CTVA 475: Audience Analysis

Your searchable topics are informed by your assignment prompt. Consider the following example using the Advanced search function in OneSearch:

• Subject ="Film adaptations" AND gothic literature 

Figure 1: Multiple Search bars

Figure 1 illustrates multiple techniques to increase the relevance of your search results by using:

• subject searching to ensure your results are reasonably ABOUT your search terms.
• the "is (exact)" function from the drop menu to ensure that multiple words are searched as a single term.
• the boolean operator "AND" to pull results that contain both sets of terms.

Figure 2: Subject terms in the catalog record

Figure 2 illustrates a catalog record produced by the subject search using the search terms "Film adaptations" and "gothic literature". Note how these terms appear in the subjects assigned to the resource, assuring that the resource is sufficiently about the search terms used in the search. 

Once your results are populated, use the filters on the left to isolate topics, resource types, peer-reviewed articles, and more.

Before searching, assemble a vocabulary of highly descriptive search terms relating to your interest and set them as subjects in your search. If there are too few results, you can change them back to "Any field" (keyboard.

Some example terms for CTVA 475 might be:

• "television viewers" or "television audience"
• TV genres such as ("comedies" (or comedy), "dramas", "unscripted television", etc.
• Terms representing race, gender, or other demographic classifications.
• Additional topics of interest, such as "social media" or "advertising"

By using separate search bars set to AND you are requiring all terms to be present in your results. Use quotation marks (" ") for multi-word terms that must appear together in order, or use the is (exact) rule in the drop menu. Also consider the type of source and the date of publication.

Figure 1: Sample search

You can refine your search results on the left.

• Click and lock in "Peer-reviewed articles" if those are required sources.
• You can also choose different types of resources represented in your list.
• Browse topics for terms that are most relevant to your interest.

Figure 2: Resource Type filter