Good resources for background research

In our crazy information rich world, it’s sometimes hard to evaluate ‘credible’ sources. I think it’s usually worth having a conversation about credible sources — especially when we seem to be increasingly debating ‘whose facts belong to whom’. Those opinions always cause me to cringe because information is value neutral… what we do with it is not. However, in an era where we still debate questions of fact as if they were opinions, I thought that I would share some good go-to and publicly accessible resources for research connected to academic and PR. I’m happy to add more to it.

Please note that if you post commercial links or links to poor research, then I will remove those promptly.

Scholarly Research

The International Association for Media and Research maintains a list and links to open access communication, media, and public relations related journals. There are journals in English, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish.

For a broader list of open access journals, you can visit the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Their listing includes 106 journals related to communication published in multiple languages.

Of course, there’s also Google Scholar to try to find journals and books freely available.

Industry Research

For all things related to American political trends and research, I recommend Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog. Not only is the research excellent, but his explanations are concise and effective.

The Institute for Public Relations houses an excellent collection of research with summaries, theory, and case studies available for review. The work posted here is really top notch.

Other suggestions? Let me know and I’ll post any good research!