Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Checklist For Mortals: Preparing For Death’S Arrival, Becky Daniel

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

We learn everything from our parents—how to walk, talk and treat potential life partners. Yet our culture in the United States makes it difficult to talk to our parents about death and those consequences have a real impact. Closing a loved one’s estate can stretch from months to years without proper planning. While death is constant, the death industry is not. It is ever changing. And while all lives have equal value, there are many preparations that one person may need (veteran, parent, lotto winner) while another does not. The best way to prepare for death is to know its …

Democratic Engagement In The Digital Age: Youth, Social Media And Participatory Politics In Kenya, Samuel Kamau

Graduate School of Media and Communications

As the communication world becomes more complex and participatory, social networking sites (SNSs) have emerged as a platform with the potential to invigorate democracy and political engagement. However, the value of SNSs in politics remains contested among researchers. The study reported on in this article was based on a survey of 600 university students, aged between18 and 35, to examine the relationship between social media use and political engagement among the youth in Kenya. The study focused on the extent to which SNSs facilitate consumption of political information and the role of SNSs in influencing political interest, knowledge and behaviour …

Tackling ‘Bias’ And Fake Coverage In The Indian Media, Buroshiva Dasgupta

First Global News Literacy Conference

In India, there are a vast number of vernacular newspapers and TV channels in addition to the standard English newspapers and channels. Their strategies for covering news differ from place to place, language to language as well as their political or business “affiliations”. Unfortunately, in recent times most of the media platforms in India have moved away from their ‘objective’ standpoint. To understand or decipher fact from fiction the first method would be to go for a comparative study of the news items and then try to source out their ‘affiliations’ ! both political and business – to place the …

Says Who? Challenges Of Teaching News Literacy In A Culture Of Secrecy, Kanchan Kaur

First Global News Literacy Conference

India might be the world’s largest democracy, but it is still fraught with challenges that plague the underdeveloped world. India is quickly moving to a digital democracy—the ability to receive information in almost real time through mass media and to make one’s voice heard through social media (1) --with complex consequences. One of them has to do with a post-fact environment and non-state actors who try to influence public opinion to serve their own ends. Social media, especially WhatsApp, serves their purposes well, for instead of exposing people to diverse views, it mainly creates an echo chamber (2). Making matters …

Overcoming The Dark Side: Seeing Through The Spin Of Public Relations In The News, Samantha Stanley

First Global News Literacy Conference

In its current state, news literacy curriculum covers all the information types that consumers will see when they read, watch, listen to, and interact with news content. While current lessons do explain how press releases distribute information in the “promotion / publicity” neighborhood, there is much more nuance to the practice of PR that impacts information people read as ‘news’. In today’s climate of political spin cycles, it is more important than ever for news consumers to understand what public relations is and how its strategies influence news content. Because the practice of public relations is so often misunderstood and …

True-Self And The Uses And Gratifications Of Instagram Among College-Aged Females, Jocelyn Apodaca

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

With more than 300 million daily users, Instagram has rapidly become one of the most widely used social networking apps worldwide. This study investigates relationships between motivations for using Instagram, whether users are portraying their true-selves and how their usage affects life satisfaction and well-being. A quantitative survey was used to collect data from 200 students at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas students. Participants were asked to provide answers regarding their habits for using Instagram, whether their online portrayal of self reflected their true self and determine overall life satisfaction. The motives studied in this research include: interpersonal …

Writing For Electronic Media, Brian Champagne, Kiera Farimond, Brianna Bodily

Textbooks

Introduction

Welcome to Writing for Electronic Media, an OER textbook. OER stands for Open Educational Resource, which means it’s free for all who access. Since it is electronic, I will do what I can to keep it updated with the changing media. People’s viewing habits are changing as they migrate to mobile sources, social media, and kitten videos. Television News is still a dominant #1 source, and radio is still the safest way to stay informed in your car. Hopefully, you already have some journalism background. This book does not teach the who, what, when, where, why, and how …

How Instagram Content Affects Brand Attitudes And Behavior, Ming (Bryan) Wang, Valerie K. Jones

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

This paper examines the effectiveness of communication on Instagram, a type of visual social networking site, by the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Results show that the TSA’s Instagram account elicited stronger emotional reactions than a private consumer product business Instagram account. More importantly, perceived usefulness of content, perceived persuasive intent of content, and negative emotions all affected attitudes toward the TSA. Additionally, perceived usefulness of content and negative emotions also influenced communicative action regarding the TSA account. Findings demonstrate the emotional impact of visual communication and the role of both cognitive and affective evaluations in changing attitudes and behavior …

U.S. Newspaper Editors’ Ratings Of Social Media As Influential News Sources, Masahiro Yamamoto, Seungahn Nah, Deborah S. Chung

Information Science Faculty Publications

Social media, as one key platform for citizen journalism, are becoming a useful news-gathering tool for journalists. Based on data from a nationwide probability sample of newspaper editors in the United States, this study investigates the extent to which newspaper editors consider social media an influential news source. Results show that variations in editors’ ratings of social media as a news source were related to multiple levels of influence, including professional journalistic experience, organization size, community structural pluralism, and citizen journalism credibility. Implications are discussed for the roles of social media in news production.