Research On Social Media Research Methods Of Chinese Scholars

Since 2010,social media has developed rapidly,and now it has become the main channel for audiences to obtain information and exchange views.In addition,in the past decade,the research on social media has occupied a very important position in the field of Journalism and communication.Through the design of "social media" key lexicon,this paper samples the papers of2010-2019 in four journals of Journalism and communication: International Press,modern communication,journalism University and Journalism and communication research.After cleaning and screening,526 sample papers are selected.Through the analysis of the existing literature,the author chooses eight main research methods of Journalism and communication to code the sample papers,which are the methods of survey statistics,content analysis,experiment and network analysis in the quantitative analysis,and the methods of depth interview,ethnography / virtual ethnography,discourse analysis and literature analysis in the qualitative analysis.Through the analysis one by one,the author encodes,counts and analyzes the methodology and specific research methods used in each sample paper,obtains the methodology and research method preference used in the research of "social media" in four journals in the past ten years,as well as the trend of the use frequency of each research method changing with time,and makes overall and overall analysis on the development trend of its research method in terms of quantity Through the analysis of the Department,we found the shortcomings of the research methods.In terms of methodology,the proportion of quantitative analysis is greater than qualitative analysis and hybrid methodology;in terms of specific research methods,content analysis,survey statistics and literature analysis are the three most common research methods,while the frequency of network analysis and discourse analysis should be strengthened.Most papers only use one research method as their main research method,and a few papers use two or three research methods at the same time.We should strengthen the comprehensive use of research methods and use a variety of scientific methods for research.The author also describes the characteristics of each research method and its changing trend with time.According to the observation and data results of the sample papers,the author analyzes and concludes that the research of "social media" in journalism and communication science has the following characteristics: "quantification" has become the main trend of research.Scholars pay more attention to the research of both sides of social media upload and communication content,and the qualitative analysis tends to solve problems with the help of existing literature,and the research has a trend of gradual modernization.But there are also some problems: at present,there are less than half of the papers with research methods in the four journals,the research is generally lack of qualitative grasp of "people",the lack of research and Thinking on the communication process,the use of interdisciplinary research methods is less,and the use of computer software has the risk of turning to "mechanization".The author puts forward the prospect for the future development.