Abstract Research methods in communication studies span a wide range of interests. While evidence abound that studies in the area of media and society research are continually on the increase, there are also a number of studies on trends of research in this area. This study, from a global perspective, investigated the pattern of themes/subject matters that bestride the researches in different journals, different research methods, sampling techniques, data analysis and the media of communication used by researchers in their studies. The aim was to identify the popular research methods, similarities and differences and viable scholar approaches of the research methods in the studies. Using the purposive sampling techniques, 47 articles sampled from 28 editions of 118 journals were content analysed. Results indicate that the most notable theme on press and government relations was legal/ethical which accounted for (23.5%); the historical method was the most used with (34.0%); unspecified sampling techniques accounted for (57.4%) which was the highest used. Pattern matching/explanation building accounted for the highest of (42.6%) under methods of data analysis and finally researchers used more than two media for their researches and this was (63.9%) of the total under mass media used for the research. Key Words: Themes, Research Methods, Sampling Techniques, Data Analysis, Press, Government. JCMRJournal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 3, No. 1, April 2011, 25 – 39. © Delmas Communications Ltd. About the authors *Alex Eloho Umuerri is a Lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, Benson Idahosa University, Benin City, Nigeria. **Dr. Godwin O. Shoki is a Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. Full Article Words: 7,220; Pages: 15
Umuerri et al. (Sat,) studied this question.