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March 2014 – College Media Review

Month: March 2014

Research: Student journalists’ use of student media

Sender-receiver, receiver-sender: A uses-and-gratifications study of student journalists’ use of social media

Vincent F. Filak
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

ResearchFilak
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD RESEARCH PDF

Abstract: Uses and gratifications theory posits that audience members select media to satisfy specific needs. Social media, however, have allowed media users to select both media to consume and what media to produce/share.

This study of student journalists (n=285) revealed differences between the importance of specific gratifications in terms of what participants consumed and what they shared.

Vince Filak
Vince Filak

Additionally, the study examines which gratifications were most important in forming a positive attitude toward social media.

Being prepared when calamity strikes…

How College Media Can Plan For the Worst

By Carolyn Schurr Levin

In December 2012, College Media Review reported about the effects of Hurricane Sandy on the Pioneer at LIU Post on Long Island, and the College Voice at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey.  Both campuses shut down, students were sent home, power was lost for days and publishing the student newspapers was, to put it mildly, a challenge.

Coping with disaster... Long Island University and Mercer County Community College. Background photo Brian Birke, Creative Commons.
Disaster and emergency planning can help media prepare for the unexpected. (Background photo Brian Birke, Creative Commons).

In the case of the Pioneer, the outside printing company for the newspaper couldn’t have printed the paper even if it had had power; it lost its roof to the storm. The 2012 CMR article, “When Disaster Strikes A College Community,” advised college media organizations to make contingency plans in the event of an unanticipated catastrophe similar to Hurricane Sandy.

Yet, over a year later, an informal email survey of college media advisers suggests that many organizations do not yet have such contingency plans.

Continue reading “Being prepared when calamity strikes…”

Working with that sports Info director behind the curtain…

CMR_sports-info-athletics_directors
Alex Johnson, Cartoonist, UIS Journal

By Justin Schneewind

 Needing prior permission to interview college athletes and coaches has become the norm rather than the exception for college and professional sports journalists, who must often first go through the school’s sports information director or athletic director.

That goes for in-depth pieces and after-game interviews, in-person interviews, texts, e-mails, Facebook and other forms of communication.

Sports information directors, with the blessings of their athletic directors, are increasingly forbidding journalists to communicate with players or coaches unless the communication has been arranged first by the sports information director or other one of the sports information director’s staff.

Continue reading “Working with that sports Info director behind the curtain…”