How to Build Social Science Theories - Hardcover

Shoemaker, Pamela J.; Tankard, James William; Lasorsa, Dominic L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0761926666 ISBN 13: 9780761926665

Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2003

Synopsis

As straightforward as its title, How to Build Social Science Theories sidesteps the well-traveled road of theoretical examination by demonstrating how new theories originate and how they are elaborated. Essential reading for students of social science research, this book traces theories from their most rudimentary building blocks (terminology and definitions) through multivariable theoretical statements, models, the role of creativity in theory building, and how theories are used and evaluated. Authors Pamela J. Shoemaker, James William Tankard, Jr., and Dominic L. Lasorsa intend to improve research in many areas of the social sciences by making research more theory-based and theory-oriented.

The book begins with a discussion of concepts and their theoretical and operational definitions. It then proceeds to theoretical statements, including hypotheses, assumptions, and propositions.  Theoretical statements need theoretical linkages and operational linkages; this discussion begins with bivariate relationships, as well as three-variable, four-variable, and further multivariate relationships.  The authors also devote chapters to the creative component of theory-building and how to evaluate theories.

About this title

About the Author:

Pamela Shoemaker (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1982) is the John Ben Snow Professor, an endowed research chair at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She is the author of Gatekeeping (Sage, 1991) and Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content (with Stephen D. Reese, Longman Publishers, 1996). As an internationally known scholar, Pamela is a past president (1995-1996) of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (AEJMC) and serves or has served on the editorial boards of many major journals in the mass communications field.

About this edition

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0761926666
• ISBN 13: 9780761926665
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240