"This handbook interrogates the foundations of media literacy and media education research from a methodological standpoint. It provides a detailed, illustrated overview of key methods used in the study of media literacy and media education. Further, it reveals the diversity of this research field a ... nd organizes this diversity by using three categories of investigation: media practices, educational initiatives, and prescriptive discourses. The book offers valuable reference points and tools for exploring the range of research methods used to study media literacy and media education and how these methods connect to epistemological stances, theoretical frameworks, and research questions. It serves as a guide for researchers who wish to position themselves, reflect on the methods they use or are considering using, and compare and contrast them against alternative or complementary approaches." (Publisher description) more

"In many ways, this book is a simple and straightforward product of social science research. A conceptual expectation was created through the integration and extension of existing theory and research findings. The responsiveness argument presented in chapter 2 lead to the expectation that aid bureau ... cracies will try to roughly match the levels of aid they offer with their perception of the domestic political importance of the recipient. It was argued that the news media provide a simple, clear and easily accessible indicator of that importance and, as a result, it was expected that aid bureaucracies will respond to the content of the news media by matching development aid allocations with levels of coverage. From that conceptual foundation, a comparative battery of tests were conducted to evaluate the empirical implications of that expectation, and to address at least a few of the obvious potential objections or critiques. In analysis after analysis, the predicted relationship was found: aid levels and media coverage are clearly correlated." (Page 137) more