help guide you in asking the right questions. Reference books can help researchers become more efficient database searchers - in formulating which keywords (or search terms) to use. Scholarly reference books also contain bibliographies (!!) - a listing of some of the most respected secondary and most useful primary sources on a topic. In a nutshell.... reference books are a great way to begin your research.
Use the following terms in a subject search to find related items in the library catalogue.
Subject headings to explore:
• Journalism--Style manuals.
• Canadian newspapers--Circulation--Statistics.
• Journalism--Computer network resources.
• Reporters and reporting--Computer network resources.
Here are some awesome books to get you started on your research topic. Please note: E-Books are restricted to current TRU students, staff and faculty
Reference Books:
Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies by 
Encyclopedia of Media and Communications Research by 
Encyclopedia of Media and Communication by 
Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media by 
The Canadian Writer's Market, 19th Edition by 
Freedom of the press : a global survey of media independence by The Canadian Press stylebook : a guide for writing and editing by 
The Copyeditor's Handbook by 
Encyclopedia of American Journalism by Here are some awesome books to get you started on your research topic. Please note: E-Books are restricted to current TRU students, staff and faculty
Techniques and Issues:
What Do We Know and What Should We Do about Fake News? by Canadian daily newspaper circulation factbook by 
Journalism Across Cultures by Article databases contain information about articles, and often include the full-text of the articles as well.
While searching our discovery service will find articles for you, databases allow you do more controlled and precise searching.
Some really great resources to consult are:
Fake News is a type of hoax or deliberate spread of misinformation with the intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically. Fake News is related to propaganda whose purpose is to spread information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
Fake news is not a new phenomenon. But what makes it important now? It is primarily because fake news is easy to create, spreads rapidly and is easily consumed in our 24/7 news cycle. And it isn't as obvious what is fake news anymore, not like the examples below.
In the most general form, fake news has three characteristics:
A news story is not fake simply because it is impolite or inconvenient. A news story that challenges your beliefs or values isn't fake news. A news story that is rejected by those in power does not make that story a fake news story either. Case in point, Richard Nixon denied his involvement in Watergate at first too.
No media outlet, even an established one, is completely bias free. All media selects which story is newsworthy. It is important to recognize that our news outlets will have a readership and stories are written for a particular reader. Bias differs from fake news in that fake news is specifically untrue. Biased sources don't necessarily use lies, they just don't include the whole picture, only using the facts that support their viewpoint. By using only the facts that support their cause they are giving an incomplete and therefore inaccurate picture.
When determining bias look at:
Source:
Davis, J. (1990). Beyond the myth of objectivity. Media&Values, (50) Retrieved from http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/news-beyond-myth-objectivity
Review the web address or URL. If you see an address that is unfamiliar, do a little digging.
There are websites that spoof legitimate news sites - mimic the site's layout, logo and even have a web address that is similar enough to the legitimate website. Be wary of fake news sites sometimes have domains that are very close to real news sites.
Abcnews.go.com -- the real ABC news website
Abcnews.com.co -- the fake ABC news website
If words like “.wordpress” or “blogger” are in the domain that usually signifies it’s a personal blog rather than a news source.
In other social media platforms you may have to scrutinize the username as well. In late 2016, there was an announcement from what appeared to be a BBC twitter account declaring that Queen Elizabeth II had died. It was shared thousands of times before people started to notice that the username was a variation on the real BBC twitter username. The real BBC twitter username is: @BBCNews and this account was tweeting from @BBCNewsUKI A close enough match that it fooled thousands of people.
Look for an "About Us" page and read it.
Be wary of websites that don't tell you about the website.
There are websites that have, at first glance, innocuous content. For example, this Martin Luther King website which lists historical writings and "the truth" about King. But look closer.. at the bottom of the page there is a link that states that this website is hosted by Stormfront.
When you click on the link, you are sent to a neo-Nazi website.
Does the website have a lot of ads? Flashing banners? Pop up ads?
A great deal of money is made by websites through advertising. When you visit a website with lots of ads, you have to ask yourself, what is the purpose of the website? To transmit news? Or to generate income through advertising?
Established news webpages will have some advertising. It really comes down to the proportion of advertising versus news stories.
The example below is fake news for a number of reasons, but look at the prominence and the amount of advertising on this site.
Look for elements that you would expect from an established news source. Such elements are:
Photos play a large part in evoking an emotion when reading a story. Photos can play into our implicit and confirmation biases. It is easy to save photos off the internet and use them in non-related fake news stories.
Photos can also be photoshopped. We've all seen incredible photos online. When you see something fantastic or unbelieveable, consult your factchecking sites to see if the image has already been debunked.
You can use google image search to help determine the original source of the image. This is especially useful when you see photos that are too good to be true or seem suspect. On the right you see the original photo of President Obama. On the left, you see the photo has been switched and someone photoshopped a picture of a cigarette in his mouth. The doctored photo was shared widely in an attempt to paint President Obama as a liar who had publicly stated that he quit smoking.
To create a website, not on a blogging platform such as blogger, you have to register your website. You can run the URL of a webpage through who.is or whois.icann.org to see when and who set up the website.
If a website was just recently established, that can be a red flag.
If the website is registered in another country, but posts predominately on stories outside of that country, that can be a red flag.
If the website is registered to an individual, but the website seems to be representing a corporation, that can be a red flag.
People or bots who make fake news create headlines that spark a strong emotional response. Headlines in all CAPS or headlines that are sensational are likely to get shared more frequently. Most fake news stories are shared based on the headline alone and the stories aren't necessarily read. Go past the headline and critically read the story.
For example, this fake news story has an incredibly sensational headline. However, when you read the story you discover that the authors make claims without any supportive documentation, use sensational language throughout the story, don't share their methodology for data collection, editorialize and make suggestive comments within the story. And the same story, word for word, is shared among many other fake news sites.
Before sharing that scintillating quote, copy and paste it into a search engine to verify if it is real or not.
There are non-partisan fact checking organizations that verify information. These are great places to see if that story or image is real or not.
Most fact checking organizations focus on political issues. Snopes is a great place for verifying other types of fake news content.
Be savvy information consumers. Stop sharing content that you don't know is true.
Sources:
Anderson, J., & Rainie, L. (2017). The future of the internet and misinformation online. Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center. http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2017/10/19095643/PI_2017.10.19_Future-of-Truth-and-Misinformation_FINAL.pdf
On The Media. (2013). The breaking news consumer's handbook. Retrieved from https://www.wnyc.org/story/breaking-news-consumers-handbook-pdf/
Karlsson, E. (2017). How to defeat technological filter bubbles that skew your world. Retrieved from https://debunkingdenialism.com/2017/01/11/how-to-defeat-technological-filter-bubbles-that-skew-your-world/
Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2004). The thinker’s guide for conscientious citizens on how to detect media bias & propaganda. Retrieved from: http://kurtlancaster.com/socfilm/week11/MediaBias2006-DC.pdf
Fake News is easy to fall for, for a number of reasons:
We all have biases. However, it is up to us to recognize those biases and keep them in check.
Implicit bias: implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. Implicit bias is grounded in a basic human tendency to divide the social world into groups. We are inclined to trust people we consider a member of our own group more than those of a different group. Social media (facebook, twitter and the like) tend cultivate an information bubble - friends and family that share the same values and points of view.
Confirmation bias: is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. We don’t perceive circumstances objectively. We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our preconceived notion of how things are supposed to be.
Sources:
Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K., & Cook, J. (2017). Beyond misinformation: Understanding and coping with the “post-truth” era. Journal of applied research in memory and cognition, doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.07.008
Tarran, B. (2017). Why facts are not enough in the fight against fake news. Significance, 14(5), 6-7. doi:10.1111/j.1740-9713.2017.01066.x
Sometimes the information you need to answer a research question will not be found in academic articles or books. Maybe you need to know the government regulations on a topic, or what a community's resources for housing are.
Grey literature is information that is not published through traditional means (in books, articles, etc.). It often comes from organizations that do not usually publish information and may be more current than commercially published material.
Common examples of grey literature include:
Some of these material types you can find through library searching, but for others you will need to turn to the web.
Lots of grey literature is available online. Did you know there are easy ways to filter what you find from Google searching? Go to Google’s little-known Advanced Search page to find many filters:
Some of the most useful tools are:
Tip: Researching about another country?
While organizations may not publish their information commercially, much of this information is still available online. This might include reports, fact sheets, pamphlets, newsletters, and other information they make public on their website.
There are two key ways you can find this information:
The "Websites" tab on most subject guides will have several places you can get started with finding organizations and other material on the web.
Below are some examples of organizational grey literature:
Government documents can include Acts and other legislation, policies, and information for the public such as available services, benefit information, and regulations.
Most of this information can be found on either the government of Canada website, or on the websites of the provinces governments.
If you are looking for information about a particular act, make sure you know what it is called in full and search for this full title of the act in Google. This is a quick and easy way to start finding information about an act.
The resources below and in the 'Websites" tab on most subject guides will help you get started with finding government information.
Examples of government documents:
Discover and many databases have limiters for theses and dissertations. Look for these limiters (often checkboxes) on the sidebar of your search results.
You can also find theses written by previous graduate students from TRU:
Visit this guide to learn more about finding dissertations and theses:
Conference proceedings often consist of the most up to date research in a field, since researchers may report on their findings at a conference before an academic paper is published.
Discover and many databases have a limiter for conference materials. Look for these limiters (often checkboxes) on the sidebar of your search results.
In Web of Science, underneath the search bar in the menu "More Settings," choose "Conference Proceedings Citation Index- Social Science & Humanities (CPCI-SSH) --1990-present" to find conference materials.
You can also search the internet for conferences to find presentations.
Because grey literature is (usually) not peer-reviewed, it is extra important to carefully evaluate the reliability of these sources. Some questions to consider include:
Pay careful attention to what type of material you are looking at, as this will determine what guidelines to follow.
Once you know what type of source you have, refer to your citation style guide to find out how to cite it.
If your resource type is not on the TRU citation guide, ask us!
Tip: if you cannot find out how to cite a particular source, try Googling "[citation style] cite [resource type]". For instance, I might search "APA cite conference proceeding" if I could not find out how to cite this from the TRU guides. With commonly used citation styles, often someone authoritative has provided and answer to your citation question.
Always Get the Name of the Dog by 
COVID-19 in International Media : Global Pandemic Perspectives by 
A Dictionary of Journalism by Dictionary of Media and Communication Studies by 
Dislike-Minded : Media, Audiences, and the Dynamics of Taste by 
Historical Dictionary of Journalism by 
An Illustrated Guide to Mass Media Research by 
Investigative Journalism, Democracy and the Digital Age by 
Journalism education for the digital age by 
Journalism in the Age of Virtual Reality by 
Local Democracy Public Relations and Journalism by 
MeToo : The Impact of Rape Culture in the Media by 
The New Fiction Technologies by 
The Online Journalism Handbook by 
Photocommunication Across Media by 
Psychological Insights for Understanding COVID-19 and Media and Technology by 
The Social Media Journalist Handbook by 
Theory Development and Strategy in Transmedia Storytelling by 
Translating cultures : an introduction for translators, interpreters and mediators by 
Understanding Communication Research Methods by What Do We Know and What Should We Do about Fake News? by 
The Work and Workings of Human Communication by 
Writing Intersectional Identities by 
The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity by 
