Scholarly or academic sources include peer-reviewed (or refereed) research articles. These articles have been read, evaluated, and approved for publication by scholars with expertise related to the article’s topic. Peer-review helps insure that articles provide accurate, verifiable, and valuable contributions to a field of study.

• The peer-review process is anonymous, to prevent personal biases and favoritism from affecting the outcomes. Reviewers read manuscripts that omit the names of the author(s). When the reviewers’ feedback is given to the author(s), the reviewers’ names are omitted.

• Editors of journals select reviewers who are experts in the subject addressed in the article. Reviewers consider the validity of the research method and whether it offers original knowledge to a field of study.

Example 1 is a scholarly, research article from a peer reviewed media related journal.  It is 25 pages long & has 41 cited references.

Selby, Emily. (1998). Between worlds: considering Celtic feminine identities in The Secret of Roan Inish. (1998). Gender, Place, and Culture. A Journal of Feminist Geography, 5 (1), 5-28.
 

Example 2 is not a research article even though it is from a scholarly journal.  It is a commentary by a communication professor at the University of Colorado.  It does have cited references and is a valid source of information, but it is not a peer reviewed research article. 

Pezzullo, Phaedra C. (2016). Hello from the other side: popular culture, crisis, and climate activism. Environmental Communication, 10 (6), 803-806.