Anderson Notes, Media Research Methods, Ch. 1
Communication domains include mass communication (study of
messages sent to mass audiences through media technologies), media studies
(media literacy), and mediated communication (all forms of communication that
use some kind of mediation; anything but face-to-face).
Methodologies are standardized ways of producing knowledge.
Empirical methods are concerned with experience and materiality, though not
necessarily quantitative knowledge. Metric studies are quantitative, applying a
logical framework to studied variables. Hermeneutics forms an alternative to
metric study, systematizing interpretation for qualitative inquiry. Critical
methods are used for revealing frameworks and systems of power and control.
These areas of scholarship overlap in certain places, creating epistemologies.
Metric empiricism describes material reality through measurement, with the
assumption that reality is stable and objective. Interpretive empiricism is
also concerned with material reality, but it is accessed through lenses of
interpretation that reject objective reality. Critical-empirical scholars are
interested in applying critical/cultural insight, but reject the singular
truths or narrative put forth by earlier critical scholars, instead choosing to
employ grounded theory with a critical agenda. 
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