Course Overview

The aim of this course is to learn about research methods related to the fields of social informatics and new media research. Emphasis will be on empirical methods and research design, establishing hypotheses and analysis. In this class, students will need to download material from databases and submit summaries online, and have discussions and presentations. As this course will be conducted in English, students must be able to perform all discussions and assignments in English. Students should also have a basic understanding of introductory statistics and have prior experience in using statistical software. This class deals with different topics from those of 'Informatics and Society 1'.

Learning Achievement

You will independently learn about the basics of empirical media communication research and learn how to create a research plan/proposal at the graduate level.

Competence

Course prerequisites

Interest in conducting research related to social scientific media research. Basic PC skills and adeptness, PC environment and knowledge of using open source software, spreadsheet or csv data wrangling skills and basic knowledge of statistics. Will verify this during the first meeting. As this course will be taught in English ONLY, you will be expected to perform in English without any problems.

Grading Philosophy

Final report 50%, weekly reports 50%.

Course schedule

Course type

Class Exercises

Online Course Requirement

Instructor

Kaigo Muneo

Other information

Knowledge of empirical research methods will be useful. Be prepared by reading multiple empirical studies PRIOR to taking this course.

Site for Inquiry

Link to the syllabus provided by the university