Selected Resources - COMM 2085: Media Industries and Organizations

What's the difference between Indexes, Popular/Trade Databases, and Scholarly Databases?

Indexes are a great place to start your research because they can provide general overviews on topics, films, or television shows. Think of an index as an orientation; begin with looking into these resources and then branch out to learn more about current discussions (popular and trade resources) and deeper arguments (scholarly databases).

Popular and Trade databases provide access to content published in periodicals for general or industry readers; in other words, the content you will see here is focused either on the reader who is interested in learning more out of casual interest or the reader who wants to better understand his/her industry and apply that knowledge to their workplace. These sources focus on current events and developments.

Scholarly databases provide access to content published in peer-reviewed academic journals. These journals presume other academics or students as their primary readership. While their content can be quite recent, its focus is not on immediate information, but contextualizing and analyzing the field.