The Golden Age of Data

Don A. Grady, Ph.D., is an Associate Dean and Associate Professor in the School of Communications at Elon University. He served as chair of the BEA Research Symposium ("The Golden Age of Data: Big Data and Media Analytics") in April 2018, and panel chair for the BEA Media Analytics Roundtable ("Media Analytics: Tracking Audiences in an Evolving Media Landscape") in April 2016. 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 and presentations, and regularly published articles on the assessment of student learning. Grady is a former twice elected representative on the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. He has a M.A. in Communication and the Ph.D. in Mass Communication Research from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Preface

Acknowledgements

Series Editor's Foreword

Part I Media Analytics: Study and Practice

1. Media Analytics and Audiences

Don A. Grady

2. The New Age of Media Analytics

Lee Rainie

Part II Curriculum and Instruction: Teaching Legacy and Social Media Analytics

3. The Pioneers of Media Analytics in Higher Education

C. Ann Hollifield

4. Cultivating Analytics Proficiency in Communication Undergraduates: A Sequence of Social Media Active Learning Experiences in an Applied Research Class

Jennifer Robinette

5. Equipping the Media Analytics Toolbox: A Study of the Skills Required for Entry and Mid-Level Media Analytics Jobs

Kathleen Stansberry and Madison MacKenzie

6. Integrating Digital Analytics across the Journalism and Mass Communication Curricula: Metrics, Tools, and Service Learning

Miao Guo

7. The Data Backstory: Thoughts on Data Visualization Teaching Content

Dianne Finch

Part III Applied Data-driven Decision Making in the Real World of Local Media

8. Research Data in the Real World of Local Media

Don A. Grady; Panelists: Dan McDonald, Billy McDowell, and Ed Cohen

9. Media Research in Transition: Applying Micro-Level Audience Data to Macro-Level Decision-Making

Kathleen Stansberry; Panelists: Jack MacKenzie, Patricia Marsden, Jamal Salmon, and Vincent Bruzzese

Part IV Analysis and Interpretation: Researching Content and Audiences using Media Analytics

10. Prevalence of Media Analytics Content in Accredited Colleges and Universities

Jane O’Boyle and Amanda Sturgill

11. Measurement Uncertainty in the Pursuit of Audience Engagement

Jacob L. Nelson

12. Engagement Metrics that Matter

Dale Blasingame

13. Winning over Fans: How Sports Teams Use Live-Tweeting to Maximize Engagement

Bryan Anderson and Qian Xu

14. A Gentle Introduction to R for Numerical Analysis and Visualization

Byung Lee

Part V Media Analytics: Undergraduate Research

15. Learning about Audiences In-depth: Complementing Analytics with other Research

Amanda Sturgill

16. Using Analytics to Assess the AltGov vs. Official Government on Twitter

Andrew J. Scott

17. Comparing Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes Online Communities: A Natural Language Processing Study

Rachyl E Jackson

18. #ThisIsWe: A Content Analysis of Live Tweets of This is Us

Madeline Hagy, Ansley Hamilton, and Caroline Miller

Contributors

Index