Sharing the News: Effects of Informational Utility and Opinion Leadership on Online News Sharing

This study examined the joint effect of message and personality attributes on online news sharing. In two experiments (N = 270; N = 275) readers indicated their likelihood to share news representing two content domains and three informational utility dimensions. A moderated mediation path analysis was used. On average, news consumers shared news containing informational utility. Opinion leaders shared news irrespective of informational utility because they discerned informational utility in news that, objectively speaking, lacked such utility. In one experiment, opinion leaders also were more likely than non-leaders to share news perceived to contain informational utility

Be Credible: Information Literacy for Journalism, Public Relations, Advertising and Marketing Students

This project was funded by KU Libraries’ Parent’s Campaign with support from the David Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright and the Open Educational Resources Working Group in the University of Kansas Libraries.This free and open textbook teaches college-level journalism students to become information experts. Using the themes of credibility and information literacy, the book helps today’s students, who start out all their research with Google and Wikipedia, to specialize in accessing, evaluating, and managing information that often is not accessible through Google searches. The book includes chapters on public records, freedom of information requests, nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, scholarly research, public data, interviews and more. Through current examples, instructional videos, suggested classroom activities, and practitioner insights, the authors challenge students to examine the credibility of the sources they use as current and future professional communicators

When “Journalism Kids” Do Better: A Reassessment of Secondary and Post-Secondary Achievement and Activities

Using data from the nationally representative Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, this study examined how journalism participation in high school relates to subsequent academic outcomes. The analysis statistically controlled for a host of correlates of academic achievement, isolating the associations between journalism participation and subsequent outcomes. Results indicated that students who take more journalism in high school score higher than their peers on standardized tests of English; are more likely to major in journalism or related fields; and when they do, have higher grades in college English. Students who participate in extracurricular journalism also see some of these gains

Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or Not? Religious Self-Disclosure in Social Media

This study measured the prevalence of religious self-disclosure in public MySpace profiles that belonged to a subsample of National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) wave 3 respondents (N=560). Personal attributes associated with religious identification as well as the overall quantity of religious self-disclosures are examined. A majority (62 percent) of profile owners identified their religious affiliations online, although relatively few profile owners (30 percent) said anything about religion outside the religion-designated field. Most affiliation reports (80 percent) were consistent with the profile owner’s reported affiliation on the survey. Religious profile owners disclosed more about religion when they also believed that religion is a public matter or if they evaluated organized religion positively. Evangelical Protestants said more about religion than other respondents. Religiosity, believing that religion is a public matter, and the religiosity of profile owners’ friendship group were all positively associated with religious identification and self-disclosure

Mixed Message Media: Girls’ Voices and Civic Engagement in Student Journalism

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedited version of an article published in Girlhood Studies. The definitive publisher-authenticated version, Belmas, G. I., & Bobkowski, P. S. (2017). Mixed Message Media: Girls’ Voices and Civic Engagement in Student Journalism. Girlhood Studies 10, no. 1: 89–106, is available online at: https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2017.100107Prior research has illustrated the benefits of media literacy and production programs for girls’ self-expression and civic engagement. This study examines whether formal high school journalism programs can be similarly beneficial. A survey of 461 high school journalists shows that girls want to use student media to address serious topics that can contribute to their civic development. But school employees also tell girls more often than boys not to cover sensitive issues in the student media, and girls are more likely than boys to acquiesce to such requests. Girls will not glean the full benefits of journalism education until such disparate treatment is addressed. Journalism educators and school administrators may profit from the feminist pedagogical approaches developed in out-of-school media-focused programs in which girls have demonstrated significant willingness to express themselves and are unencumbered to do so

Social media divide: Characteristics of emerging adults who do not use social network websites

Public opinion has embraced social media as a vital tool to reach U.S. emerging adults, but this generation has not universally adopted social media technologies. Using indepth interviews, this study examined the characteristics of 20 emerging adults (18 to 23 years old) who were non-adopters of social media. Compared to social media users, non-adopters had less economic stability, more fractured educational trajectories, and weaker support from parents and friends. Non-adopters did not use social media because they lacked access or leisure time, were not socialized into their use, lacked skills, or did not want to maintain social contacts via social media technologies. If social media are increasingly used in attempts to improve young people’s lives, practitioners must understand who is left behind in the wake of these technologies

Civic Implications of Secondary School Journalism: Associations With Voting Propensity and Community Volunteering

This study examines the association between high school journalism and civic engagement in early adulthood, independent of other civic activities. Nationally representative data show that taking high school journalism classes is related positively to voting in the years following high school, to a similar degree that taking debate classes or participating in student government is related to voting. High school journalism also moderates the association between family socioeconomics and civic engagement. Underprivileged student journalists tend to vote and volunteer more than their non-journalism peers. The study theorizes journalism education’s unique contributions to civic development and civic communication competence

Sexual intensity of adolescents' online self-presentations: Joint contribution of identity, media consumption, and extraversion

Adolescents produce and distribute a vast quantity of digital media content. A growing literature examines the sexually explicit (i.e., nude) content that adolescents share online. Because adolescents’ sexual content need not be sexually explicit, however, this study examined the sexual intensity with which adolescents choose to present themselves in the context of a social media platform. Exemplifying the variability of adolescents’ online sexual self-presentations, survey participants (N = 265; age range: 13–15 years) constructed social media profiles using components (e.g., photos, fashion brands) that varied in sexual intensity. In accord with predictions drawn from the Media Practice Model, the study found that the sexual intensity of adolescents’ online self-presentations is a product of the sexual self-concept, a relationship that is partially mediated by sexual media diet and moderated by extraversion. This study bridges emerging research on sexual self-presentation with established literature on adolescents’ sexual media uses and effects

Student Media in U.S. Secondary Schools Associations with School Demographic Characteristics

A survey measured student media availability in a representative sample of U.S. public high schools (N = 1,023). Most schools had yearbooks (94%) and newspapers (64%); some had television programs (29%); few had radio programs (3%). Less than a third of newspapers, television programs, and radio programs distributed content online. Logistic regressions showed that large schools were most likely to have each of the media. Findings also reflected some patterns of educational inequality. High-minority large schools, for instance, were less likely than low-minority large schools to have media. Findings can inform and focus outreach efforts to scholastic journalism

Who Are the “Journalism Kids?” Academic Predictors of Journalism Participation in Secondary Schools

Prior scholastic journalism research did not adequately address the possibility that journalism students perform better academically because of their backgrounds and inherent abilities. Using Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 data, this study shows that high school journalism attracts better students. Although for-credit and extracurricular programs differentiate journalism student characteristics, journalism students generally tend to have greater English self-efficacy, higher English grade point average, greater involvement in schools, be female and White, or have a higher socioeconomic background than those who do not participate in journalism. Future assessments of journalism’s contribution to academic achievement should account for students’ pre-journalism characteristics