New citizen media projects foster Rising Voices

(RV) In January we received over 270 proposals from activists, bloggers, and NGO’s all wanting to use citizen media tools to bring new communities – long ignored by both traditional and new media – to the conversational web. It was, by far, the highest number of proposals Rising Voices has ever received in its two-year history of supporting citizen media training projects. The growing interest in citizen media from civil society shows that we truly are undergoing a major transformation in how we inform ourselves about the rest of the world and who is able to contribute that information.

Of the 270 project proposals, the following five are most representative of the innovation, purpose and goodwill that Rising Voices aims to support… READ IT

The State of the News Media 2009

The State of the News Media 2009 is the sixth edition of the annual report on the health and status of American journalism.

The report includes A Year in the News, a comprehensive content analysis of media performance based on more than 70,000 stories from 48 news outlets across five media sectors, as well as a special look at Hispanic and African American media and an Interactive Topline that lets users explore the data for themselves. This year’s study also includes special reports on Lessons of the Election, New Ventures online, a content analysis of Citizen Media in 46 communities. And coming soon: a Survey of Online Journalists and a look back at Campaign Coverage.

The report is the work of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, a nonpolitical, nonpartisan research institute. The study is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and was produced with the help of a number of authors and collaborators , including Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute and a host of industry readers.

The full report is comprehensive, totaling nearly 180,000 words.

LexisNexis and Google News provide different portraits of the news agenda

Researchers who rely on electronic library archives of print news to provide valid portraits of the news may be exposing themselves to unintended biases in their findings.

Studies are vulnerable to underestimating the number and distribution of news stories in circulation if they rely on databases such as LexisNexis. Newly emergent topics with potentially significant public policy implications may be particularly vulnerable.

Agenda-setting research and other studies often rely on LexisNexis to indicate what stories ran in major news outlets, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other big-city newspapers. Sometimes research assumes that decisions by leading papers about what to cover will also be reflected in the stories “downstream.” New research challenges that assumption.

This study sought to assess this problem by comparing the results of parallel searches in LexisNexis and Google News for stories about new technologies loosely termed “nanotechnology.” Nanotechnology involves the manipulation of materials at the scale of the nanometer, or one-billionth of a meter, and has been a major emphasis of federal research funding for nearly a decade.

The data, which was collected between Jan. 2006 and Aug. 2007, shows Google News and LexisNexis give different portraits of how many stories were carried in the top ten news papers, and correspondingly different pictures of what the major developments were in this period.

Google News found many stories in local media outlets as well as in the ten largest newspapers that LexisNexis did not. The problem was not large for The New York Times, where the correspondence between the two databases was actually quite good. However, LexisNexis found only about half the stories in the other major papers that Google News found, and the divergence between the two was huge for local news. Not only is this bad news for researchers who rely on LexisNexis for a valid search of all news that reached readers, it is bad news for research relying on The New York Times as a proxy for the rest of the media agenda.

Wire service stories from sources such as the Associated Press, UPI, and Reuters are the source of much of this discrepancy. For most of the period of the study, Google News captured wire service stories as they were published online. However, LexisNexis strips wire stories from its records of the news outlet, only recording the original publisher of the story, the wire service itself. Loss of information by LexisNexis about where wire stories actually were carried by newspapers can create a substantial problem for researchers who want to know what news actually reached the public.

This research does not claim that LexisNexis is inherently inferior to Google News or any other sophisticated web-based search engine. Rather, journalists and scholars alike should consider their goals in their writing and research and seek out several sources of information from local to national levels to better understand emerging topics of potential interest to readers and policymakers.

Contact: David A. Weaver, Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, Telephone: 805-893-3432, E-mail: daweaver@umail.ucsb.edu

David A. Weaver and Bruce Bimber, “Finding News Stories: A Comparison of Searches Using LexisNexis and Google New,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Autumn 2008, 85:3

• For more information about Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
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• Download a PDF version of this article.
• You can find more “Research You Can Use” HERE

Research You Can Use is produced by a volunteer group of faculty and staff within the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The group selects new research from AEJMC refereed journals that may interest journalists. Journalists may use the releases for stories or for continuing education.

A PDF version of all participating articles are available for download. For a reprint, contact the person cited or Jennifer McGill, Executive Director, AEJMC, 234 Outlet Pointe Blvd., Ste. A, Columbia, SC 29210-5667, e-mail: AEJMCHQ@aol.com, telephone: (803) 798-0271. For more information about the Research You Can Use project, please contact Mich Sineath, e-mail: AEJMCpr@aol.com.

Ethics are easy when nothing is at stake

By Michael Bugeja, Director, Greenlee School, Iowa State University

The Iowa State Daily has a strong online, new media presence, with video, audio and text in an innovative design that also is easy to navigate.

Things should be looking up, but revenue is down.

The Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication has a historic relationship with the independent student newspaper, housed in the same building. Many on staff are our students. Alumni who won Pulitzer Prizes worked there. Our top benefactors have been editors.

But mostly we want the Daily to succeed because it holds the university (and at times, us) accountable.

In addition to directing the School, I am a former college media adviser at Oklahoma State University. For a decade now, my research in media ethics and my reporting for The Chronicle of Higher Education (and other outlets) have analyzed how Internet has changed the nature of journalism and education.

I have argued that journalism, especially print, would lose readers to the point of economic collapse because of the conventions of Internet, a medium that gives away information for free (especially timely information) and vends information about information that sells more than once.

All those presentations at AEJMC conventions about Information Centers replacing newsrooms failed to factor the nature of the platform developed by military, enhanced by entrepreneurs and promoted by the same consultants who catered to Wall Street rather than Main Street and are architects of our woes.

I take no pleasure in being proved correct when prophesying our present state of affairs in print media, mostly in my 2005 book, Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age (Oxford University Press). Read more

Sex column causes controversy; First Amendment issues raised

State of Health Care Journalism

A survey of members of the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ), conducted in partnership with AHCJ, and the report, The State of Health Journalism in the U.S., authored by Gary Schwitzer of the University of Minnesota School of Journalism, detail how the financial pressures on the media industry and the fierce competition to break news on new and expanding platforms on the Internet are affecting the quality of health reporting. The difficulties cited in the reports have caused many in the industry to worry about the loss of in-depth, detailed reporting and the influence of public relations and advertising that could color news content. The turmoil in the news business is affecting all beats in journalism, not just health. Indeed, although AHCJ members report facing many difficulties in the current climate, they are more optimistic about the future of health journalism in particular than they are about journalism in general.

The full survey and report can be viewed online. They were released at a Washington, DC discussion on the future of health journalism featuring a panel of experts and health journalists including20Trudy Lieberman, president, Association of Health Care Journalists and director, Health and Medical Reporting Program, City University of New York; Gary Schwitzer, associate professor, School of Journalism, University of Minnesota, and director, HealthNewsReview.org; Jonathan Cohn, health policy blogger and senior editor, The New Republic; Laurie McGinley, executive editor, Kaiser Health News and former deputy bureau chief for global economics and national health care policy correspondent, Wall Street Journal; January Payne, associate editor, Health Section, U.S. News & World Report. A webcast of the briefing can be viewed later today.

Key findings from the survey of AHCJ members include:

• Ninety-four percent of survey respondents say the bottom line pressure in media organizations is seriously hurting the quality of news coverage of health care issues;
• Forty percent of staff reporters in the survey say the number of health reporters at their organization has gone down since they’ve been there, and 11% of respondents say they personally have been laid off over the past few years due to downsizing. Thirty-nine percent of respondents who are still in the business believe it is at least somewhat likely that their posit ion will be eliminated in the next few years.
• But while only 24% of respondents think journalism in general is going in the right direction in this country, they are more evenly split about the future of health journalism in particular (52% say right direction, 48% say wrong).
• Nearly nine in ten (88%) survey respondents think health care coverage leans too much toward short “quick hit” stories, and two-thirds (64%) say the trend toward shorter stories has gotten worse in the past few years.
• A majority of respondents (52%) say there is too much coverage of consumer or lifestyle health, and too little of health policy (70%), health care quality (70%), and health disparities (69%).
• Just under half (44%) of staff journalists participating in the survey say that their organization sometimes (34%) or frequently (10%) bases stories on news releases without substantial additional reporting.
• About one in 10 staff journalists in the survey (11%) say his or her own organization sometimes or frequently allows advertisers, sales staff or sponsors to influence story selection or content and more than a quarter of respondents (28%) say they personally get story ideas from public relations firms or marketing outreach somewhat or very often.

Cable news networks utilize crawls to promote, but journalistic integrity preserved

A comparative content analysis of CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC examined the extent to which the cable news networks used their crawls or “tickers” for promotional purposes.

The study found that two of the three networks (CNN, Fox) used their tickers for some overt self-promotion, but used them infrequently as synergistic tools for their parent companies (e.g. to cross-promote other parent company holdings). The results suggest that journalistic integrity within this news space has been preserved for the present time.

Baseline information on the nature of news crawls revealed some interesting patterns. For instance, news ticker structure often mirrored that of a news rundown with topical “blocks” such as hard news, entertainment, and sports, followed by a “tease” (a promotion).

The cable networks’ tickers varied in their utility as well. For instance, at the time of data collection, MSNBC’s news crawl offered the highest proportion of hard news, while Fox News’ ticker offered the most depth (i.e. level of detail per story), and CNN’s ticker offered the greatest breadth (i.e. variety of stories).

Amy Jo Coffey and Johanna Cleary, “Valuing New Media Spaces: Are Cable Network News Crawls Cross-Promotional Agents?” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Winter 2008, 85:4

Contact: Amy Jo Coffey, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida, acoffey@jou.ufl.edu, 352.392.6522.

• For more information about Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
• Download a PDF version of this press release.
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• You can find more “Research You Can Use” HERE

Research You Can Use is produced by a volunteer group of faculty and staff within the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The group selects new research from AEJMC refereed journals that may interest journalists. Journalists may use the releases for stories or for continuing education.

A PDF version of all participating articles are available for download. For a reprint, contact the person cited or Jennifer McGill, Executive Director, AEJMC, 234 Outlet Pointe Blvd., Ste. A, Columbia, SC 29210-5667, e-mail: AEJMCHQ@aol.com, telephone: (803) 798-0271. For more information about the Research You Can Use project, please contact Mich Sineath, e-mail: AEJMCpr@aol.com.

Content of newspaper stories tied to attributes of activist groups

Analysis of newspaper stories mentioning environmental groups showed that some attributes of the activists was tied to more positive portrayals of the groups.

Overall, the news articles were slightly positive in portrayal of the environmental groups. Findings indicate that environmental groups pursuing conservation goals received more positive coverage, and groups interacting more with government or possessing more resources received less positive coverage.

This study combined surveys from 37 environmental groups with 716 newspaper articles mentioning groups, all from Western Washington.

Michael R. McCluskey, “Activist Group Attributes and Their Influences on News Portrayal,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Winter 2008, 85:4

Contact: Michael McCluskey, School of Communication, Ohio State University, telephone: 614-247-2754, e-mail: mccluskey.14@osu.edu

• For more information about Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
• Download a PDF version of this press release.
• Download a PDF version of this article.
• You can find more “Research You Can Use” HERE

Research You Can Use is produced by a volunteer group of faculty and staff within the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The group selects new research from AEJMC refereed journals that may interest journalists. Journalists may use the releases for stories or for continuing education.

A PDF version of all participating articles are available for download. For a reprint, contact the person cited or Jennifer McGill, Executive Director, AEJMC, 234 Outlet Pointe Blvd., Ste. A, Columbia, SC 29210-5667, e-mail: AEJMCHQ@aol.com, telephone: (803) 798-0271. For more information about the Research You Can Use project, please contact Mich Sineath, e-mail: AEJMCpr@aol.com.

Mapping the size and scope of nonprofit magazine publishing

A new study begins to shed some light on a vast but largely unexplored part of the communications industry and suggests that this sector, made up of nonprofit magazines and journals, could provide some clues about the future direction of the media.

Drawing on data from the Internal Revenue Service and other sources, the study shows that more than 8,000 nonprofit organizations report advertising revenue from periodicals. The research, published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, indicates that nonprofit magazine publishers exceed their for profit counterparts in number, although not in revenue.

Nonprofit alternatives have recently attracted attention as financial results have deteriorated for traditional media operations, in part because of changing technology. The study cautions that the “specific business practices, work routines, and editorial strategies of nonprofit magazines are unlikely to translate directly to other media sectors.”

But the article, “Mapping the Size and Scope of a Nonprofit Media Sector: The Case of Magazine Publishing,” argues that nonprofit publishers operate in different social and economic paradigms that bear further study. “The collapse of the newspaper classifieds business demonstrates the danger of failing to include a social or community dimension in an analysis of an economic transaction, but the interplay of financial and nonfinancial factors is poorly understood,” the article says.

Findings in the study include:

• Nonprofit magazines are published by a wide range of organizations, including professional and trade associations, educational and cultural institutions, quasi-government agencies, labor unions and charitable groups.
• Nonprofit publishing is especially popular among business groups, which account for 47 of the 100 largest nonprofit publishers.
• The nonprofit magazine sector is highly concentrated, with fewer than 70 entities, less than 1 percent of the total, responsible for almost 40 percent of all advertising revenue.
• The editorial focus of nonprofit magazines differs significantly from that of for profit magazines. The top three categories of magazine content in the nonprofit sector are business, health/medicine, and hobbies/leisure while the top three in the for profit sector are entertainment/celebrity, wearing apparel, and food/nutrition.
• Nonprofit magazines are frequently offered as part of a portfolio of member benefits as opposed to standalone products.
• Nonprofits seem to have disproportionate influence in some areas such as health and medicine, where they generate a far greater number of research citations compared to for profit publications.
• Existing public policy, especially the tax on periodical advertising sold by nonprofit organizations, may serve to discourage the growth of this sector.

The article suggests a number of areas for possible future research, including the social impact of nonprofit periodicals and the effect of organizational form on advertising content.

Miles Maguire, “Mapping the Size and Scope of a Nonprofit Media Sector: The Case of Magazine Publishing,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Autumn 2008, 85:3.

CONTACT: Miles Maguire, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, 920-424-7148,maguirem@uwosh.edu

• For more information about Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
• Download a PDF version of this press release.
• Download a PDF version of this article.
• You can find more “Research You Can Use” HERE

Research You Can Use is produced by a volunteer group of faculty and staff within the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The group selects new research from AEJMC refereed journals that may interest journalists. Journalists may use the releases for stories or for continuing education.

A PDF version of all participating articles are available for download. For a reprint, contact the person cited or Jennifer McGill, Executive Director, AEJMC, 234 Outlet Pointe Blvd., Ste. A, Columbia, SC 29210-5667, e-mail: AEJMCHQ@aol.com, telephone: (803) 798-0271. For more information about the Research You Can Use project, please contact Mich Sineath, e-mail: AEJMCpr@aol.com.

Science for everybody?

Is the market for science reporting an underestimated one? At least in Germany the mass media have seen an unprecedented boom in science journalism in recent years whereas in other countries experts diagnose a “crisis” of science reporting. Interestingly this boom seems not to be limited to the science sections itself.

An analysis of three nationwide German newspapers at the Chair of Science Journalism at Dortmund University quantified an overall increase of science reporting by 48% between 2003-2004 and 2006-2007. Outside the science sections the amount of articles about science, medicine and technology has even more than doubled within this short time period (increase by 136 %). A remarkable increase could be observed especially of articles dealing with environmental issues (counting for about 6.4 % in the first and 15.0 % in the second investigation period. However, constantly medicine is by far the most popular scientific topic in the newspapers (with about 28%).

In their investigation of a total of 4077 science articles published within the 26 weeks of observation the authors of the study, Christina Elmer, Franziska Badenschier and Holger Wormer, also analysed the probable reasons for science reporting as well as its evaluative tone. Although scientific journals or congresses are still important as a “trigger” for science reporting about 40 % of the analysed articles were prompted by non-scientific events (such as political debates or natural disasters). An inappropriately negative tone in science reporting, as it is often assumed by scientists, could not be observed. By far most of the reporting about scientific issues was positive and often uncritical. However, the evaluative tone differed from subject to subject, e.g. science politics, medicine or environmental issues got more critical coverage than other topics.

While nobody can be sure that the observed popularity of science issues will continue in today’s all dominating “financial crisis” the findings suggest that editors and other experts at three important German broadsheet seemed to be in a kind of agreement that science could sell newspapers – which may be true also for other media in other countries where science issues are perhaps less regarded to be interesting for nearly “everybody”.

To read more: Christina Elmer, Franziska Badenschier, Holger Wormer, “Science for Everybody? How the Coverage of Research Issues in German Newspapers Has Increased Dramatically,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 85, No.4, 878-893.

We thank the Volkswagen Foundation for some funding in the context of this study.

Contact: Holger Wormer, Chair of Science Journalism, Institute and School of Journalism, Dortmund University (Germany), telephone: +49 231 755-6231 or -4152, holger.wormer@udo.edu

• For more information about Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
• Download a PDF version of this press release.
• Download a PDF version of this article.
• You can find more “Research You Can Use” HERE

Research You Can Use is produced by a volunteer group of faculty and staff within the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The group selects new research from AEJMC refereed journals that may interest journalists. Journalists may use the releases for stories or for continuing education.

A PDF version of all participating articles are available for download. For a reprint, contact the person cited or Jennifer McGill, Executive Director, AEJMC, 234 Outlet Pointe Blvd., Ste. A, Columbia, SC 29210-5667, e-mail: AEJMCHQ@aol.com, telephone: (803) 798-0271. For more information about the Research You Can Use project, please contact Mich Sineath, e-mail: AEJMCpr@aol.com.

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