2018 Research Symposium - The Golden Age of Data: Big Data and Media Analytics
The Research Symposium will take place in Las Vegas during BEA2018 on Sunday, April 8
Research Symposium Chair: Don A. Grady, Associate Professor, Elon University |
Big data and analytics now make it possible for media researchers and professionals to quantify media content and audience usage. Today, legacy and new media producers have replaced intuition with new ways of understanding audiences through data analytics that inform the creation, distribution, and marketing of media content. Audience usage data are streamed instantaneously from computers and mobile devices, and by traditional media, such as broadcast radio and television, that infuse and enhance their distribution with online platforms. New computational procedures allow content producers the opportunity to analyze large amounts of data, consider nuanced patterns of audience consumption, link datasets to generate actionable insights, and visualize data in ways that guide decision making.
Understanding audiences is integral to creating and distributing media messages. The study of media analytics requires conceptual knowledge of the role of a broad range of media, skills in research methods and report writing, understanding of the tools (hardware and software) of technologies that make analytics possible, familiarity with descriptive and predictive statistical procedures, a strategic mindset to provide insights and apply findings, and a responsive ability to make media content more accessible to users. Analytics also enable communications researchers to ask meaningful questions and to develop and test hypotheses that drive the evolution of communication theories.
Media analytics resides within the broader interdisciplinary field of data science, which considers the explosion of data in all its forms in disciplines such as computer science, mathematics, statistics, business and political science. This symposium will consider a narrower range of topics that specifically impact media professions and academic programs. Some academic programs have addressed these topics by integrating analytics in existing courses, introducing new courses, or by expanding curricular offerings to include new majors, minors or concentrations that specifically address media analytics.
Faculty, graduate and undergraduate students are invited to submit research studies, theoretical and thoughtful descriptive works (20-page limit) relevant to one of the topics below. If you would like to discuss your ideas for submission, please get in touch with the appropriate session leaders listed below.
Curriculum and Instruction: Teaching Legacy and Social Media Analytics
Chair: Ann Hollifield, Professor, University of Georgia |
This session will focus on teaching traditional media measurement and social media analytics. Submissions are encouraged that focus on the development of courses (knowledge and skills), introduction of core analytics concepts, the selection and use of various media platforms, analytic tools, dashboards and, statistical packages, consideration of the value and selection of metrics and performance indicators that address audience engagement, and the use of metrics to guide content and storytelling.
Analysis and Interpretation: Researching Content and Audiences using Media Analytics
Chair: Jessica Pucci, Ethics & Excellence Professor of Practice, Arizona State University |
This session will focus on the use of media analytics to answer meaningful questions, to help drive content creation, and to engage with audiences. Other relevant topics include: sources and characteristics of data, methods of collecting, storing and managing data, interpreting results, gauging the success of news, information, entertainment and persuasive messages, and considering access, privacy and ethical responsibilities, such as hacking and fake news.
Reporting and Using Results: Presenting and Visualizing Media Analytics Data
Chair: Dianne Finch, Salem State University |
This session will focus on methods for reporting, strategies for demonstrating relationships between words and data, and using results to drive decision making. Visualization is an increasingly important tool in analytics to help summarize large quantities of data, represent trends, and track the influence of individuals in social networks. Topics include applying results to gauge the impact of messages, developing strategies for competitive media environments, and writing and presenting media analytics in visual form.
Student Poster Competition: Various Media Analytics Topics (graduate and undergraduate)
Chair: Amanda Sturgill, Associate Professor, Elon University |
Graduate and undergraduate students may submit papers for consideration directly to the student poster competition. In addition, student papers not accepted for presentation in one of the topic areas above will also be considered in the poster competition, which will provide a certificate of participation and a prize for the top poster for submitted manuscripts. Topics for the poster session may include any topic pertinent to understanding, monitoring, reporting, visualizing and interpreting data, and engaging audiences using tradition empirical media analysis, including qualitative and quantitative approaches and social media analytics.
The 2018 BEA Research Symposium will sponsor:
– Paper Competitions (for faculty and graduate students)
– Student Poster Competition (graduate and undergraduate categories)
Note: The Student Paper Competition offers monetary awards for 1st ($300), 2nd ($200) & 3rd ($100) place and are also eligible for publication in an edited volume with Routledge.
Paper Submission Process
BEA Members can upload papers to the BEA2018 All Academic site with their BEA membership login and password. If you know you BEA login information login to your All Academic account. If you forgot your BEA membership password, please click here to reset. If you ARE NOT a member, please click here to create an account.
Once you login with your BEA membership login and password, follow the steps below:
1. Submit a paper… Click on the link for “Submit or Edit a Paper or Program Proposal.”
2. Select 2018 Research Symposium – The Golden Age of Data: Big Data and Media Analytics
3. Submit the title & abstract… Follow the guidelines to add a title and abstract
4. Adding co-authors… At the prompt, add any co-authors to the paper. Note: If your co-author(s) aren’t BEA members, have them create All Academic accounts first so you can easily search and link them to the paper.
5. Review & Upload… Review your information and upload your paper.
Editing Abilities… You can edit and/or re-submit papers up until the deadline at 3:00 a.m. ET on December 2nd. Length & Style… The paper is not to exceed 20 pages, including references & tables, and use of APA style or a style suited to the discipline is expected.
The BEA2018 paper competition is BLINDLY REVIEWED Do NOT include a cover page with author and contact information and remove ALL author information from internal pages. Judges need to blindly review your papers. Your paper information will be directly linked to your profile.
Research Submission Information
- Please indicate the author(s) status: (faculty, graduate student, undergraduate student)
- Please designate one of the three topic areas for faculty and graduate student or the graduate and undergraduate Student Poster Competition. Student papers that are not accepted for one of the three topic categories will automatically be considered for the Student Poster Competition.
- You may submit different papers for each of the topic categories above. However, conference organizers reserve the right to select papers to ensure greater representation in published proceedings.
- Papers must be written using APA Style.
- Papers accepted and presented in the three topic area are also eligible for publication in the BEA Routledge book series, contingent on standard revision procedures.
About the BEA Symposium Scholars
Symposium Chair: Don A. Grady, Ph.D., is an associate dean and associate professor in the School of Communications at Elon University. He has numerous years of administrative leadership, teaching and professional experience in broadcast journalism, radio and television. He regularly teaches a senior capstone research course, oversees the publication of an online undergraduate research journal, and helped to guide the development of an undergraduate major in media analytics. He has given numerous workshops, presentations, and regularly published articles on the assessment of student learning. Grady is a twice elected representative on the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
Dianne Finch is currently at Salem State University and has taught data mining and visualization to graduate students at Elon University, and incorporated the topic into various journalism courses at Kent State University where she focused on environmental data. Finch is currently developing an interactive data visualization site to accompany her book, “Big Data in Small Slices,” slated for publication later in 2017. Her journalism career started at the AP as a news data editor following a career in IT and computer programming. Finch, who holds a master’s in journalism from Columbia University, covered science, health and finance for Bloomberg News, public radio and other outlets.
Ann Hollifield is the Thomas C. Dowden Professor of Media Research in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. She is cofounder and director of UGA’s Graduate Certificate Program in Media Analytics, which was launched in 2006 and now has alumni working for major media organizations and audience measurement companies around the world. Her research and teaching focus on media economics and management, with emphasis on how competition and other market and organizational structures affect media viability. She has been a consultant to DW Akademie, Germany’s largest media development NGO, and UNESCO on the development of globally applicable measures of media viability. Current projects include research on emerging issues and techniques in media analytics.
Jessica Pucci is a professor of practice at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, specializing in data analytics and audience engagement. She leads social media and analytics for Cronkite News, the news division of Arizona PBS, teaches courses in analytics and engagement, and leads the schools Digital Audiences curriculum. Previously, Pucci directed content strategy, brand journalism, social media and engagement for large national home-design and retail clients such as Bed Bath & Beyond; earlier, she spent a decade in consumer magazines, serving most recently as managing editor for DRAFT Magazine, where she directed editorial content, social media and audience growth. Pucci holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, where her research focused on journalism ethics. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin.
Amanda Sturgill is an associate professor of communications at Elon University where she teaches classes in journalism and media analytics. A Ph.D. graduate of Cornell University, her research interests include how news disseminates from traditional news outlets via social media, digital divides and media and religion.
About the BEA Research Symposium
