Communication 

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Items marked are available only to UCSB students, faculty, and staff from off campus.

The following databases are the best sources for scholarly articles and other resources in the field of communication:

• Communication Abstracts
  • Abstracts of articles, books and other resources in communication studies and related disciplines, including communication theory, organizational communication, technology in human communication and public opinion.
  • Coverage is 1977 to present.
• PsycINFO
  • A scholarly database for the literature of psychology, the behavioral sciences and related disciplines. Researchers and students will find in PsyINFO citations to many communication-related articles, chapters, books, reports, theses and dissertations. Most citations include abstracts.
  • Coverage is 1806 to present.
• Communication Databases
  • Simultaneously searches Communication Abstracts and PsycInfo – plus two full-text communication and psychology databases.

Other databases that index communication research resources include:

• Academic Search Complete
  
  • A scholarly, multi-disciplinary database that provides access to articles in journals and magazines, as well as citations to books, reports and other library research materials.
  • Most coverage is 1984 to present, but selected magazines are indexed as far back as 1865.
• Business Source Complete
  • Indexes and abstracts business journals, general trade publications and business magazines, country economic reports, industry reports, market research reports and other business resources.
  • Coverage is 1886 to present.
• GenderWatch
  • A full text database of publications that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of subject areas.
• LexisNexis Academic
  • Full-text access to 6,000 news, business and legal publications.
• Sociological Abstracts
  • The major index for sociology, including material on communication.
    
    
• Social Science Databases via CSA
  • Simultaneously searches several social science databases, including Communication Abstracts, ERIC (Education), Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts, PAIS (public policy), PsycInfo (psychology), Sociological Abstracts and Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, plus several full-text databases.

UCSB e-Journals: 

• UCSB e-Journals
  • Use this link to see if the UCSB Library provides online access to a specific journal; search for the title of the journal (NOT the title of the article within the journal).
• You can browse the list of UCSB e-Journals ...
  
  • by category: Social Sciences or
  • by sub-category: Journalism, Mass Communication, Media & Publishing.

Start with Keywords:

• Keyword searching uses your vocabulary - words that you think best represent your topic. A keyword search looks for matches between your words and words in the titles, abstracts, subjects, etc. of articles included in a Library database.

• Try to think of the different words or phrases that a person writing on your topic might use.  For example, the concept of capital punishment might be expressed using the phrase death penalty.  Enter words that express the same concept, or facet, of your topic on one line of your search screen, separated by the word OR.  In the example below, the phrases are placed in quotation marks to ensure that the database looks for articles that include these exact phrases.
  • Line 1 (Keyword): "capital punishment" OR "death penalty"

• Consider using an Advanced Search screen for complex searches.  This will let you break your topic into its component facets and search for each facet on a separate line of the Advanced Search screen.  For example, if you are looking for information on racial discrimination and the death penalty, you might enter the following:

In the example above, discriminat* will find items that include the words discriminate, discriminating, discrimination, etc.

Follow the Subject Headings:

• In library databases, subjects (sometimes these are called descriptors) are drawn from a controlled vocabulary: the librarian who "catalogs" or "indexes" (creates a database record for) an article selects words or phrases from a list of subjects, choosing one or more subjects that s/he believes best represents what the article is about.
  
  
• When you have a set of results from your keyword search, you can click on the title of an article to see additional information, including what subject terms have been assigned to that article.  If one of the subject terms describes all or part of your topic well, you can click on that subject to find other items in the database that have been assigned that same subject term.  In the example below, you could click on "DISCRIMINATION in capital punishment" to see a list of every other item in the database that has been assigned the same subject.  

UC-eLinks:

• Once you have identified a potential source of information on your topic, you can use UC-eLinks to search for a copy of that item - as an electronic version or in print.
  
  
  
  
• The orange colored-colored UC-eLinks button will check to see if your article is available online.  If it is not online, UC-eLinks will give you a chance to search the UCSB Library catalog for the source of that item (e.g. the journal in which it was published).  If the source is not held in the UCSB Library, you can ask for a copy of the article via Interlibrary Loan.