Political Conventions Draw a Bigger Audience than Beijing Opening Ceremonies

April 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Share

The 2008 Democratic and Republican Party conventions drew a bigger average nightly television audience than did the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games, according to recent research by University of Oklahoma scholars Jill A. Edy and Miglena Daradanova.

Most media pundits and journalists insist that the national nominating conventions are a dying institution that draws few viewers and produces no news. However, Edy and Daradanova found that over the last four decades, the average size of the nightly audience for the conventions was larger than the audience for the opening night of the Summer Olympic Games unless the Games were held in the United States. The lone exception was the 2000 Games in Sydney, which marginally outdrew the 2000 nominating conventions. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: , , , ,

Social Media in the Classroom: Twitter and Journalists

April 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Share

By Dominic Lasorsa, University of Texas at Austin

I have found an approach for incorporating the study of social media into the college curriculum that can be used with courses of different sizes and to study different social media. The project shows students that social media serve different functions for different users with different consequences, that as means of mass communication social media are relevant to journalists’ work, and that scientific methods can be employed to help answer intriguing questions, such as how new technologies affect journalists’ work.

I chose Twitter because journalists have become heavy users and because it is one of the newer online social media. Twitter is a form of “microblogging,” a means of communication in which short (no more than 140-character) messages are sent to other users who have chosen to follow the sender. Twitter “followers” are similar to Facebook “friends.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Teaching of Social Media: A Cross-Curricular Infusion Approach

April 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Share

By George Daniels, University of Alabama

From teaching an introductory course in journalism to leading a graduate-level seminar on the role of mass media in society or facilitating an advanced public relations writing course, social media can be a part of your teaching strategy. As facilitators of professionally-oriented courses of study, our goal is always to produce critical thinkers with a skillset that enables them to be “ready to work” in media environments that require flexible, forward-looking employees. What better way to be “forward-looking” than to see not only how social media have evolved in recent years, but how audience use of these social media is changing the way traditional media operate. Structured around five “core principles” presented as 140-character tweets (like those found on Twitter), this essay reviews teaching approaches by a journalism instructor whose core teaching area is cross-platform/multimedia reporting, but who also teaches a freshman-level introductory course in journalism, basic news reporting as well as a junior/senior-level course in media management for students studying in all areas of mass media.

The subject of social media is one that belongs in virtually every course in a journalism and mass communication curriculum. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Climate Change and the Belief Gap Hypothesis

April 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Share

A recent study shows that ideology is a better predictor of beliefs about climate change than is educational attainment, and that the resulting “belief gaps” between liberals and conservatives grow over time.

This study marks a departure from previous work which showed that heavy media coverage of science news contributed to “knowledge gaps,” or growing disparities in knowledge between those with different levels of educational attainment. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: , , , , ,

Citizens’ Local Political Knowledge Threatened By New Media

April 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Share

As new digital media replace traditional sources of news, the public’s knowledge of local affairs may be undermined.

This result headlines a new study by Lee Shaker, a researcher at Princeton University, that examines the effect of increased media choice upon citizens’ local and national political knowledge. The article, “Citizens’ Local Political Knowledge and the Role of Media Access”, is available in the current issue of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (winter 2009). Based on data from a 2007 survey of 1000 Philadelphia residents, a clear, negative relationship between having access to cable TV or satellite radio and citizens’ local political knowledge is depicted in the piece. A similar relationship does not materialize between new media access and national political knowledge. These results reinforce the fears voiced by many regarding the decline of local media – especially newspapers. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: , , , , ,

Viewing Media Coverage of Terrorism Related to Posttraumatic Stress Reactions; Youth Particularly Susceptible

April 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Share

A meta-analysis of 23 existing terrorism studies found that exposure to media coverage of terrorism is related to posttraumatic stress reactions.

The meta-analysis also found that the relationship between exposure to media coverage of terrorism and posttraumatic stress was greater for studies involving youth and for studies including people who were farther away from the terrorist event.

These results mean that youth who are further away from the terrorism event are at increased risk for developing posttraumatic stress reactions resulting from exposure to media coverage of a terrorist event. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: , , , , , ,