A good place to start, but note that it is an index to over 15 million articles in 11,000 subject encyclopedias and handbooks, both print and online and does not provide full-text articles. Instead, it will connect you to our catalog so you know where to find the appropriate encyclopedia, dictionary or other reference work. You will be linked to UCLA's holdings for any entries you find.
Use these print sources to get an overview of your topic, to find out what the major issues are, and to provide general background.
The UCLA Library has dictionaries of all kinds, ranging from the familiar look-up-a-word type like the Oxford English Dictionary or Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary to very specialized dictionaries for particular fields. You can find these dictionaries in the UCLA Library Catalog. Here is a list of online dictionaries helpful for research in communications studies.