ABSTRACT
This chapter advocates an in-depth understanding of specific contexts to more effectively assess social communication effects. Nevertheless, social communication research is moving again to the forefront of the disciplines of political science and communication. The chapter focuses on three research design issues that are of particular note in social communication research: choosing among levels of analysis; trade-offs between depth and breadth in sampling environments; and difficulties in demonstrating causality. It focuses specifically on two types of social communication environments: networks and contexts. In general terms, social network research examines interpersonal communication, while contextual research investigates the relationship between people and social groups more generally. Undue concern for capturing the multiple social influences surrounding people leads to research designs that are unfocused, lacking depth of measurement, and ultimately unable to satisfy a desire to broadly understand the nature of social communication processes.
