The Palgrave Handbook of Methods for Media Policy Research covers the craft that is and the methods used in media and communication policy research. It discusses the steps involved in conducting research, from deciding on a topic, to writing a report and everything in between and, furthermore, deals with a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. The handbook invites researchers to rediscover trusted methods such as document analysis, elite interviews and comparisons, as well as to familiarize themselves with newer methods like experiments, big data and network analysis. For each method, the handbook provides a practical step-by-step guide and case studies that help readers in using that method in their own research. The methods discussed are useful for all areas of media and communication policy research, for research concerning the governance of both mass media and online platforms, and for policy issues around the globe. As such, the handbook is an invaluable guide to every researcher in this field.

This Handbook addresses why political science programs teach the research process and how instructors come to teach these courses and develop their pedagogy. Contributors offer diverse perspectives on pedagogy, student audience, and the role of research in their curricula. Across four sections—information literacy, research design, research methods, and research writing—authors share personal reflections that showcase the evolution of their pedagogy. Each chapter offers best practices that can serve the wider community of teachers. Ultimately, this text focuses less on the technical substance of the research process and more on the experiences that have guided instructors’ philosophies and practices related to teaching it.

This handbook is a comprehensive reference guide for researchers, funding agencies and organizations engaged in survey research. Drawing on research from a world-class team of experts, this collection addresses the challenges facing survey-based data collection today as well as the potential opportunities presented by new approaches to survey research, including in the development of policy. It examines innovations in survey methodology and how survey scholars and practitioners should think about survey data in the context of the explosion of new digital sources of data. The Handbook is divided into four key sections: the challenges faced in conventional survey research; opportunities to expand data collection; methods of linking survey data with external sources; and, improving research transparency and data dissemination, with a focus on data curation, evaluating the usability of survey project websites, and the credibility of survey-based social science. Chapter 23 of this book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive treatment of basic and more advanced research methodologies in applied linguistics and offers a state-of-the-art review of methods particular to various domains within the field. Arranged thematically in 4 parts, across 41 chapters, it covers a range of research approaches, presents current perspectives, and addresses key issues in different research methods, such as designing and implementing research instruments and techniques, and analysing different types of applied linguistics data. Innovations, challenges and trends in applied linguistics research are examined throughout the Handbook. As such it offers an up-to-date and highly accessible entry point into both established and emerging approaches that will offer fresh possibilities and perspectives as well as thorough consideration of best practices. This wide-ranging volume will prove an invaluable resource to applied linguists at all levels, including scholars in related fields such as language learning and teaching, multilingualism, corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, discourse analysis and pragmatics, language assessment, language policy and planning, multimodal communication, and translation.

This handbook compiles methods for gathering, organizing and disseminating data to inform policy and manage health systems worldwide. Contributing authors describe national and international structures for generating data and explain the relevance of ethics, policy, epidemiology, health economics, demography, statistics, geography and qualitative methods to describing population health. The reader, whether a student of global health, public health practitioner, programme manager, data analyst or policymaker, will appreciate the methods, context and importance of collecting and using global health data.

This handbook addresses the methodological problems and theoretical challenges that arise in attempting to understand and represent humour in specific historical contexts across cultural history. It explores problems involved in applying modern theories of humour to historically-distant contexts of humour and points to the importance of recognising the divergent assumptions made by different academic disciplines when approaching the topic. It explores problems of terminology, identification, classification, subjectivity of viewpoint, and the coherence of the object of study. It addresses specific theories, together with the needs of specific historical case-studies, as well as some of the challenges of presenting historical humour to contemporary audiences through translation and curation. In this way, the handbook aims to encourage a fresh exploration of methodological problems involved in studying the various significances both of the history of humour and of humour in history.

Grounded in black feminist scholarship and activism and formally coined in 1989 by black legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, intersectionality has garnered significant attention in the field of public policy and other disciplines/fields of study. The potential of intersectionality, however, has not been fully realized in policy, largely due to the challenges of operationalization. Recently some scholars and activists began to advance conceptual clarity and guidance for intersectionality policy applications; yet a pressing need remains for knowledge development and exchange in relation to empirical work that demonstrates how intersectionality improves public policy. This handbook fills this void by highlighting the key challenges, possibilities and critiques of intersectionality-informed approaches in public policy. It brings together international scholars across a variety of policy sectors and disciplines to consider the state of intersectionality in policy research and analysis. Importantly, it offers a global perspective on the added value and “how-to” of intersectionality-informed policy approaches that aim to advance equity and social justice.

"This engaging collection gathers theoretical and empirical insights from leading family policy experts. The authors - representing diverse countries, disciplines, and methods - bring to life the volume's innovative conceptual framework, which is organized around policy institutions, both public and private. The volume closes with a call for new lines of research that should inform family policy scholars for years to come."--Janet Gornick, Professor of Political Science and Sociology, and Director of the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA "Featuring exciting contributors from a range of often-siloed scholarly disciplines, countries and cultures, this Handbook offers nuanced insights into how interacting societal inequality factors influence family policy enactment to reinforce or improve inequality outcomes across gender, class, and nations. It is ambitious, broad-reaching, and succeeds in providing a strategic view within and across nations to inspire thoughtful evidence-based policy implications to improve societies in the future."--Ellen Ernst Kossek, Basil S. Turner Professor of Management, Purdue University, USA This open access handbook provides a multilevel view on family policies, combining insights on family policy outcomes at different levels of policymaking: supra-national organizations, national states, sub-national or regional levels, and finally smaller organizations and employers. At each of these levels, a multidisciplinary group of expert scholars assess policies and their implementation, such as child income support, childcare services, parental leave, and leave to provide care to frail and elderly family members. The chapters evaluate their impact in improving children's development and equal opportunities, promoting gender equality, regulating fertility, productivity and economic inequality, and take an intersectional perspective related to gender, class, and family diversity. The editors conclude by presenting a new research agenda based on five major challenges pertaining to the levels of policy implementation (in particular globalization and decentralization), austerity and marketization, inequality, changing family relations, and welfare states adapting to women's empowered roles

This handbook highlights the growing tensions surrounding the current dominant ethical clearance model which is increasingly being questioned, particularly in critical research. It draws on stories from the field in critical research conducted in a range of contexts and countries and on an array of topics. The authors involved in this collection encountered dilemmas, contradictions and surprises that brought about a change in their understanding of ethics. Throughout the book they discuss how ethics is an ongoing and situated struggle that requires researchers, at times, to traverse traditional ethical imperatives. Four sections lead readers through the complexities of grounded ethical practice: encountering systems, including Ethics Committees and institutions; blurring boundaries within research; the politics of voice, anonymity and confidentiality; and power relations in researching ‘down’, ‘up’, and ‘alongside’. This handbook is a resource for social science researchers using critical methodologies across a range of disciplines, as well as for students and teachers of ethics, in navigating the quandaries of ‘doing good’ while doing good research.