Category Archives: Media

Sharks: Bad Creatures or Bad Image?

By Guest PostNovember 8, 2012Media, Naturebret muter, climate change, conservation biology, conservation issue, ecology, extinction, fins, habitat loss, international, key issue, Media, media coverage, media market, meredith gore, michigan, negative effect, negative report, news article, overfishing, overharvesting, pollution, risks, shark attack, shark biology, shark conservation, shark population, sharks, species, state university, survival, threat, threatened species, udall foundation, wildlife

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Historically, the media have been particularly harsh to sharks, and it’s affecting their survival.

The results of a Michigan State University study, appearing in the current issue of the journal Conservation Biology, reviewed worldwide media coverage of sharks – and the majority isn’t good.

Australian and U.S. news articles were more likely to focus on negative reports featuring sharks and shark attacks rather than conservation efforts. Allowing such articles to dominate the overall news coverage diverts attention from key issues, such as shark populations are declining worldwide and many species are facing extinction, said Meredith Gore, MSU assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife and the School of Criminal Justice. (more…)

China and the Internet

By Guest PostNovember 2, 2012Media, Politics, Technologyatmosphere, blogger, China, china forum, chinese farmer, chinese life, chinese society, delaware, double edged knife, earthquake, east china, Facebook, false information, gap, governmental control, immunity, internet, internet companies, internet users, joseph chen, journalist, li gang, li qiming, mobile devices, netizens, normal university, nuclear pollution, number, poems online, poetry contest, poor, popular activities, public opinion, renren inc, rich, sanjiu yan, shanghai, site, Social networking, social tension, Twitter, university, university student, urban areas, weibo, weibo today

Internet bringing change to Chinese society, China Forum speaker says

The Internet is affecting every facet of Chinese life and shaping public opinion, according to Sanjiu Yan, the guest speaker at the inaugural China Forum, held Friday, Oct. 26, at the University of Delaware.

Yan, a former journalist who is now the dean of the College of Communication at East China Normal University in Shanghai, presented the first talk in the China Forum, a new monthly lecture series hosted by the Confucius Institute at UD. (more…)

Female Pulitzer Prize Winners Require Higher Qualifications, MU Study Finds

By Guest PostOctober 29, 2012Culture, General, Mediachinese university, compensational equality period, exclusionary period, female, formal equality period, francis lee, gender disparities, hong kong, ivy league, journalism, journalistic industry, male, metropolitan city, missouri, new york times, prestigious awards, pulitzer prize, society, statistical difference, stratification, university, US, winner, yong volz

Gender disparity in journalism still exists, but is improving

COLUMBIA, Mo. —The Pulitzer Prize in Journalism is one of the world’s most prestigious awards. Despite progress in the last few decades, gender disparities in the field of journalism have existed as long as the profession has. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that female Pulitzer Prize winners are more likely to have greater qualifications than their male counterparts in order to win the coveted award.

In a study to be published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Yong Volz, an assistant professor of journalism studies in the MU School of Journalism, along with Francis Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, studied biographical data from all 814 historical winners of the Pulitzer Prize from 1917 to 2010. They found that the majority of the 113 female Pulitzer Prize winners enjoyed access to greater resources than the average male winner. (more…)

UA Study Examines How News Spreads on Twitter

By Guest PostOctober 15, 2012Media, Technologyarizona, arstechnica, bbc, bbcbreaking, bbcworld, bloomberg, delicious, devi bhattacharya, digg, financial news, financial times, fireworks, Forbes, global news, guardian, mashable, microblogging website, network analysis, new york times, news agency, news articles, npr, online content, paulo goes, reddit, retweets, Reuters, social media, sudha ram, technology news, twitter account, twitter activity, twitter effectiveness, twitter feeds, university, us news, washington post, wired

A study of the Twitter activity of 12 major news agencies shows varying levels of success for the social network as a news-sharing tool, based on factors like article lifespan and number of retweets.

Nearly every major news organization has a Twitter account these days, but just how effective is the microblogging website at spreading news? That’s the question University of Arizona professor Sudha Ram set out to answer in a recent study of a dozen major news organizations that use the social media website as one tool for sharing their content.

The answer, according to Ram’s research, varies widely by news agency, and there may not be one universally applicable strategy for maximizing Twitter effectiveness. However, news agencies can learn a lot by looking at how their news diffuses once it is posted on Twitter, said Ram, McClelland Professor of Management Information Systems in the UA’s Eller College of Management. (more…)

UA Study: Cartels Squeezing Information Flow by Pressuring, Killing Journalists

By Guest PostOctober 2, 2012Media, Politicsarizona, border, cartel, celeste gonzalez bustamante, ciudad juarez, el paso, gunpoint, jeannine relly, kidnapped, knight award, maquiladoras, mexican journalist, newspaper

Two UA journalism professors have interviewed Mexican journalists along to U.S.-Mexico border to determine how drug cartels affect news reporting in the area.

Two researchers in the University of Arizona School of Journalism have traveled the length of the U.S.-Mexico border interviewing 39 Mexican journalists to find out how the drug cartels are affecting what news people receive. (more…)

5 Reasons to Guest Post for Other Bloggers

By Guest PostSeptember 15, 2012General, Media, Technology, Wordpress 2.3backlink, blog, blogging career, debra johnson, exposure, factor, guest posting, liveinnanny, networking, new blogger, recognition, seasoned veteran, web, website

Whether you’re a new blogger trying to gain some recognition for your blog or a seasoned veteran looking for something new to do, guest posting for other bloggers is one of the best things you can do to both expand your blog and improve your writing. It can be a little intimidating at first, trying to reach out to other bloggers and pitch topic ideas or submit articles, however there’s a lot to be gained from doing so.

1. Exposure: Writing for other blogs, big or small, exposes your writing to an entirely new audience. This is one of the major factors in helping your blog grow, because when someone reads your guest post and appreciates your writing style or the information you shared they will almost always click over to your blog to see what else you have to offer.

2. Links: Backlinks on other websites are what every blogger works so hard to gain because they offer another way for people to find your blog. Since most bloggers will allow their guest posters to put a link in the byline to their blog, it’s the perfect way for you to obtain a new link on the web. (more…)

Press Freedom Leads to Happiness, Environmental Quality, MU Study Finds

By Guest PostAugust 9, 2012Culture, Media, Politicsbruno takahashi, democracy, Economy, edson tandoc, environmental degradation, environmental quality, freedom, government, happy, information, life satisfaction, predict, press, united nations, university of missouri

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Freedom of the press is viewed by many as a cornerstone of democracy. But can it actually help improve people’s lives and make them happy? Researchers at the University of Missouri have found that citizens of countries with press freedom tend to be much happier than citizens of countries without free presses. Edson Tandoc, Jr., a doctoral student in the MU School of Journalism, says that press freedom directly predicts life satisfaction across the world.

“We already know that having reliable, objective news sources can benefit democracy, but in this study, we found that press freedom also benefits communities by helping improve the overall quality of life of citizens and, in the process, by also making them happier,” Tandoc said. “People enjoy having an element of choice about where they get their news. Citizens of countries without a free press are forced to rely on the government for information, when what people really want is diversity in content where they are free to get the information they want from the source of their choosing.” (more…)

‘Documents that Changed the World’: A podcast series from Joe Janes

By Guest PostAugust 5, 2012Culture, Media, Politicsaids quilt, andrew brink, Barack Obama, bayeux tapestry, bill of rights, birth certificate, british broadcasting corp, change, credit card, declaration of independence, documents, elastic, france, history, joe janes, john snow, magna carta, mickey mouse, mystery of cholera, phrase, physician, podcast, president, steamboat willie, storytelling, the jazz singer, unabomber manifesto, university of washington, websters dictionary, world

The phrase occurred to Joe Janes out of the blue one day and immediately appealed to him. From there, ideas began to flow quickly.

Janes, associate professor in the University of Washington Information School, had been a fan of the British Broadcasting Corp. radio series “A History of the World in 100 Objects” and thought those shows effectively blended history and storytelling.

He got to wondering, what if he took a similar approach to information, telling about the twists and turns of history — through documents? (more…)