Symposium Session Two - Friday, March 28, 2008

9:00-9:10 Recap from Day One J. Walker Smith & All

9:10-10:35 Topical Discussion: Uses & Communities

9:10-9:20 Opening paper/presentation S. Shyam Sundar

9:20-10:03 Panel Remarks John Bare

• Karen Jurgensen
• Shawn McIntosh
• Rachel Davis Mersey
• Eric Newton
• Deb Procopio

10:03-10:40 Discussion All

10:40-11:50 Topical Discussion: Effects & Cultivation

10:40-10:50 Opening Paper/Presentation Deborah Potter

10:50-11:18 Panel Remarks Everette Dennis

• Maxwell McCombs
• Donald Shaw
• David H. Weaver

11:18-11:50 Discussion All

11:50-Noon Recap from Day Two J. Walker Smith & All


1:00-3:00 pm: Symposium Session Three

1:00-2:40 Topical Discussion: Methodology

1:00-2:00 Presentations Kenneth Blake

• Kathleen Frankovic
• Tom Johnson
• Dan Riffe

2:00-2:40 Discussion All

2:40-2:55 Recap Research Agenda J. Walker Smith & All

2:55-3:00 Thanks, Next Steps & Adjourn J. Walker Smith
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Effects Open Discussion

Scott Maier: An ongoing study (with Phil Meyer) on accuracy has caught little attention. I gave a paper talk, and only six people came. However, after a Slate.com editor wrote a column about it, this led to interview requests and widespread dissemination. If there's some way we can share our ideas here -- about setting the research agenda -- maybe we can get them out there and in use.

Walker Smith: If you compute a mushiness index for an average topic, it would come out highl mushy, meaning that if people got more information about it, it is likely to change. The Internet's impact with regard to these issues is uncertain, but perhaps our research agenda should focus on how to make certain issues less mushy for people. Dan Yankelovich's mushiness index stemmed from a desire to move toward depth in suveys.

Thanks to all the panelists for their participation this afternoon! The blog will resume tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m.

Effects Open Discussion

Deb Procopio: Dr. Meyer used to always hand me books: Yankelovich, Schudson, Delli Carpini, etc. and I would go to the library and read them. One of the concepts Yankelovich presented was "mushiness" of public opinion. There were three steps to get from weak to strong public opinion:

1. consciousness-raising
2. working through issues
3. resolution

The only way people can work through things being pushed at them is social networks.

We should be on our knees praising John Stewart. These "so-called low brow" shows are aiding us in working through issues of the day.

Internet users had higher levels of empowerment and encouraged discourse of issues.

Dan Riffe: The media effects need to consider the gaps in income and knowledge. Many of the lower income families in the country can't begin to consider what they'd do with the Internet as a tool.

Everette Dennis: No other media has been able to show how many people are using it and how it affects other media. Much of our research employs 1957 technology for 21st century research. Why are we still using samples when the entire scope of the Internet is available to us?

What's going on in Second Life would be real effects. It's economic, relationship, divorces, virtual violence is rife for research. A possible dissertation for an enterprising grad student?

Effects Open Discussion

Sharon Polansky: (on whether such research is possible). We need lots of data inputs, and utilization of existing data sources, in order for such studies to be possible. I'm curious to see what happens.

Shyam Sundar: New dependent variables -- psychological measures should be included, such as a sense of empowerment. New media is so tied to a sense of self, and a sense of agency, but yet we are keen on the sense of the Internet as facilitating interaction and virtual communities.

One study we did at our lab, related to blogs, which will be presented at ICA: we manipulated metrics, such as number of readers, or number of comments, to see how that empowered subjects that were keeping blogs.

Metrics are very important, and the fact that the Internet has so many opportunities for measurement is a boon for researchers. HCI research has gone toward more qualitative research, because a lot of quantitative data are automatically generated.

David Weaver: We should also consider a new dependent variable -- the effect on policy, not just the public.

Shyam Sundar: Automatically generated data can give you a sense of how important something is. In Google News, there are three metrics: the lead, the number of related articles, and the recency of upload. These cues give readers a sense of what's the hottest news right now. A lot of policy-making is predicated on good data. These news metrics can aid policy makers.

Effects Open Discussion

Don Shaw: We can't solely live in virtual communities, but they make up a big part of our communities. Haven't they always been around?

Jane Brown: Internet has given us access to new communities -- and it's constant access, which we can control.

Tom Johnson: There is a need for those in communication to steal the model from the Framingham study -- longintudinal research of media consumption habits. Maybe, it we had that data, we would not be so worried that young people are not reading newspapers. The Internet can facilitate such research.

Jane Brown: Our tax dollars are funding the National Children's Study, which will study 100,000 newborns over the next 20 years. Dr. Brown is working on getting media measures included in the data.

Effects Panel Remarks: Sharon Polansky

• Push vs. Pull in terms of media: how do (adults) get kids to broaden their scope, to "interrupt the dialogue they are having with themselves?"

• We, as researchers, need to look at groups of consumers at a very microscopic level
  

• Things we need to look at: what the audiences is looking for, how many are talking, who is talking, etc.

• There needs to be new approaches to measurement: online tracking sources, combined with something like media diaries, and then other sources of electronic data
  

Effects Panel Remarks: John Hood

These fan communities (as mentioned by Sue Greer) have been around for a while, but the Internet has provided technology that has helped them network.

• LiveBlogging (such as this blog -- thanks John!!) is another example of new technology being put to use for community information.

• There are reasons to fear how these technologies change young persons' media use; there are also reasons for hope.
  

• Framing new questions about media diets requires ground-level interaction with the (predominantly) young people who are using them.
  

Effects Panel Remarks: Sue Greer

Cultivation theory and the mean world hypothesis are applicable to news, but moreso to entertainment.

Now, entertainment drives users to the Web, where they can find additional information in the form of comments, director's cuts, outtakes. In addition, these online sites have forums through which fans can discuss the entertainment.

Example: Jan Karon's Mitford series. Fans of the series (as well as many other fan communities) have organized communities for sharing of fan fiction -- which they have produced based on the characters and settings of Karon's series. These people have organized and come together physically, as well as virtually.

This same thing has happened with many other fan communities. Star Trek, Starsky & Hutch, etc. For more on fan fiction: http://www.fanfiction.net/

Effects Panel Remarks: Virginia Dodge Fielder

Virginia Dodge Fielder is a former vice president of research for Knight Ridder.

Internet is not only a different medium, but a different life. Similar to early studies of videotext, which had variegated uses: games, messaging, news.

• On the Internet: "We haven't integrated it, it's incorporated us. "

• Internet takes away power from the journalists and news organizations, because the people have the power. We are still at the beginning of understanding how the world can be fundamentally changed by the Internet.
  

• As Phil once said, "the only problem with being on the cutting edge is that you're always in front of the knife."
  

Dr. Jane Brown: Presentation on Effects

Jane Brown is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Adolescents and media effects (Teen Media study website):

1) How am I like everyone else? There are fewer movies and music now that "everyone" will see.

2) How am I like some others? Teens identify with others based on personal identity factors. Thus there are dramatic differences in how teens are using the media -- their "media diets."

3) How am I like no one else -- what makes me unique in my identity?

Dr. Brown showed magazine cut-out collages from some of the teens in the Teen Media study. The collages represent teens' self-portraits as culled from magazine images.

• There are methodological questions in studying media use: how do you capture media use? How do you measure media diets?

• This self-tailored media use is conducive to powerful media effect, precisely because people are looking for what they're interested in. If they're looking for it, they're going to get it.
  

Phil Meyer's Reaction to the Open Panel Discussion

Phil Meyer's reaction to the comments: I think Gatekeepers are still with us. They're just not as powerful as they were. It's no longer absolute and many ways to work around. Gatekeeping theory is still useful today because it is still relevant. Maybe we need a "working around the gatekeeping" theory.

Open panel discussion

Sue Greer: More than 10 years ago, the most innovative studies tracked how a person read the print version of the news. Today, that technology is built into every Internet search engine in existence. There is a whole lot to learn about how people choose what they spend time on. Don't have cumbersome technology anymore.

Open panel discussion

Mark Briggs: Fixing the comments section on a Web site doesn't feel like journalism. But it is essential to the newspaper and its community.

Managing different technology to enable audience participation and ease the job of journalists, seems to be more in tune with today's audience.

Sharon Polansky: More is less now, and that's frightening. Consumption of news is being "micro-sized." No longer aspect of newspaper to show the audience new information beyond what they are seeking. The dramatic difference between print and online is the ability to go into a topic as opposed to breadth. How do you get people outside of their micro-sections in a world that's served in individual-sized portions?

Shyam Sundar: The navigator metaphor breaks down because much of the navigation is done by the consumers rather than the senders. Two themes have emerged: journalistic integrity and business survival interest. The Internet makes the two themes incompatible to sit together at the present time. THIS is the current problem in newsrooms and what researchers need to look at.

The journalism agent is a news supplier. The Internet makes us agendic by giving us a chance to be our own gatekeeper. The Intenet medium itself is a gatekeeper, too. iGoogle and other similar sites are organized as a series of gates: modules for astrology, baseball, e-mail, etc. The Internet user is the person who sets up the first set of gates; the modules are the gatekeepers who determine what information is shown.

Open panel discussion

Kathleen Frankovic: The symposium definitely has a research agenda. Have someone content analyze what is there? What is linked to? What is listed? We still don't know what is appearing on the Internet.

There is a new breed of journalist out there, ex: Huffington Post; as well as the Internet beat. News organizations are still trying to figure out how to make the Internet work for them. Researchers should look into how the Internet affects the day-to-day aspects of the newsroom.

Dean Jean Folkerts: We need to stop bemoaning the loss of the way things used to be -- certainly some of that going on in the room. Audiences may present an interesting line of research, especially considering the active involvement of the user in online news. We need to understand how the younger audience processes information and its importance to them. Out of that, we may find out how to package and present news an dinformation.

Open panel discussion

Pamela Shoemaker: Can sense the "passing of the torch" of journalism research.

Virtual communities didn't seem as important to the older generations as neighbors and members of organizations. However, they are of increasing importance to younger generations.

The Internet is not the end-all-be-all of information. We still hire people to search through all the information and decide what's relevant to people, ie journalism. Although, anyone can blog, few people woulld put it on par with the New York Times or even the Chapel Hill paper. Journalists represent legitimate information in an easily digestible format.

All communicators are not equal today, and they're never going to be equal tomorrow.

Kenneth Blake: A lot of the content available on the Internet comes from the mainstream media, which is supplied by opinion leaders. This is a useful metaphor for the two-step flow process.

Open panel discussion

Walker Smith: What is a better metaphor for the Internet age than navigator? Would we have gone into journalism if we'd known this is how the role would be redefined?

Donald Shaw: Media are representative of communities. The decline of newspapers can be attributed to the increasing disconnect many people have from their communities. Journalists essentially "rank-order" information.

Loss of stature of the field. We're experts at getting information and "rank-ordering" the information. Journalists create a social agreement with the community as to the salience of an issue. It's worrisome that this agenda-setting function is not taking place as regularly as it has in the past.


Barry Sussman: Interesting mix at the symposium of concerns about journalism. We're at a time when there is supposed to be less interest in Iraq: which came first the loss of public interest or the fact that there are fewer reporters in Iraq? What concerns me is the promise of the Internet to do BIG stories--do important news and get it to a mass audience.

The elephant in the room is the disappointment shared for the mainstream media.

Gatekeeping Open Discussion

Karen Jurgensen: The Internet is not fundamentally different its communication technologies predecessors. But most of the information on the Internet comes from traditional journalism, however, the business model of the newspaper has shifted.

The most worrisome thing about the Internet is that newspapers haven't decided who is going to supply the information?

Everette Dennis: The Internet is an improvisational medium. It is fantastical in many respects, still all the basic elements of traditional journalism are there -- there are just more of them.

We need to get back to rigor of theoretical aspects of symposium. Disappointed with much of what I've heard: expected to enter the room and hear a choir of "what a friend we have in theory." If we go back to reconceptualize work, we need to make sure it is done with rigor and care.

Gatekeeping Open Discussion

John Hood: Premature to discuss gatekeeping on the Internet simultaneously behind the curve. Essentially, bloggers are "look at this!!!" Some comment on the "look at this!!!"

Still, blogging doesn't cover the majority of the audience members, who are served by traditional journalists. But eventually, the audience will age out, and the majority will become people who receive their news elsewhere from traditional sources.

Journalists weren't elected to be the news source for the masses. Alternative sources -- comedic, navel-gazing, political leaning -- are filling niches for younger people. Today, traditional sources don't have a mass audience.

As today's young people grow up (without watching much television) they are unlikely to turn to an online newspaper just because they're parents trust it.

Gatekeeping Panel Remarks: Pamela Shoemaker

Dr. Pamela Shoemaker, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University

Dr. Shoemaker was late to the conference because of airport delays.
She opened by saying that isn't sure she agrees with the analogy of navigators because "journalists don't go along for the ride....they aren't moving at the same rate of information.

• All the essays for the symposium all decry the lack of gatekeeping in today's newsroom. Global journalism is often misequated global journalism with global gatekeeping.
• Gatekeeping was developed as a social change process -- channels exist through which items (in our case information) moves. Gates exist at each section of the channel. Today, there is a channel aside from journalism that is the "source channel."
  
• Example: Plane crash survivors, crash spectators, plane developers, airline adminstrators are the typical sources for a journalist covering that plane crash. Each represents a spectrum of sources. Sidenote: is Dr. Shoemaker's example related to her air
  
• The Internet gives audience members the opportunity to participate in the gatekeeping process.
  
• She recently completed a study on the NYTimes.com's most e-mailed stories. She found that audience members' process of selecting stories to e-mail are not the same as journalists', which tend toward the macabre and the violent. Audience members have different priorities.

Every time there's a new technology, there's the same questions, concerns and ideas. There are no original thoughts: television replacing radio; the Internet replacing television.

Sidenote: She does not follow AP style to capitalize the "I" on Internet as an ideological philosophy just as she does not capitalize the "T" in television.

Gatekeeping Open Discussion

Dr. Max McCombs, School of Journalism, the University of Texas at Austin: Certainly important to consider the longstanding tradition of did we get it right? However, we need to include the audience's reaction to the stories and ask if we gave a complete version of the issue?

• Example: The education beat often includes stories that include just School Board meetings and adminsitrator quotes. Few talk to parents or the true stakeholders in education. Parents effect major changes in schools by engaging in the school board process, but their efforts rarely make it into mainstream news.

Gatekeeping Panel Remarks: Gil Thelen

Gil Thelen is the Executive Director of the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors, and a professor at the University of South Florida.

It should be noted that only Gil Thelen and Dr. Tom Johnson, in addition to Phil Meyer, are wearing bowties. Thelen: "I am disappointed in all the other men in here, in long ties..."

Mr. Thelen and Dr. Meyer worked in Washington as reporters 40 years ago.

• Newspapers have been asking the wrong questions. Need to ask: What's our business? Who are our customers? And what do they consider to be of value? Newspapers are not there in their research -- they don't understand what their customers consider as far as credibility.
• As to Maier's discussion role of the navigator, "I think it's a wonderful idea." But what we're asking for from reporters is to be a "super-journo" -- editing, critical thinking, organizing, connectivity, multimedia, etc.
  
• Academically, we need to be able to address students' questions about how they will make a living in this new media environment.
  

Gatekeeping Panel Remarks: Barry Sussman

Barry Sussman is the editor of the Nieman Watchdog Project.

The Watchdog Project focuses on questions the media should be asking. Mr. Sussman agrees with Mr. Lewis -- the gatekeepers aren't going anywhere. Evidenced by lack of coverage of recent study about 945 lies told by the Bush administration about the war.

Why? Because the gatekeepers don't want it.

There has to be better organization -- something to aggregate the best work that is being done in the area of online journalism, and "puts it in front of people."-- that is, in front of editors and reporters. For example, a Sacramento Bee story exposed scandals in police department -- no one else picked this up and wrote about it.

Gatekeeping Panel Remarks: Charles Lewis

Charles Lewis is the president of The Fund for Independence in Journalism.

"I worry about independence in newsgathering.... I see stories that are not covered, truth that doesn't emerge until long after the fact.."

• The gatekeepers have NOT gone away.
  

• The problem is that a relativism has set into news -- we (producers? consumers?) no longer know what is real, what is true, and what has been verified

Dr. Meyer was one of the first to look at different models of journalism with regard to community involvement. We need to focus on how to improve independent newsgathering.

Mr. Lewis is starting a new center that will undertake large-scale, long-term projects on independent journalism.

Gatekeeping Panel Remarks: Dr. Anne Johnston

Dr. Johnston is the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

How audiences are changing:

• We need to look at social and psychological factors that influence how audiences adopt information, and how they process information
• For some audience members, making political ads for YouTube is a form of political participation.
• Text-messaging is a good illustration of personal and social factors influence media use. By texting her son, Dr. Johnston can get an immediate response, unlike when she leaves him a phone message. On the other hand, the same technology has helped protestors organize -- perhaps to circumvent censorship prevalent in other media types.
• We need to explore how audiences "bundle" their media use. Both blogs and traditional political ads can co-exist in particular users' bundles.
  
• Research methods that allow us to talk to audiences (focus groups, ethnographies) should be incorporated into the research agenda.
  

Gatekeeping Panel Remarks: Mark Briggs

Panel Remarks:

Today's navigator serves as both user and gatekeeper. Facilitation discussion around news is the most critical aspect. This is a NEW role, and stems from unfettered access to information.

• Example: At the News Tribune, when the comments feature failed on the Web site, it sent paper's online community into disarray.

• There is a hypothesis emerging that "beat blogging" will help reporters develop communities around their beats. This makes source development "go public", which increases transparency.

• How do we define journalism, when old constructs have broken down? Can programmers be journalists?
  

Scott Maier: Opening presentation on Gatekeeping/Diffusion

Maier notes:

Who are the navigators, editors, and gatekeepers in an online era? This cannot all be done by algorithms such as Google News. Who verifies the trustwothiness of online content?

A Project for Excellent in Journalism study found that users' scope of sources is more narrow than in times past, despite the proliferation of sources.

We need to widen our definition of what is news. People (particularly in Oregon!) are interested in green living, veganism, indie rock. This is information they are looking for in addition to, or instead of, just the headline news.

J. Walker Smith Introductory Remarks

Dr. Meyer has been here (at UNC-Chapel Hill) for 27 years...

We will take a look at the future. An objective will be determining and discussing the research agenda for mass communication moving forward.

The advent of the Internet as source not only of news, but also interaction and community.

Scott Maier will kick off the presentations (see participant biographies).

Welcome

Dean Folkerts has led off the conference with a welcome (and instructions on how to use the microphones, and even shout-outs to your humble bloggers).

In celebration of Dr. Meyer's retirement, the focus of the conference will be on the future, and not the past. Special thanks to Louise Spieler and other UNC staff for putting together and oganizing the symposium.

Kicking it Off

The symposium is about to begin... T-minus 3 minutes and counting. The panelists are beginning to trickle in.

Opening Session: 2 p.m.

2-2:10pm -- Welcome and Opening Remarks

• Dean Jean Folkerts
• J. Walker Smith

2:10-2:25pm -- Introductions

2:25-3:50pm -- Topical Discussion: Gatekeepers & Diffusion
Opening paper/presentation: Scott Maier
Panel remarks:

• Mark Briggs
• Anne Johnston
• Charles Lewis
• Pamela J. Shoemaker
• Barry Sussman
• Gil Thelen