Media and communication research: societies, archives, data and ethics

Media and communication research studies how information is produced, circulated, received and governed, across news, broadcasting, advertising, public relations, health and science messaging, and digital platforms. The field is organised through a few large learned societies rather than one body. The International Association for Media and Communication Research has 17 sections and 20 working groups, including Audience, Journalism Research & Education, Political Economy and Health Communication. The International Communication Association, founded in 1950, and the National Communication Association, formed in 1914, are the main North American associations, and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication runs 19 divisions and seven interest groups. In Europe the European Communication Research and Education Association plays that role.

Research runs on shared infrastructure. Media Cloud and the GDELT Project give access to large collections of digital news, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting preserves public radio and television, and the Reuters Institute Digital News Report and Pew Research Center supply survey series on news use. Content analysis, with documented codebooks and inter-coder reliability, remains a core method. Since 29 October 2025 the delegated act under Article 40 of the EU Digital Services Act has let researchers apply for platform data access.

Researchers and administrators should settle several matters early: whether platform or social media data may be collected and shared under the platform terms and the Association of Internet Researchers ethics guidance, how consent and anonymity apply to public posts, which disciplinary preprint and open access routes suit the project, and which funder, such as the ESRC or NSF social science programmes, fits the question. Sub-field specifics are covered on the specialization hubs below.