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Media Arts and Cultures Guide

Find Articles

Below are select sources for locating academic and popular periodical literature related to multimedia, media studies, and a few intersecting disciplines. Don't limit yourself to this list, though, if a cross-disciplinary topic demands some other approach. Try locating other databases through the "Find Articles" tabs of other subject guides at:

http://www.lib.unb.ca/guides/.

Sample search strategy for EBSCO databases: MAAC1021.pdf

Key Resources

  • Communication & Mass Media Complete (CMMC - EBSCO)
    "CMMC incorporates the content of CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association), and Mass media articles index (formerly produced by Pennsylvania State University) along with numerous other journals..."--About the database.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • Academic Search Premier (EBSCO)
    Academic Search Premier is a multidisciplinary resource that "provides journal coverage for most academic areas of studies."
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • Google Scholar
    Google Scholar searches a subset of the Web that Google has classified as "scholarly literature". They do not publish a list of chosen sites, and they do not state how often sites are checked. Some important sources are not covered at all. Thus, Google Scholar alone should not be relied on for comprehensive research.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.

Additional Resources

  • Films on Demand
    UNB Libraries subscribes to the Master Academic Collection, along with access to FMG Archival Films & Newsreels Collection and the Entertainment Collection. Includes 42,000+ full-length videos and over 323,000 video segments licensed for use in Canada, covering a broad range of subjects including business, social sciences, education, health and medicine, humanities, sciences, and guidance, and including archival films and newsreels. UNB subscribed Collections The Master Academic Collection (over 35,000 titles) The FM Archival Films & Newsreels (5,000+ titles) Entertainment Collection (500+ titles)
    Subscribed multi-user unlimited access per title
  • Kanopy (moderated access)

    On June 1, 2019, UNB Libraries’ transitioned to a mediated access model for Kanopy online streaming, shifting from automatic purchase of titles (receiving four plays or more) to mediated purchases requiring a prior patron request.

    Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video service for educational institutions that provides access to more than 26,000 films each year. Kanopy works directly with filmmakers and film distribution companies to offer award-winning collections including titles from PBS, BBC, Criterion Collection, Media Education Foundation and more.


    Unlimited simultaneous users per leased title.
  • NFB Campus (National Film Board of Canada)
    NFB Campus offers access to over 3,500 Canadian film productions, including 500 new titles added just for classroom use.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • Canadian Business and Current Affairs (CBCA) Complete (ProQuest)
    Canadian Business and Current Affairs (CBCA) Complete is the nation's largest and most comprehensive bibliographic full-text reference and current events database. Available through the ProQuest Web interface, CBCA Complete combines full text and indexed content from all four CBCA database subsets (Business, Current Events, Education, and Reference). Subject coverage is comprehensive and information is available from the broadest range of Canadian sources anywhere.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • Modern Language Association (MLA) International Bibliography & Directory of Periodicals (EBSCO)
    MLA International Bibliography is a subject index for books, articles and websites published on modern languages, literature, folklore, film, literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing. Listings on rhetoric and composition and the history, theory and practice of teaching language and literature are also included. Dating back to 1925, the database contains more than 2.7 million citations, over 6,000 journals and series, 1,200 book publishers and over 372,000 subject names and terms and adds over 66,000 records annually (May 2018).

    Coverage is international and includes titles and full-text links from online publishers including JSTOR, Project MUSE, Wiley-Blackwell and Taylor & Francis.

    The MLA Directory of Periodicals contains all information available on the journals and series on the bibliography's Master List of Periodicals.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • JSTOR Archival Collection
    JSTOR provides access to back issues of a variety of scholarly journals. UNB Libraries currently subscribes to the Arts & Sciences (I through X) collections, along with the Life Sciences and Ireland collections.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • Project Muse
    "Project MUSE covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, and many others." UNB subscribes to almost 400 eJournals, and provides access to select Open Access eBooks.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • Dissertations & Theses (ProQuest PQDT)
    ProQuest Dissertations and Theses "is the single, authoritative source for information about doctoral dissertations and master's theses. The database represents the work of authors from over 1,000 graduate schools and universities."

    All PhD dissertations and Master's theses from depositing universities are available from 1997 onwards, unless the document's author has requested a temporary delay.

    It is also possible to search within an interface exclusive to Dissertations & Theses @ University of New Brunswick.

    For UNB theses submitted after 2012, please consult UNB’s institutional repository, UNB Scholar, or the library catalogue, UNBWorldCat.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.

  • Canadian Periodicals Index Quarterly (CPI.Q)
    Indexes over 400 Canadian periodicals (English and French) with full-text and reports from 165 periodicals.
    Limited to single-user access.
  • Business Source Ultimate (EBSCO)
    Business Source Ultimate provides full text for more than 7,200 scholarly business journals and other sources. Coverage includes virtually all subject areas related to business. BSU provides full text (PDF) for more than 350 of the top scholarly journals dating as far back as 1922.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • PsycINFO (American Psychological Association - EBSCO)
    PsycINFO is an abstracting and indexing database of more than 2000 journals (approximately 3.3 million records) devoted to peer-reviewed literature (journals, books and dissertations) in the behavioural sciences and mental health.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • ARTstor
    Artstor is a repository of approximately 300 collections composed of over 2.5 million digital images (and growing), related data and provides tools to actively use those images in a restricted usage environment that balances the rights of the content providers and the needs of the users. The images are drawn from different sources, such as museums, archaeological teams, photo archives, slide collections, and art reference publishers.

    Scholars can examine wide-ranging material such as Native American art from the Smithsonian, treasures from the Louvre, and panoramic, 360-degree views of the Hagia Sophia in a single, easy-to-use resource. The artistic traditions across many cultures embraces architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design as well as many other forms of visual culture.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.

  • Science Direct
    Science Direct offers comprehensive coverage of literature across all fields of science, medicine and technology. All previous ScienceDirect journal collections have been merged into this single collection, along with select purchased eBook titles.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.

Potentially useful eJournals:

Document Delivery

For resources not available through UNB Libraries.

http://www.lib.unb.ca/requests/docdel/

Find Books

Search WorldCat to find books and articles at UNB and beyond.

Search UNB WorldCat:
Limit to: 
Advanced Search | Locations Guide | Help

 

Are you looking for a scholarly edited book on a particular topic?  Try adding edited, editor, or anthology as a keyword to your search and scan tables of contents of promising results.  This is not a foolproof strategy but it can help.  Below illustrates how to limit search results to books and how to sort them after an initial search for social media editor

Searching for an edited volume

This is another example (live) search of UNB WorldCat, this time for -->> "media literacy" attention editor (note quotes force a phrase search).

Here is a short video on how to locate, access, and view eBooks in the UNB Libraries collection; includes downloading and installing the Adobe Digital Editions eBook reader:
https://youtu.be/DpjH4ZkDh98

Peer Review

What is peer review?

Peer-reviewed or refereed journals invite subject experts (often belonging to the editorial board) to review and evaluate submitted articles before accepting them for publication. A journal may be a scholarly journal but not a peer-reviewed journal, and a peer-reviewed journal may contain non peer-reviewed features such as guest editorials and book reviews.

Books can be effectively peer reviewed or at least scholarly when an editor or editors who are academics invite other academics to submit chapters to a planned anthology on some overarching theme.  Whether peer-reviewed in the strict sense, these chapters are subject to rigorous editorial review.

The peer review process

An editorial board asks subject experts to review and evaluate submitted articles before accepting them for publication in a scholarly journal.
Submissions are evaluated using criteria including the excellence, novelty and significance of the research or ideas.
Scholarly journals use this process to protect and maintain the quality of material they publish.
Members of the editorial board are listed near the beginning of each journal issue.


How can you tell?

Examine an issue of a source journal, search for references to their peer-review (sometimes referred to as refereed) process, such as in an editorial statement, or a section with instructions to authors. 

Check the author's or authors' credentials, whether these appear with an article or book chapter or else you have to Google them.

Peer-reviewed articles vary in format from one discipline to the other, but will usually include extensive references.  Same goes for chapters in a scholarly book.

 

Peer Review
 

Citing Your Sources

Citations

Zotero for citation management

A software program that collects, manages, and cites research sources, Zotero is easy to use, works with your web browser where you do your work, and best of all it's free. With one click, Zotero will save web pages, books, PDFs, abstracts, and almost anything else with all its citation information. Learn more here:
https://lib.unb.ca/guides/view/index.php/683

Web tutorials

Google Scholar

How to set up authentication or linking to UNB Libraries' full text journal and ebook subscriptions from within Google Scholar:
https://vimeo.com/403018329

Google Scholar II: Tips and Tricks

The ins and outs of GS searching:
https://youtu.be/W5Hg2HNkkpo

Dissertations and Theses

Search and retrieval of PhD Dissertations and Masters Theses in full text:
https://youtu.be/XTnZQJ41rMQ

eBooks

Locating and viewing eBooks in the UNB Libraries collection; includes downloading and installing the Adobe Digital Editions eBook reader:
https://youtu.be/DpjH4ZkDh98

Digital Pedagogy

To learn about spaces, technologies, and services at UNB Libraries that support digital pedagogy, visit: https://lib.unb.ca/researchcommons/digital-pedagogy

Media Collections

Film, Sound, and Image Collections at UNB: http://www.lib.unb.ca/guides/view/?s=577

Research encyclopedias, handbooks, etc.

Reference sources are great for providing foundational overviews of topics and often provide useful references to seminal book and journal literature in the field.

Key Resources

  • Encyclopedia of Communication Theory
    see also [HIL-REF P87.5 .E496 2009 v.1-2]

    With more than 300 entries, these two volumes provide a one-stop source for a comprehensive overview of communication theory, offering current descriptions of theories as well as the background issues and concepts that comprise these theories. This is the first resource to summarize, in one place, the diversity of theory in the communication field. Key themes include: Applications and contexts; Critical orientations; Cultural orientations; Cybernetic and systems orientations; Feminist orientations; Group and organizational concepts; Information, media, and communication technology; International and global concepts; Interpersonal concepts; Non-Western orientations; Paradigms, traditions, and schools; Philosophical orientations; Psycho-cognitive orientations; Rhetorical orientations; Semiotic, linguistic, and discursive orientations; Social/interactional orientations; Theory, metatheory, methodology, and inquiry.

  • Encyclopedia of Gender in Media
    see also [HIL-REF P96 .S5 E53 2012]

    The Encyclopedia of Gender in Media critically examines the role of the media in enabling, facilitating, or challenging the social construction of gender in our society. The work addresses a variety of entertainment and news content in print and electronic media and explores the social construction of masculinity as well as femininity. In addition to representations of gender within the media, we also analyze gender issues related to media ownership and the media workforce. Despite an abundance of textbooks, anthologies, and university press monographs on the topic of gender in media, until now no comprehensive reference work has tackled this topic of perennial interest in student research and papers.

  • Encyclopedia of Multimedia

    The Encyclopedia of Multimedia provides in-depth coverage of the important concepts,
    issues and technology trends in the field of multimedia technologies, systems,
    techniques, and applications. It is a comprehensive collection of entries that present
    perspectives and future trends in the field from hundreds of leading researchers and
    experts in the field. The entries in the book describe a number of topics in multimedia
    systems and applications - from multimedia servers, to multimedia databases and
    multimedia networks and communications, to emerging multimedia applications.

  • Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics

    "This work explores how the rise of social media is altering politics both in the United States and in key moments, movement, and places around the world. Its scope encompasses the disruptive technologies and activities that are changing basic patterns in American politics." - form the publisher

  • Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media

    "This work explores how the rise of social media is altering politics both in the United States and in key moments, movement, and places around the world. Its scope encompasses the disruptive technologies and activities that are changing basic patterns in American politics." - from the publisher

  • Mediated Communication

    "Media scholarship has responded to a rapidly evolving media environment that has challenged existing theories and methods while also giving rise to new theoretical and methodological approaches. This volume explores the state of contemporary media research. Focusing on intellectual foundations, theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, context, and contemporary issues, this volume is a valuable resource for media scholars and students"-- Provided by publisher.

  • Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture

    Introduction : diaspora, media and culture : exploring dimensions of human mobility and connectivity in the era of global eiterdependency / Roza Tsagarousianou and Jessica Retis...

Additional Resources

  • Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks [HIL-REF P94.6 .M424 2006]

    Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks is a comprehensive anthology of the most significant theoretical readings on critical approaches to media culture and communications. The volume brings together what are considered the KeyWorks of current theory and method for the study of the abundance and diversity of culture and society in the present age.

  • Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights [HIL-REF P96 .H85 R57 2017]

    The Companion is the first collection to bring together two distinct ways of thinking about human rights and media, including scholarship that examines media as a human right alongside that which looks at media coverage of human rights issues. This international collection of 49 newly written pieces thus provides a unique overview of current research in the field, while also providing historical context to help students and scholars appreciate how such developments depart from past practices.

    The volume examines the universal principals of freedom of expression, legal instruments, the right to know, media as a human right, and the role of media organisations and journalistic work. It is organised thematically in five parts:

    • Communication, Expression and Human Rights
    • Media Performance and Human Rights: Political Processes
    • Media Performance and Human Rights: News and Journalism
    • Digital Activism, Witnessing and Human Rights
    • Media Representation of Human Rights: Cultural, Social and Political.

    Individual essays cover an array of topics, including mass-surveillance, LGBT advocacy, press law, freedom of information and children’s rights in the digital age. With contributions from both leading scholars and emerging scholars, the Companion offers an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach to media and human rights allowing for international comparisons and varying perspectives.

    The Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights provides a comprehensive introduction to the current field useful for both students and researchers, and defines the agenda for future research.

  • Routledge Companion to Semiotics [HIL-REF P99 .R643 2010]

    Offers an introduction to semiotics, presenting essays from a range of international leaders in the field. Featuring a glossary of key terms and thinkers as well as suggestions for further reading, this title is suitable for students of semiotics at different levels.

  • SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods [HIL-REF P91 .S24 2017]

    Communication research is evolving and changing in a world of online journals, open-access, and new ways of obtaining data and conducting experiments via the Internet. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods contains entries that cover every step of the research process, accompanied by engaging examples from the literature of communication studies.

  • SAGE Handbook of Consumer Culture [HIL-REF HF5415.32 .S24 2018]

    The question of consumption emerged as a major focus of research and scholarship in the 1990s but the breadth and diversity of consumer culture has not been fully enough explored. The meanings of consumption, particularly in relation to lifestyle and identity, are of great importance to academic areas including business studies, sociology, cultural and media studies, psychology, geography and politics. The SAGE Handbook of Consumer Culture is a one-stop resource for scholars and students of consumption, where the key dimensions of consumer culture are critically discussed and articulated.

  • SAGE Handbook of Media Studies [HIL-REF P90 .S18 2004]

    In 26 extended articles, Downing (mass communications and media arts, U. of Illinois, Carbondale), his co-editors and international cast of contributors provide critical analyses and describe their research in a variety of aspects of mass media, including its technology, uses, theories, and cultural issues. Their topics include the human side of mass media, such as its ethics, globalization, approaches, and variants, such as alternate media. They describe audiences, users and effects, including the psychology of media use and a history of media studies. They show how economy, politics and public opinion shape even the freest of media. They also describe how narrative, sound, advertising, and the ways of getting the show on the road matter, how Hollywood and Bollywood have changed and create change, and the effects of sex and violence. Annotation #169;2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

  • Oxford Reference
    Multi-part database of the online versions of Oxford University Press texts. Each topical division contains the searchable version of the latest edition of published dictionaries and encyclopedias. Additionally, information about Oxford University Press is provided. Online texts will be updated after new editions of the print monographs are published. Covers the humanities and social sciences.
    5 simultaneous users.

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