Communication theory summary & understanding:
Summary should be ONE (1) Page, no exceptions and will be penalized if over requirements.
Weekly summaries are to be written using APA style. In the opening paragraph, students are to introduce the readings in full citing the author’s name and year of publication. For instance, if you are summarizing from the course text, your introductory sentence may read; In this week’s reading, authors Baron and Davis (2015) discuss a number of theories relating to mass communications. Or: The study of mass communication was born of theories from the social sciences and humanities, (Baran & Davis, 2015).
No list of references should appear at the end of your text, simply use in-text citations for weekly readings. To avoid redundancy, you may summarize the main points of the chapter and add in-text citations at the beginning or end of the summary. You should use page numbers accordingly when discussing the same text; Also the authors point out that when companies employ technology as a medium to communicate with a large audience, they are engaging in mass communication, (p. 5).
Students should also add a concluding paragraph that summarizes and connects current or contrasting themes in each reading. This paragraph should be written at the end of the summary.
As a general rule students should write the summary as if the reader has no prior knowledge of the text and should explain and discuss the most salient points of the readings as they relate to the week’s topic and the overall theme of the course; the importance of mass communication theory is important for both scholarly research and the communications and media industry.
Students may adeptly interject their opinion into the readings, i.e., the writer fails to bridge the gap between the importance of media theory and practice.
As a guide answer the following questions:
1. Name the reading and author
2. What are the basic themes?
3. What is/are the primary theory/ies of this research?
4. What research method is used for this study/article?
5. What are the major findings and conclusions of this study/article?
6. Does the text resonate with you in some way? Why or why not?
7. Does the text support or fail to support the major themes discussed in the class, specifically this week’s topic? Explain your answer.