Scholastic Journalism 2016 Abstracts
Teaching with Tech: Supplemental Journalism Instruction for the Millennial Generation • Alex Luchsinger, University of South Carolina; Kevin Hull, University of South Carolina • This study examines how journalism students use online instructional videos to learn skills needed to create successful broadcast stories. Students from an introductory reporting class were provided three videos demonstrating video editing skills. Approximately two months later, survey results found that the vast majority of the students had a positive impression of the videos. Further results demonstrate that while students enjoyed the videos, they did not view them as a replacement for face-to-face instruction.
Media entrepreneurship programs: Emerging best practices (and challenges) • Amy Sindik, Central Michigan University; Geoffrey Graybeal, Texas Tech University • Media entrepreneurship programs have increased in popularity and relevance as the media industry has faced a state of turbulence, however there is a dearth of research examining educational best practices. This study examines the structures and practices of college media entrepreneurship programs through interviews with program heads. Three best practices emerged from the interview data: fostering a sense of team work, tapping into a larger university entrepreneurial network, and utilizing outside connections.
Searching in a State of Automaticity: How Students Access, Filter, and Evaluate Digital News • Elia Powers, Towson University • This study examines how students access, filter, and evaluate news, and their awareness of the cognitive strategies and criteria they use when consuming news online. Survey results show that students rely heavily on news portals and trust their social networks and technology to filter news. Think-aloud protocols and interviews found that students typically search for news in a state of automaticity. Cognitive processing and communication flow models help frame the implications for news literacy education.
Learning by Doing: Three-phase study finds disconnect between journalism education and professional work • Goran Ghafour, University of Kansas; Ren-Whei Harn; Scott Reinardy, University of Kansas • This three-phase study examined how well college journalism education prepares students for jobs upon graduation. In phase one, this study examined the curricula of 44 U.S. accredited journalism and mass communication schools to determine popular areas of emphasis and core courses. In the second phase, the study investigated 192 jobs in eight industries related to journalism and mass communication jobs to identify top required knowledge and technology skills. Surveying 123 journalism and mass communication alumni was the third phase to learn most useful learned skills and skills not learned upon graduation. Results show that the schools curricula don’t meet all the top required job skills that students need to find a job after graduation. The schools curricula provide some skills yet are behind in producing other skills, specifically research and technology skills. To fill the gaps between the schools and the industry, this study provides recommendations.
Shielding Students: Do State Shield Laws Extend to Student Reporters? • Jonathan Peters; Peter Bobkowski, University of Kansas • While a majority of states have some statutory protection for journalists allowing them to shield their confidential sources’ identities, those protections often do not extend to student journalists. This paper evaluates those statutes in a search for implicit or explicit protections for student journalists, ultimately calling for strong and explicit protections because of the important work that student journalists do now and will do in the future.
Power and Print: Content Influences • Lindsie Trego, UNC-Chapel Hill; Chris Etheridge, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Issues of censorship in higher education have lately been common in the news, however it is unclear to what degree college newspapers experience external influences. This study examines censorship in collegiate media through in-depth interviews with student newspaper editors and advisers. Specifically, this study explores what recalled practices by external actors lead editors and advisers to perceive content pressures or lack thereof, as well as how editors and advisers respond to these pressures.
Do Journalism Students Use Social Media Differently Than Non-Journalism Students? • marc seamon • This study found that journalism students’ opinions about social media, as measured by the Social Media Affinity Scale (Gerlich, et al. 2010), did not vary from those of non-journalism students from the same university. However, an analysis of their social media usage patterns revealed significant differences in how and why they use social media. Specifically, journalism students used social media more often for curiosity-based information seeking than non-journalism students, who, instead, used social media for entertainment or just “passing time” more often. Also, journalism students used Linkedin and YouTube in greater proportions than non-journalism students, who, conversely, used Tumblr and Snapchat in greater proportions. These findings offer insights into how journalism students think about and approach social media and can aid in the development of course assignments that will optimize the use of social media as a reporting tool.
Back to the Future: Vocational Anticipatory Socialization and High School Journalism • Marina Hendricks, University of Missouri-Columbia • This study explores the impact of vocational anticipatory socialization (VAS) on university students’ pursuit of journalism as a major and a potential career path. A qualitative analysis of 15 interviews looks at VAS influencers and experiences of these students during their pre-university years, with an emphasis on high school journalism involvement. Study that promotes understanding of young journalists should be vital for educational institutions serving this demographic, and for news organizations planning to employ it.
The Best Medium for the Story: A Case Study of Integrated Student Media • Patrick Howe, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo • This study explores the changes that occurred at one large college student media outlet after it combined several distinct media to form a fully integrated newsroom. It draws on participant observation, in-depth interviews, examinations of Web and social media analytics and written analysis performed by student leaders to identify key objectives and outcomes. It explores obstacles, both cultural and technological, that arose, and it identifies opportunities for others to serve audiences using a similar approach.
Journalists’ and Journalism Students’ Conceptions of Journalistic Roles: Potential for Change? • Tim Vos, University of Missouri; Marina Hendricks, University of Missouri-Columbia; David Wolfgang, University of Missouri • Based on Bourdieu’s field theory, this survey-based study examines views on normative journalistic roles from one kind of new entrant – the journalism students (N = 591) who will presumably represent the next generation of journalists – and compares those views with professional journalists’ (N = 414) assessment of normative roles. The results show that journalism students hold significantly different views on normative roles compared to their more veteran counterparts.
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