Location & Facilities | Hubbard School of Journalism

Murphy Hall

Murphy Hall is solely devoted to the teaching and research of journalism, mass communication and strategic communication.

Murphy has more than 27,000 square feet on five floors that include:

four multimedia classrooms
a 143-seat multimedia auditorium
Hubbard Media Hub/Sevareid Library featuring faculty publications, local and national newspapers and magazines, and hybrid meeting spaces for student use
studios, with capability for video and audio capture and editing
three classroom labs with capacity for imaging, graphics and communication design
a multimedia Conference Center for distance education, short courses and professional development workshops
a focus group research facility for advertising and public relations design and audience and media research
Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics & Law

View map of Murphy Hall

Hubbard Media Hub

Located in Murphy Hall's lower level, the newly renovated space offers:

a state-of-the art broadcast studio
three 20-seat lab classrooms
podcast booth
library and several group study rooms and study spaces

Regular Hours

Monday-Thursday
8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Friday
8 a.m.-12 p.m.

Media Hub & Sevareid Library

Molly Blake, the journalism librarian, is available to answer questions ([email protected]).

You can find articles and request books.
Use the 'Get It' button to request books for pick up (or mail to offices, dorms, or homes)

Research Help

Reach out to the Hubbard School's University library liaison Molly Blake anytime - Zoom appointments, email, chat ([email protected])
Peer Research Consultants available for online appointments

Expanded online access

We’re happy to offer new and expanded access to a number of databases that may be of interest to Hubbard faculty and students.

Comscore Plan Metrix - Now available
Adding to our Media Metrix subscription, which provides detailed web analytics for major websites, we now have access to Plan Metrix Consumer Target Profile and Cross Visiting data beginning May 2022. This includes highly detailed demographic and psychographic survey data from 12,000 Comscore panelists, and complements Simmons MRI. We also added access to the mobile and desktop breakout data across Comscore. If you don’t have an account yet for Comscore, let me know and I’ll set one up for you.

News Sources (Libraries Search) - There is now a dedicated interface to search across most of the Libraries major news databases (Factiva, Access World News, ProQuest Newsstream, etc.). This should be a key tool for undergraduate research, as well as those looking for full-text news sources in non-English languages. The search includes article-level results from thousands of U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, broadcast transcripts, wirefeeds and more.

East African Newspapers - English-language newspapers from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda from the 1940s to the early 2000s.

El Caribe Digital Archive - Spanish-language daily newspaper published in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

ForeignAffairs.com - Foreign Affairs is a leading magazine & website covering American foreign policy & international relations. Relevant for research about policy, political science, economics, public health, & other global issues.

Policy Commons - Search over 2.5 million documents on thousands of topics from the world’s leading policy experts, nonpartisan think tanks, IGOs and NGOs.

South Asian Newspapers - Nine English, Bengali, and Marathi language newspapers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal from 1850 to 1983.

Southeast Asian Newspapers - Over 100 newspapers in various languages and countries of the region, including Myanmar (formerly Burma), Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Time period is the late 19th and 20th centuries.

For in-depth subject databases:

Contact Information

Media Hub/Sevareid Library
Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication
111 Murphy Hall, 206 Church St SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Murphy Hall Conference Center

The Conference Center is the showpiece of Murphy Hall. It serves as an outreach resource for internal and external groups for conferences, workshops, and other activities.

The Conference Center features:

conference tables that accommodate seating for 32 people
built-in Internet connections
a rear-screen-projected computer
DVD, VCR, cable TV, HDTV and a document camera
audio and video conferencing with two remote-controlled cameras and a control room
desktop microphones for audience member participation

The Conference Center also has a reception area (the historic Heggen Room), catering kitchen, and registration desk with a plasma screen for electronic displays.

Communication Research Lab/Focus Group Room

The Hubbard School's reputation for rigorous and innovative research dates back to 1944 when the School created the nation's first quantitative research division. More than 50 years and a major building renovation later, the School's Communication Research Lab affirms our enduring commitment to distinguished scholarship.

The Communication Research Lab, located on Murphy Hall's third floor, contains a rich repository of resources for conducting graduate and post-graduate research. The newly renovated lab space is continually upgraded with equipment and software to spur new research and support a wide range of communication-related studies from focus groups and eye tracking studies to online surveys, reaction time experiments, educational game exploration, and much more. This facility is designed to support small-scale research with large-scale impact. The Hubbard School Research Division offers consultation on research design, sampling, data analysis, data interpretation, and publication. It operates the Subject Pool and is the school's liaison with the Human Subjects Committee. It oversees the Telethnography Program; its library of TV programs; and the DDB Needham Life Styles Survey data bases, two of the richest resources in the country for student and faculty research.

The lab suite includes 6 rooms:

+ A reception lounge stylishly furnished for conducting experiments in a naturalized setting and for greeting guests or checking-in participants
+ Three small testing rooms, each with a one-way observation window and two computer workstations equipped with the latest communication research software
+ Focus Group Room with 10-seat executive conference table, one-way observation window, and unobtrusive audio-visual recording and playback equipment
+ Observation and control room seats 12 behind a one-way observation window
+ Small catering kitchen with microwave, refrigerator, and supplies

Learn more about room scheduling and usage guidelines, and the eyetracker for research, by clicking below.

Room Scheduling and Usage Guidelines

The Communication Research Lab/Focus Group Room in 326 Murphy Hall is a jewel for supporting a wide-range of communication-related studies and data collection. This small, centrally located campus research facility offers an intimate setting and treasure of resources for graduate and faculty research.

Focus Group Research Suite
Priority of use is first to the Hubbard School graduate students and faculty doing research for thesis and doctoral dissertations, publication and grant-related studies and defenses.

Other University departments and/or individuals with Hubbard School faculty approval may use the facility for communication-related research – when available – at no cost (except for technical support requests).

Usage Guidelines
Users have access to the reserved rooms requested. Unused rooms are to remain locked. Users must not leave the room(s) unattended with students or study participants in it. If users must leave the room, the doors need to be locked. All users are liable for stolen, lost, or damaged equipment/furnishings during their reservation time.

Reservations
To reserve any of the rooms in the Research Suite and according to intended usage, please fill out this form, or contact the following individuals:

Scott Dierks: 612-624-7502 or [email protected]
Research Division, events, focus groups, student groups

Amy Bolis: 612-625-4054 or [email protected]
Graduate-related activities, prelims and final exams

Eye Tracker and ClearView Software

The Communication Research Lab/Focus Group Room in 326 Murphy Hall supports a wide-range of communication-related studies and data collection. This small, centrally located campus research facility offers an intimate setting and treasure of resources for graduate and faculty research.

In one of the three testing rooms in the research lab, there is a Tobii Eye Tracker* machine set up in a double computer configuration. One computer is dedicated to running the eye tracking software and the second computer is dedicated to the analysis using ClearView software.

Researchers interested in using the eye tracker machine for detecting and collecting eye gaze data will need a tutorial on using the equipment with advance notice.

The ClearView analysis software combines the collection and analysis of eye gaze data with numerous other data sources including key strokes, external devices, video recordings, web browser activity, and more. ClearView also provides mechanisms to interface with other software.

*The Hubbard School acknowledges and thanks the Psychology department for loaning its eye tracker machine for graduate and faculty research in the Communication Research Lab.

Usability Services Lab

The Hubbard School is one of five stakeholders in the Usability Services Lab, housed in the Walter Library Digital Technology Center. The other stakeholders are:

Digital Technology Center, Institute of Technology
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Institute of Technology
Department of Writing Studies, College of Liberal Arts
School of Kinesiology, College of Education and Human Development

As a stakeholder, the Hubbard School has access to state-of-the-art lab equipment, including sophisticated eye-tracking technology. The partnership provides all stakeholders with a full array of resources, technology and testing areas for conducting usability and media effectiveness research. As part of the arrangement, the Hubbard School makes the focus group room in Murphy Hall available to the other stakeholders upon request.

The School is one of the very few journalism and mass communication schools with this level of access to state-of-the-art usability and eye-tracking equipment. Graduate students have availed themselves of these resources as have faculty. The INMS, as part of its Digital Story Effects Lab project, used the facilities to conduct intensive research into new story forms and their impact on news audiences. The availability of the lab has made several grant proposals more feasible and attractive to potential funders.