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