The South by Southwest Interactive Conference & Festival is more than just a social and media technologies conference. It’s an experience. More than 15,000 people descended upon Austin this year (its eighteenth) to attend more than 250 panels and keynotes, browse the Screenburn Arcade, visit the Trade Show and attend the countless parties and networking events.

As a member of the Advisory Board and an 18-year attendee, I’ve watched the conference morph and change over the years, reflecting the evolution of the technology world. SXSW Interactive has moved from the developer and programming centric businesses and towards the social and media created businesses (that rely, of course, on the developers and programmers). However, the Geek Spirit still rules the roost in Austin. (For instance, more than 800 people lined up for a panel on analytics.)

To help capture the spirit of innovation and thinking for Tech Meme, I decided to forgo the normal panel and keynote recaps. Instead, I spent five minutes with some of the smartest people I know and asked them one question: In the media sphere they operate, what’s the most interesting thing they see.

What follows are their unedited responses. I hope you enjoy.

JOURNALIST

Evan Ratliff, Writer (New York City, NY)

Ratliff is a freelance feature writer and in 2010 he was nominated for a National Magazine Award in Feature Writing for his amazing piece, “Vanish,” that appeared in Wired. He’s a brilliant guy (so brilliant I can’t tell you the coolest project he’s working on) with interesting ideas about long-form stories.

Shane Richmond, Head of Technology – Editorial, Telegraph Media Group (London, England)

Richmond is in charge of developing editorial products at The Telegraph, a national paper in England. A trained journalist, Shane became the defacto community manager for The Telegraph before taking over the role of managing the community outreach teams.

Eric Hellweg, Editorial Director, Harvard Business Digital (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Four years ago, Eric took over the online operations of the Harvard Business Review. His charge: help overhaul the print business, preparing it for the digital transition. Within the last year, the site and magazine were re-launched, and they are now poised to move forward with a modern publishing process.

WRITERS

Andrea Phillips, Alternate Reality Game Writer (Long Island, NY)

Phillips was one of the writers on the Alternate Reality Game Perplex City, a complex story created by Mind Candy (and the esteemed Hon brothers, Adrian and Dan of Six To Start). She thinks deeply about story, narrative, technology and interactivity.

Nina Steiger, Writers’ Center Director, The Soho Theater (London, England)

A few years ago, Nina was charged with finding ways to integrate emerging technologies into the theater experience. A writer and artist at heart, though, she was adamant that the traditional experience of theater not be changed. She set out on an exploration of how the “art of theater” might expand, change and morph to include emerging technologies.

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATORS

Travis Kalanick, Investor (Los Angeles, CA)

Kalanick is one of the original founders of Scour.com, the first popular file-trading network. Different than Napster, Scour allowed people to transfer audio, video, images and any kind of file. Of course, it ended up in the same litigious spot as Napster. But Kalanick took the idea of Scour and transformed it into Red Swoosh, an edge-of-the-network delivery system eventually purchased by Akamai. Now, he’s an angel investor and world travel. (Side note: There’s a special appearance by Gary Vaynerchck as well.)

Brian Zisk, Co-Founder, Collecta (San Francisco, CA)

Brian is a serial entrepreneur. He helped Jenny launch the Future of Music Coalition, but that’s just one of dozens of ventures he’s been involved. He helped launch Greenwich Radio and Ogg Vorbis, an open source alternative to MP3s (which is one of the reasons MP3 compression remains free). These days, he’s working with Collecta, a real-time search and widget application.

Toby Padilla, Vice President of Mobile for TweetDeck

Toby is the recently-hired VP for Mobile strategy at TweetDeck, the desktop application that helped move Twitter from an interesting mobile experiment into a full-fledged information system. The “social media” dashboard enables users to search, update and archive Tweets and Facebook posts. More importantly, Padilla knows how people use this tool, giving him great insight into emerging trends.

Tim Malbon, founding partner, Made by Many (London, England)

Made by Many builds custom publishing platforms, creates media on that platform and manages the community for companies. Most notably, they built The Telegraph’s platform for social media and blogging. Full disclosure: I edited about a minute from our discussion because I asked him a question about a platform the company built that isn’t public knowledge because they White Label their work. Rest assured, it’s awesome.

Michael Adamson, Vice President of Sports New Products and Services, Turner Sports, (Atlanta, GA)

Adamson is in charge of developing new products for Turner Sports, which recently has involved examining the ways in which people interact with sports information on mobile platforms.

Stephanie Frost-Rocca and Eric Wolf, Zero-G Creative (Atlanta, GA)

Frost-Rocca and Wolf work for Zero-G Creative, a digital advertising agency that targets small businesses. The two recently published a book on marketing for small businesses, Marketing Unmasked (http://marketingunmasked.com/), and they also have a podcast, Gravity Free Radio (http://gravityfreeradio.com/), to go with it.

FUNDING

Jenny Toomey, Program Officer for Media and Cultural Policy, Ford Foundation (Washington, DC/New York City, NY)

An accomplished musician, Toomey may be best known for starting the Future of Music Coalition, an independent musician rights organization. Over the years, she’s been actively involved in health care issues for artists, copyright legislation, low power radio and other “access” issues. Now, she’s in charge of a grant program through the Ford Foundation that seeks to fund groups working towards ubiquitous, high-speed Internet access and Net Neutrality.

EDUCATION

Sarah Krueger, Marketing Specialist, RGK Foundation at the University of Texas (Austin, TX)

The RGK Foundation is a collegiate philanthropic organization that seeks to fund ideas college students have to change the world. A marketing specialist for the grant program, she uses social media to reach out to college students around the world.

Brian Sheridan, Professor, Mercyhurst College (Erie, Pennsylvania)

I met Brian a few years ago after giving a talk to the regional conference of the Society of Professional Journalists. Since then, he’s been working on teaching his students emerging technologies and storytelling techniques to better prepare them for life in the digital age.

Brad King is an assistant professor of Journalism and an Emerging Media Fellow at Ball State University. He is also on the advisory boards for South by Southwest Interactive and Carnegie Mellon’s ETC Press.

• http://www.thebradking.com (personal)
• http://www.thedudeman.net (teaching)
• http://www.thecultofme.com (book)

International Communication • Comparative communication research, an inherent part of international communication studies, is receiving increasing attention from communication scholars, funding organizations and publications. Technological, political and economical developments of the late 20th century, combined with increased global media and transnationalism, have elevated the subject of comparative research to new prominence.

Comparative communication research has also faced its share of critics. There are those who doubt the accuracy of cross-national and cross-cultural comparisons, who fear reductionism and the lack of theoretical base in such studies. In a wide range of studies, cross-national communication researchers have recently undertaken major efforts to address such methodological and theoretical challenges. These projects bring innovation and a better understanding of communication phenomena, cultures and initiatives.

I recently interviewed Thomas Hanitzsch, professor of communication studies at the University of Munich and author of several pieces on comparative communication studies, to get his insight on some important advancements in the field. According to Hanitzsch, “There is a growing awareness of the fact that most of our research is of western origin. And even within the west, concepts are often differently understood in different national settings.” He added that, “Universality of concepts and measurements is something that cannot be assumed but must be established. Researchers have become much more careful in the cross-cultural application of their concepts.” Hanitzsch pointed out that equivalence of concepts, method, administration and meaning are essential in such studies.

Among other methodological challenges raised by comparative communication studies is the identification of the unit of analysis. If communication and information flow across national borders, then would the nation be a proper unit of analysis? Some claim that if the subject being analyzed surpasses such borders, then perhaps other cultural, geographic or linguistic units of analysis would be better. On the defense of the nation as the unit of analysis, the argument is that that policies, structures and cultures are still very much based on the nation.

Hanitzsch sees a trend toward sophistication and reflection among those who are embarking in the study of comparative communication. “Today, many researchers see the urgency of situating their studies in a theoretical perspective that guides their research strategies (design, selection of cases etc.) and facilitates their interpretations. Data analysis has also become much more sophisticated with important methodological inventions,” he said. Such innovations include “fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, as well as various statistical techniques to model cultural differences such as scaling, multilevel modeling or multi-group structural equation modeling.“

One of the important advancements made in comparative research mentioned by Hanitzsch was the establishment of “collaborative links to other disciplines that have a much longer tradition of comparative research, such as sociology, political science, psychology and anthropology. We are fast learners, though it takes time to catch up and incorporate the new conceptual and methodological know-how.”

Facilitated by conferences such as those promoted by AEJMC, as well as by communication technologies, communication scholars have formed and maintained international networks for collaborative efforts within the communication discipline. Hanitzsch said that technology has also made it easier for the management of large international projects, including his own cross-national comparison of 22 countries.

There are currently several innovative and ambitious projects underway in our field. Hanitzsch offered a selection of some comparative research he finds particularly innovative. “Space allows pointing to only a few examples: Daniel Hallin and Paolo Manicini’s work on western media systems has proved extremely influential, and it inspired others to do similar work. Drawing on surveys from 90 countries, Pippa Norris recently explored the field of global media and cultural convergence. Akiba Cohen and Pamela Shoemaker just published the results of their ‘News around the World’ project, and Jesper Strömbäck has done a lot comparative research on election coverage across countries. In the area of journalism research, David Weaver and Lars Willnat are recently putting together the second edition of the ‘Global Journalist,’ and our own project, the ‘Worlds of Journalisms’ study, has already grown into a collaborative endeavor of researchers from 22-nations.”

Hanitzsch offered some helpful resources for comparative studies, such as the Freedom House, IREX and Globalbarometer Surveys. Together with Frank Esser, he is also editing a handbook of comparative communication research, which is scheduled to be published in 2011.

With careful consideration to methodological issues and thorough analysis, comparative communication research promotes better understanding of our own media and communication system, as well as the increasingly necessary understanding of other cultures (and the intersection of both). Such research is also important for testing the generalizability of theories. With some of these recent innovations and a more careful look into the restrictions and challenges of comparative communication research, scholars are forging a path, as diverse as the field of communication itself, to new endeavors.

Graduate Education • Similar to Breed’s (1955) description of how newsroom socialization happens by “osmosis,” graduate students also learn by keenly listening and watching the habits, routines, and accepted norms of the faculty and administration at their respective institutions. Open faculty meetings, job talks, interactions at the copier, advising, and co-authoring research papers are a few ways we are molded and shaped into academicians. At conferences, we give paper presentations side-by-side tenured faculty and our peers. We receive feedback on teaching evaluations as if we were faculty. When submitting a manuscript, we receive the same peer review as if we were all endowed chairs. We hope.

There is value in this equality; it allows us to know and experience the world of academia as a student with the clear reality of what it may be like in a faculty position, if we watch and take the time to listen and work with faculty who are willing to share their time, insights, and expertise with us. So much of navigating class schedules, teaching loads, research agendas, and leadership involvement is being able to watch someone else do it, ask questions, and learn through the process so that there are not disillusions or unrealistic expectations.

I’ve come to realize the importance of thinking outside the day-to-day crunch. I am lucky enough to work with an advisor who demonstrates persistence, constant teaching refinery, foresight in planning for conference deadlines, and consistent manuscript preparation for the “pipeline.” Without the big picture, I get easily consumed by term paper deadlines, comprehensive exam preparation, and getting grades turned around, not to mention writing the dissertation.

As graduate students, we hear a lot about the idealism of balance between work and life, but we also need to hear about how to find balance within our work so that we exit our programs competitive for the job market. We may have a new class prep every term, while taking four graduate classes on top of that, yet we still need guidance and encouragement to present our research to colleagues outside of our institution, to sit in on research presentations at conferences, and to get our feet wet in the manuscript submission process.

It may feel overwhelming, but that is where the faculty socialization and guidance becomes key. How transparent can our advisors and mentors be with us? How honest and inquisitive can we be in return? Department cultures and faculty/student relationships are variable and there is not a standard protocol, yet we should be certain that we are getting out of our programs what we want to. Sure, as stated earlier, some of the learning takes place by osmosis, but much requires a unique combination of active pursuits and mentoring.

Not only is it key (and perhaps very beneficial) for faculty members to involve us, but we may need to initiate contact and reach out to faculty, to inquire about potential co-authoring ventures, or volunteer time to be a part of a grant project. In turn, faculty members may think broader about how to create opportunities for graduate students and how to utilize us a resource for energy, new ideas and budding knowledge, and an enthusiasm for tackling challenges.

References:
Breed, W. (1997). Social control in the newsroom: A functional analysis. In D. Berkowitz (Ed.), Social meaning of news: A text-reader (pp. 107-122). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

History • Among the widespread upheaval underway in journalism is a redefinition of the role of the academy in journalism education. Outright scorn for the study of journalism in college and universities has long been one of the odd and rather remarkable features of the journalism profession. It is hard to think of any other professional occupation in which it practitioners denigrated what students could learn if they studied a field as their undergraduate majors. Students interested in journalism were urged by professionals to study something else. The journalism was best learned on the job, the argument went.

Well, those days are over. Nobody pretends that any organization has the time or resources to teach entry-level journalists the tools of the trade. In fact, the opposite is true. The most common entry-level position in broadcast news is that of a backpack journalist, somebody who can report, use the camera, and edit the package. These are skills learned in journalism school these days, not in the field. In fact, for the first time, I have heard several job seekers report that people in the field are telling them to get masters degrees in journalism and master’s degrees give people a big advantage in the job search.

But teaching skills is only a very small part of what the academy is being call on to do in this time of crisis. The new technology is posing a challenge to the entire culture of journalism. Increasingly, what journalism is and what journalism should be is not being defined in the field. It will have to be defined, at least in part, in the academy. These was a time when different newspapers and other media organizations used to have their own newsroom cultures. For a long time, the name Henry Grady really meant something at the Atlanta Constitution—and it meant something long after Henry Grady had passed away. The Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, even the Baltimore Sun had long and storied histories. Recently, a veteran columnist for the Sun recalled the thrill she felt when she first started at the Sun and sat at H.L. Mencken’s desk. Young journalists could learn the lore of their newspapers from seasoned veterans.

These days, seasoned veterans more likely to take buy outs (if they are not laid off) than acculturate younger journalists. And I think that it is telling that the names of Grady, Medill and others live on as the names of journalism schools, rather than as living memories in newsrooms.

With the utter devastation to and depletion of the senior ranks of journalists, it is up to the academy to define journalism and draw our students into its culture. Journalism cannot be reduced to a set of technical skills. It is a way of looking at the world, a way that has changed over time as conditions have changed. Those of us in the academy are the only ones now positioned to take the long view of what journalism was, is and should be. We are the stewards of the culture of journalism.

Ironically, the academy is not that well positioned to teach the new technical skills currently in demand. As soon as we could get course about Web design on the books, we had to worry about blogs and then Twitter. As soon as we got non-linear editing suites, we had to worry about mobile devices. What we are well-positioned to do is to educate our students that as they become journalists, while the tools they have at their disposal are new, the way that journalists go about doing their jobs, and have gone about doing their jobs, and why they go about doing their jobs the way they do, is anchored in a long and contentious history. While convergence and citizen news and instant feedback may be new, people have thought about, and worried about, the role of journalism in society for a long time. Some have even given up their lives for their belief in the need to bear witness as a journalist.

In 2005, Michael Yon, a former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces went to Iraq with the intention for staying for a month and blogging about his experience. He wound up being embedded with U.S. troops longer than any journalist. When he first started, Yon has remarked, he did not know the “rules of journalism,” but over time he came to see himself as a journalist. That is the challenge for the academy in creating and maintaining the culture of journalism. How do we get our students to see themselves as journalists? If we can succeed there, it will make little difference if they deliver the news via print, broadcasts, Web, blog, Twitter or whatever comes next. They will see the world as journalists.

While journalism may be being reinvented today, it is not being reinvented for the first time. Journalism is being fashioned from something that already exists. Helping our students understand what exists and why it exists will help them fashion the future.

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender • Members of the GLBT community were both shocked and disheartened to learn on November 17, 2009, that the Washington Blade had ceased publication.

The weekly gay and lesbian newspaper’s two dozen staff members had arrived at their offices at the National Press Building in downtown Washington, D.C., the previous morning to start a new workweek, only to be told they should clear out their desks by that afternoon.

During its 40-year history, the free weekly placed its emphasis or thorough and accurate news coverage, building a reputation as the newspaper of record for the GLBT community nationwide. By last year, the Blade had more than 250,000 unique visitors coming to its Web site each month.

The paper had been born as a single, mimeographed sheet in 1969, just a few months after the Stonewall Rebellion in New York City that marked the beginning of the militant phase of the movement for gay and lesbian rights. The Blade remained in community hands for thirty years, shifting to newsprint and growing heftier and heftier as the movement gained momentum and an increasing number of mainstream businesses saw the wisdom of appealing to GLBT consumers.
A major change in the paper’s history came in 2001 when it became part of Atlanta-based Window Media. That corporation’s multiple holdings included the Southern Voice newspaper in Atlanta and the South Florida Blade newspaper. All of the publications died on the same day the Washington Blade did. Earlier in the year, Window Media also had closed down its online-only Houston Voice newspaper.

After the Blade closed, GLBT newspapers in other cities began telling their readers why it had happened.

Gay City News, which is based in New York City, pointed to “bad business decisions” on the part of the owners of Window Media. Those investors bought multiple publications “based on the same sort of leverage-to-the-hilt mentality that is plaguing our economy everywhere,” the News continued.

Bay Windows in Boston said the Blade was a casualty not of the Internet or the global economic downturn but of “corporate greed and mismanagement.” The Boston paper went on to say “Window Media was blind and deaf to the needs of the local communities they were supposed to be serving,” while seeing the GLBT community “as a marketing demographic rather than a movement.”

The Philadelphia Gay News, in its coverage of the Blade’s death, also pointed to corporate ownership as the culprit. “Our job in the media—gay and non-gay—is to continue to evolve and serve our communities,” the Gay News wrote. “If we do that, keeping an eye on change, we’ll remain relevant and an asset to our communities.”

Window Media has been forced into Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and its majority stockholder, Avalon Equity Partners, has been placed in receivership by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Despite Window Media’s financial problems, the Washington Blade had continued to make a profit. “The Blade operated in the black,” editor Kevin Naff said. “We were a profitable business but where dragged down, tethered to this corporate entity that borrowed its way into oblivion.”
On the good-news front, former staff Blade staff members immediately got busy after their paper went under. A mere four days after losing their jobs, they produced a four-page, letter-sized publication named the DC Agenda. And two weeks after that, they were putting out a 40-page tabloid while also maintaining a Web presence.

Editor Naff has said Agenda staff members plan to incorporate as an employee-owned entity.

Law and Policy • People who commit acts of journalism might soon have limited protection from willy-nilly federal subpoenas.

It’s been a long road to getting a federal shield law passed by Congress, but journalism organizations, including AEJMC, have been dogged in their support of the free flow of information. Media law researchers, too, have played a key role in informing the debate. A federal shield law is closer to passage than ever before.

The Free Flow of Information Act, still under consideration by Congress as of early February, would provide journalists greater ability to protect their anonymous sources and notes from government intrusion by federal agencies. Already, 36 states and the District of Columbia offer some protection to journalists from state and local subpoenas. Without some protection, law enforcement agencies would demand any and all notes and anonymous sources, drying up crucial sources that turn to journalists to expose important public issues, such as “Deep Throat” helping Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein break Watergate.

A key area of debate for the federal shield law has been how to define “journalist.” Some thought that the definition should be narrow, limited to full-time paid reporters of media organizations. Others, however, felt that protection should be afforded to anyone acting as a journalist – gathering and disseminating information of general interest to the public, including freelancers and bloggers (see AEJMC’s statement from October supporting the broad definition).

Ultimately, the final proposed legislation provides protection for anyone acting as a journalist, whether working for a news organization or not.

Another key issue has been under what circumstances someone could hide information from the government. The Senate Judiciary Committee debated the measure for months as Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and others argued that it would enable terrorists to hide information that would endanger national security. Ultimately, provisions were provided in the final bill to allow governments to acquire information if it would endanger national security.

Also, some have argued that the law was unnecessary, that federal agencies rarely subpoena journalists for their anonymous sources or notes. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press provided examples of unnecessary subpoenas, but of course they would – they’re biased, right? That’s where scholarly research came into play.

RonNell Andersen Jones, an assistant professor of law at Brigham Young University, surveyed 761 newspaper and television organizations from around the country. She found that in 2006 those newsrooms had received a total of 3,062 subpoenas, of which 335 came from federal agencies. Extrapolated nationwide, that would be 774 federal subpoenas issued annually against journalists, double what was reported in a 2001 survey. One news organization had to deal with 160 subpoenas in one year. Two-thirds of journalists said government officials were increasingly relying on subpoenas to get information they could get elsewhere.

This study put numbers to what journalism organizations have been witnessing anecdotally: Journalists are increasingly becoming tools of law enforcement. This threatens journalists’ ability to promise confidentiality to sources that would provide information important to the public. It constricts the free flow of information.

Granted, not everyone agrees with shield laws for a number of reasons. Reporter’s privilege singles out journalists as special from the public and begins the slippery slope toward licensing (e.g., one senator suggested they define journalists as those certified or recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists, something SPJ leaders opposed vigorously).

Also, anonymous sources are often used more than necessary and readers aren’t that enthralled with them (see, for example, a study in the Fall 2009 issue of Newspaper Research Journal by Miglena Sternadori of the University of South Dakota and Esther Thorson of the University of Missouri-Columbia indicating that people rank stories with anonymous sources low in credibility).

Despite the disadvantages of shield laws, the reality is that on the street, day-to-day, protection is needed for people who gather and disseminate information important to understanding important societal problems.

Too often I hear from journalists who are scared witless about going to jail because government intimidation via subpoena. The list of journalism martyrs is too long to include here – Vanessa Leggett (168 days in jail), Josh Wolf (226 days in prison), Toni Locy (threatened with fines of $5,000 per day), and on and on. Too many federal government agencies have used subpoena power to take shortcuts, intimidate journalists, and stifle the public’s awareness of government wrongdoing.

A federal shield law is long overdue and is essential for the free flow of information in a democratic society.

Internships & Careers • The mission of the AEJMC Internships and Careers Interest Group is to research and discuss how JMC educators can help college students get into media and media-related careers after graduation. In tough economic times, this may be even more problematic than usual. Even worse, as we struggle through a tough economy, we also struggle with what mass media has become and will become.

How are media companies and job options changing? We all know legacy media are undergoing significant changes. Newspapers continue to struggle, in part because of how citizens access news and in part because of a loss of traditional revenue sources. Local market TV stations are likewise finding competition and technology issues eroding their audience. A recent college graduate’s experience is one good example of today’s realities. This student completed a degree in broadcast journalism about three years ago and was hired into a reporting position in a medium/small market, then moved within just over a year to a medium market, then to a Top 10 market. This upward movement within such a short period of time represents how much faster good TV news talent can move up today. She now sees an even more drastic reality, reporting that her station has laid off several good people in recent months. Further, while she has never had to one-man band herself, the last three reporters hired at her station are all one man band reporters—making one-third of her salary—and are much younger. The newest hire had just recently graduated from college. Again, this is in a Top 10 TV market.

In recent years, mass communication programs have been trying to redesign their curriculum to deal with ‘convergence.’ The focus was on how traditional media were working with each other and with Internet sites for new partnerships in newsgathering and distribution. Now, it has become obvious that there is much more going on than that. We have moved from the ‘audience’ using the media in a ‘lean back’ style to having ‘users’ involved in a ‘lean forward’ style. News or entertainment content creators no longer need traditional media outlets to get content to an audience. Educators and administrators in journalism and mass communication programs know this. What we may not know, here in the middle of the paradigm change, is how to adjust what we teach and how we advise our students toward getting into internships and careers.

The reality is, there still are plenty of internships and media jobs available, but the skills expected of graduating students and the places where they might be working are evolving. Media managers note that new hires need to be able to handle a wide variety of tasks and be very technology and computer savvy. Yet, these same managers also remind us that the basics are important. We should still be emphasizing good writing in mass communication programs. We should still help students understand the importance of networking and paying their dues. Managers still expect employees who are self-motivated and have a good attitude. In a time where there is a sense among educators that students coming into college sometimes expect a fun, easy job that makes a lot of money, media jobs are looking for people who can easily manage a variety of duties and put in a productive workday. The starting jobs may not be at a lower level than in the past in smaller markets, but salaries are clearly declining in larger markets, and work expectations are become more demanding. Maybe the concern should not be how many people can get jobs. Maybe the concern should be how many good students will want to do more work for less pay.

By Lori Blachford

Magazine • I have a bad case of the apps. Symptoms: shrinking wallet, trance-like episodes, thumb cramps. I’m not alone. Apple reports that iPhone and iPod Touch owners have downloaded more than 3 billion applications since the App Store launched July 2008.

And it’s not just Apple (although, iLovers by far rule the category with more than 100,000 options); apps are a growing business for all mobile devices. The Motorola Droid phone, which was introduced in November, already has surpassed 10,000 apps and is growing fast. Intel is working on apps for its netbooks.

There’s something for everyone. Apps can be fun (Lightsaber Unleashed; when you need the Force with you), practical (iHandy Level; no more crooked shelves), informative (DunkinDonutz Locator; name says it all), educational (NASA; great photos), and downright silly (iDragPaper; try to pull toilet paper off the roll in record time).

All those, and thousands more, including news junkie favorites like New York Times and NPR, are free. Other choices are available for a fee, starting at $1. For $29, you can even have the AP Stylebook on your phone. Can you say business expense?

Besides offering a new reason to put off grading, what significance do apps provide for journalism educators, especially those who specialize in magazines? Apps are an important evolutionary step in information delivery. They allow a publisher to reach readers in a whole new space, not just on the couch or the computer. Apps go where the phone goes: to the grocery store, on vacation, to the ballgame.

At a time when students must embrace an entrepreneurial attitude to survive in the rapidly changing media landscape, apps offer a great playground for new ideas. Stanford already offers a 10-week course in iPhone Application Development. But even without a course on the subject, we should all be talking about the role apps can play in service journalism and brand loyalty.

Good models already exist.

Some publications repackage information for mobile distribution. Wired has a product review app that includes video critiques and demos. Epicurious.com has an app with 27,000 recipes from Bon Appetit and Gourmet, including ingredient lists and user rankings.

Others offer services beyond their standard content. Parents.com has an app with interactive flashcards for toddlers. If you wonder whether that qualifies as service, you’ve never had to entertain a squirmy 2-year-old at a church service.

GQ tried a new approach, turning the January 2010 issue into an app. I mean the whole thing; even the masthead. For $2.99, you can thumb through (actually using your thumb) pdfs of every spread in the magazine, ads included. Of course, the 2 x 3-inch screen can’t compete with the look of the 8 x 10 7/8-inch glossy magazine. Where the app wins is in multimedia offerings: more photos, behind-the-scenes videos, audio interview excerpts, interactive links to advertisers and featured products.

For a subscriber, the app doesn’t make much sense, but for someone who has never read the magazine or who usually buys random copies on the newsstand (at $4.50 an issue), the app has value.

But is it the model for the way we’ll read magazines in the future? Not likely. The surge of e-readers that will hit the market this summer is going to be the next step toward digital distribution. E-readers (or tablets or whatever name they go by) are closer to magazine size so the graphics can be equally glorious, not to mention animated.

Still, apps are here to stay since cell phones rule our world. And the apps development race is well underway. Magazines need to move quickly to not only meet but also anticipate the needs of readers. Those apps will dictate the way journalists gather information and the way publications separate themselves from competitors.

Expect more emphasis on audio and video; the phone screen is too tiny for long-form articles. One of my favorite features of the GQ app was a collection of audio outtakes from an interview with William Shatner. We hear the interviewer laughing and stumbling over a question. Shatner eats while he answers questions. It’s raw. It’s real. It’s fun.

And what better way to spark innovation than by having a little fun? You can get students’ creative juices flowing with Creative Whack Pack. It’s called a “creative workshop in an app.” Cost: $1.99. Thumb massage not included.

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is promoting the upcoming 2010 Denver Conference August 4-7 at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel in Denver, Colorado, with the launch of a new conference website, http://www.AEJMCDenver.org.

The new website utilizes the latest blogging software and new media tools available to help attendees keep in touch with people and events throughout the four-day conference. The new website will showcase complete conference coverage and help attendees:

• learn about news and sessions by day of the week and by topic;
• connect with fellow attendees and add events through message boards;
• find information about travel accommodations, including dining and nightlife;
• keep up-to-date with available marketing of books, products and services.

The 2010 AEJMC Denver Conference will feature sessions and panels on the latest research, teaching issues and public service in the various areas of journalism and mass communication.

Attendees will meet face-to-face with more than 1,600 journalism and mass communication educators; learn how to navigate the evolving job market and meet one-on-one with recruiters; and discover a great avenue to explore potential text and other resources.

AEJMC conferences are regularly attended by journalism and mass communication administrators, educators, and researchers; well-known authors and publishers of communication texts; companies and organizations tracking emerging trends in higher education; social media professionals and internet and technology professionals; and practitioners.

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A study by a team of researchers from Penn State University and the University of Hartford published in the current issue of the Journal of Public Relations Research indicates that the effects of attribution on audiences seems to depend more on who’s watching the VNR than on what the government agency is saying in it.

According to Colleen Connolly-Ahern, an Assistant Professor at Penn State University and the leader of the research team that included Susan Grantham of University of Hartford and Maria Cabrera-Baukus of Penn State, “The original reason for the legislation, and the premise upon which the GAO has operated, is that VNRs are somehow more credible when they appear to be independent news stories, and not identified as government communications. But our findings don’t indicate that at all.”

In fact, said Connolly-Ahern, the credibility of the communications seems to depend on your political affiliation. “Self-identified Republicans actually judged a VNR higher in expertise when they knew it was from a government agency, and not a traditional news story. For self-identified Democrats the effects were reversed, with Democrats finding the VNR less expert when it came from a governmental agency.” The data was collected during the last year of President Bush’s second term.

The role of government is to develop policies that support public interests and reduce risks for all citizens. But Connolly-Ahern, Grantham and Cabrera-Baukus’ findings indicate it’s important for administrators to understand that citizens may base the credibility of their communications on their relationship with the party in power.

The research was supported by a grant from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at the Penn State College of Communications. The authors are now planning to repeat the study. “The change in administrations has given us the chance to see whether or not the findings are different under a Democratic administration,” said Connolly-Ahern.

Contacts: Colleen Connolly-Ahern, Assistant Professor, College of Communications, Penn State University, connolly-ahern@psu.edu or Susan Grantham, Associate Professor, School of Communication, University of Hartford, Grantham@hartford.edu

• Download The Effects of Attribution of VNRs and Risk on News Viewers’ Assessments of Credibility by Colleen Connolly-Ahern, Penn State University; Susan Grantham, University of Hartford; and Maria Cabrera-Baukus, Penn State University.
• More from Journal of Public Relations Research
• More Research You Can Use

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.