16  Literature Search

A thorough and systematic literature review is foundational to your thesis. This chapter offers guidance on how to find, organize, and manage the literature for your research.

16.2 Search strategies

16.2.1 Keywords and Boolean operators

Construct your search systematically:

  • Use AND to narrow results (e.g., social media AND misinformation AND health)
  • Use OR to broaden results for synonyms (e.g., vaccine hesitancy OR vaccine refusal)
  • Use NOT to exclude irrelevant terms
  • Use quotation marks for exact phrases: "filter bubble"
  • Use truncation with * for word variations: persuad* finds persuade, persuasion, persuaded

Keep a record of your search terms, databases used, and results counts — you may need to report this in your method section.

16.2.2 Snowballing

Once you find a central paper:

  • Forward snowballing: who has cited this paper? (use Google Scholar or Scopus)
  • Backward snowballing: what does this paper cite?

16.2.3 Scoping and narrowing

  • Prioritize peer-reviewed journal articles from reputable journals
  • Prefer recent literature (typically last 10–15 years, unless citing foundational work)
  • Be selective — your Theory chapter should discuss only what directly contributes to your argument

Relevant Journals in our field are for example (check out this Communication Science Journal Tracker):

  • Journal of Communication
  • Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
  • Political Communication
  • Science Communication
  • New Media & Society
  • Communication Monographs
  • Social Media + Society
  • Information Communication & Society
  • Media Psychology
  • Journal of Media Psychology
  • Mobile Media & Communication
  • and many more
WarningQuality over quantity

The vast majority of your references should be peer-reviewed academic journal articles. Avoid blogs, Wikipedia, previous BA/MA theses, and PhD dissertations unless unavoidable.

16.3 Reference management: Zotero

I strongly recommend using Zotero (free) to manage your references:

  • Install the browser extension to save references directly from databases
  • Organize references into collections by topic
  • Add notes to each reference summarizing relevant content
  • Generate in-text citations and reference lists in APA format
  • Export .bib files for Quarto, LaTeX, or Word integration
TipWrite as you read

When reading a paper, immediately write down the relevant arguments, findings, and how they connect to your own study. Do not rely on being able to recall this later. This also prevents you from losing track of sources.