Research is almost never a straightforward path, usually requiring you to evaluate and rewrite your work. The cartoon above shows the Seven Basic Steps of Research mentioned in Chapter 6 under the key term ‘Communication Research’ and the subheading ‘Seven Basic Steps of Research.’ Like in the real world where researchers undergo the cycle of reading literature, creating and revising drafts and publishing findings, the character in the comic comes out from the piles of papers only to dive back in and continue looking through them. This shows the cycles that researchers go through when doing research.

This cartoon mirrors the sentiment in the chapter that research is messy. It’s like what Einstein said “If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research.” This captures the different paths that researchers go down when their hypotheses fail or when their data doesn’t align with what they were expecting. Just like the character in the comic rinses and repeats looking through the papers, communication researchers test, edit, and can sometimes completely change their studies, which embodies how the chapter calls for self-correction in research.

In my experience as an EMT, I have had experience with this sort of cycle. When evaluating a procedure once, the team drafted a survey asking for our opinions on it (read), administered it to colleagues (write), gathered feedback and noticed that there were inconsistencies in the responses. Thus, the team revised the procedure and conducted the survey process one more time. This process helped me understand how EMTs do research and make changes as necessary, like how Chapter 6 suggests when doing research.

The ‘rinse and repeat’ that the character is doing in the cartoon shows that in order to conduct effective communication research, you need to have persistence and flexibility. Each cycle of the seven steps helps bring us closer to getting insights that can predict behavior, inform practice, and create positive change.

In the cartoon a scientist rejects Einstein’s law of relativity. The scientist calls it a “speed bump theory.” This places universal laws, like E=mc², next to oversimplified explanations for daily occurrences (speed bumps). Chapter 5 contains descriptions of the theories of Empirical Laws. These theories in communication look for relationships between cause and effect that apply everywhere (If X, then Y). The theorists then search for consistent patterns that take place, which have probabilistically across different contexts. The cartoon is a reminder that communication “laws” often face disbelief when presented as absolute. This disbelief differs from the acceptance of gravity.

As coordinator of a campus club responsible for making meetings, I operated under principle. The principle stated: sending an agenda 24 hours before the meeting ensures that everyone is prepared to attend and participate. Like a scientist dismissing relativity, I blamed colleagues for not obeying the agenda principle. In one instance: last month, I distributed an agenda, complete with details, to everyone else in the group. I believed advance notice would result in a productive meeting. We used 20 minutes to explain the project’s basic goals. At that moment I realized that context is important. People who were new to the club were missing crucial context that would have made everything in the agenda make sense. The Empirical Law (agenda causes preparedness) did not hold true every time.

The cartoon makes fun of the dismissal of new theories as unimportant problems. This chapter reminds people to respect the detail in physical laws and communicative laws. With an understanding of the Empirical Laws Paradigm as well as its focus on probability instead of absolutes, people learn to develop more adaptable strategies in daily interactions, includes sending agendas that are more contextualized.

Chapter 8 reminds me of the cartoon that I found above. In the cartoon, a man seems to have a very important realization but becomes distracted by a commercial about getting rich quick. This shows the concept of sensationalization (subheading: sensationalization), where media make the most outrageous content to increase ratings and keep viewers hooked. Mass media is always looking for attention with shiny messages with little substance.

I can relate to this sort of interaction with mass media. Once I get home from school, I might have something important for me to watch or read but I get mass media ads for random things like reality TV or miracle weight loss drugs. I get the ads even if I use an ad blocker, constantly flashing headlines and bright colors in my face. It’s a battle to keep these things out of my sight and to focus on the things that really matter.

As a college student, I’ve learned to be media literate. I now understand that some content is designed to only sensationalize. Now, I ask myself why I’m being shown certain content and reminding myself to always seek out reliable sources on important information instead of taking the flashy ads or other media at face value. It’s only when we as a society start to be less susceptible to sensationalization that we will have more moments of insight, like Joe in the cartoon who unfortunately lost his to mass media.