Bring on the Conference

Here's the link to the conference website. http://aejmcctec.com/midwinter/

 Remember that the deadline for Abstract submissions is Dec. 1, 2013, and you don't have anything to loose.

The more information we have, the less we know

News overload has been a research focus in the information age. Abundant news media compete for user’s attention. Information is no more a scarce resource, on the contrary, user’s attention becomes scarce. Perhaps the more information users have, the less they know due to news fatigue.  Earlier studies examined the factors influencing news overload(Holton & Chyi, 2012). Other studies also looked into the effect of news overload(York, 2013). Those studies address the influence on perception and attitude. Few study look into the impact of news overload on behavior (news consumption). As a result, I want to focus on how has news overload affected news consumption/media selection.

 Previous study indicates that the more exposure to news, the more people feel overload(York, 2013). It is important to see that will the feeling of new overload lead to selective exposure. If the relationship between news overload and selective exposure is positive, the implication would be that the more information news organization provide, the less readers will get.

On the other hand, readers are assumed to be “Consumer sovereignty”, which means readers can search the information based on their interest(Chyi,2009), in other words, readers should be more informed among overabundance information. Thus, based on the assumption of “consumer sovereignty”, readers tend to select the information they are interested or the information they need, rather than being overwhelmed. Thus here comes the hypothesis that

H1: the feeling of news overload is positive associated with selective perception

H2: the feeling of news overload is positive associated with selective exposure.

Previous study has proved that the positive relationship between news overload and news exposure, it is also important to know what would the news overload influence media use. Some study mentioned news segment and nichfication(Nordenson, 2008), but they didn’t points out the relationship between news overload and news segment or nichfication. It might be critical to examine the relationship between news overload and news segment or nichfication, which means, news overload may not be that bad. Readers know how to find what they need among overabundance information. Thus the media use under news overload is worthy to examine.

RQ1: What is the relationship between news overload and multiplatform news use.

RQ2: What kind of news media (news paper, TV news, online news, mobile news) will users tend to use under the feeling of news overload

RQ3: Will the users who feel less news overload tend to use more news media than the users who feel more news overload 

    Based on the previous research, more news exposure leads to the feeling of news overload. However, users may avoid too much information. Since there are the most information on the Internet. Comparing to the Internet, there are less information on the traditional media, so here come another hypothesis that

H3: the more feeling of news overload, users tend not to use Internet to get the news in order to avoid too much information.

H4: the more feeling of news overload, users tend to read newspaper to get the news rather than using Internet.

Chyi, Hsiang Iris. 2009. “Information Surplus in the Digital Age: Impact and    

          Implications.” In Journalism and Citizenship: New Agendas, edited by Zizi   

          Papacharissi, 91–107. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Davenport, Thomas H., and John C. Beck. 2002. The Attention Economy:     Understanding the New             Currency of Business. Watertown, MA: Harvard  

 Doyle, G. (2010). From Television to Multi-Platform: Less from More or More for Less? Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 16(4), 431–449. doi:10.1177/1354856510375145

Holton, A. E., & Chyi, H. I. (2012). News and the overloaded consumer: factors influencing information overload among news consumers. Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking, 15(11), 619–24. doi:10.1089/cyber.2011.0610

Nordenson, B. (2008). Overload ! Columbia Journalism Review, (December), 30–42.

York, C. (2013). Overloaded By the News: Effects of News Exposure and Enjoyment on Reporting Information Overload. Communication Research Reports, 30(4), 282–292. doi:10.1080/08824096.2013.836628

When Temporal Physics and Journalism Collide

Something that may be under-appreciated about new media, at least in the present time, is its capacity to serve as a digital record of a person's lifespan content.

In 1984, I was a student at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) and working as sports editor of The Daily Helmsman, the four-day-per-week campus newspaper.  At the time, Memphis State's men's basketball team was a top 25 powerhouse, reaching the NCAA Final Four in 1985 before losing to eventual national champion Villanova.

That meant I got to cover a lot of home games that were also being nationally televised.  It was a rather exciting scene for a 19-year-old journalist, but I was more focused on my work for the campus newspaper during each game and didn't think much about games once they were completed, unless it was to review statistics or consider an angle for an upcoming article.  As time passed and I moved on to other places and people to write about, I gave little, if any, thought about my basketball beat at Memphis State.

But that was before this occurred last weekend:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGHzrExfei0

While on YouTube after looking at a college basketball-related link, I unexpectedly discovered that someone had uploaded several full game broadcasts of Memphis State basketball from 1984 and 1985.  Although you can't make out the faces in the background (this was well before HD broadcasting), I am one of the people sitting at the media table between both team benches in these videos.  As I began watching the game and the TV camera panned across the court, I became acutely aware of what I was experiencing -- here I was in Austin, Texas, in 2013, watching a college basketball game that I was also watching in Memphis, Tennessee, nearly 30 years earlier.  Not only that, but my present self was watching my past self watch the game, and my past self was sitting there on press row with no idea that his future self would one day be watching the same game through technology that didn't exist yet and a concept called "new media."

Granted, it's not exactly the same game; one is a live event, the other is an electronic recording of the event.  However, it does provide a strange type of parallax effect, psychologically and sensorially.  The content is the same and so is much of the stimuli - things like the sounds of the pep band playing, the sight of players running back and forth on the court, and the feelings of drama and excitement as the game continues.  All of this triggers memory, which produces its own stimuli and it isn't long before I start to re-experience other details of that point in time and space, like chowing down on hot dogs and chips in the media hospitality room before the game, or patiently awaiting a sports information department assistant to bring paper copies of the game stats at halftime.

Until this particular Saturday evening, two journalists, actually the same person, were blissfully unaware of such a peculiar connection across the time-space continuum.

One of us still doesn't know. 

Sample Experimental Study mentioned by the NY Times

http://cn.tmagazine.com/health/20131017/t17desk/en-us/

Qualitative Research Trustworthiness

Qualitative research has similar practices to the Validity and Reliability of quantitative methods; they're classified as Trustworthiness.

Gaining Trustworthiness:

• Credibility:
• Activities increasing the probability that credible findings will be produced
• Prolonged engagement
• Persistent observation
• Triangulation
• Peer debriefing
• Keeps the researcher "honest"
• Test working hypotheses
• Opportunity to develop and test next steps in methodology
• Catharsis to provide objective judgment
• Negative Case Analysis - adjusting and testing the hypothesis with hindsight
• Referential adequacy - recording materials
• Member Checks - testing data, analytic categories, interpretations, and conclusions with participants
• Transferability
• Thick description
• Dependbility
• Dependability audit
• Confirmability
• Confirmability audit
• All of the above
• Reflexive journal

All of this information comes from   Lincoln, Y. S. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry (Vol. 75). Sage.

Big Data

What is big data?

What's the implication for research methods?

An interesting/scary application --
http://cn.tmagazine.com/education/20131024/t24workscience/en-us/

What was the answer again?

I'm super interested in how memory might effect media consumers and the information that they process based on the ideas of Mere Exposure Effect which states that "mere repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus object enhances his attitude towards it." (Zajonc, 1968)  I'd like to look at this by performing a survey similar to that of Tavassoli, Shultz, and Fitzsimons in 1995 where they surveyed a number of people shortly after watching a television sporting event in order to verify whether they could recall the ads they saw, and whether their attitudes towards the company were positive or negative. I would hope to be able to eventually address the needs for news organizations to treat consumers of their respective mediums as clients that they are trying to engender that recall and positive attitude with.

Tavassoli, N. T., Shultz, C. J., & Fitzsimons, G. J. (1995). Program involvement: are moderate levels best for ad memory and attitude toward the ad?. Journal of Advertising Research.

Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of personality and social psychology, 9(2p2), 1.

Determining Sample Size

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pd006

Between the Impact of Technology on Journalism and Twitter Political Turmoil

Two new ideas for my project:

1) Impact of technology on journalism. My goal as a researcher has been trying to understand how journalists are reacting to digital challenges and whether they are preserving fundamental ideas of their profession when facing technological innovations. Being here in Austin, I would like to explore how the free newspaper industry is adapting to digital technology and mobile platforms. A possibility for this research is to target a specific newsroom such as Chronicle, a print publication that mixes in-depth journalism with a city guide. I would like to apply a survey and to interview newsroom editors and managers to find out how this publication is facing digital disruptions and how it envisions its future.

2) Twitter political turmoil. I would like to explore the twitter reaction of Colombian most influential journalists towards the announcement of former president Alvaro Uribe to return to the political arena as a candidate to the Colombian Senate. Now that the Colombian government is in the middle of a peace process with the FARC guerrilla (one of the bloodiest players of this five-decade-internal conflict), the question is whether the presence of Uribe and his followers in Congress would undermine peace efforts. I would like to explore if the twitter reaction of Colombia journalists remains neutral or takes a position in favor or against Uribe’s decision to come back to politics as senator.

Census Mapping Tool, UT Libraries

This is a useful tool for analyzing and mapping census information, FYI.
I've linked the path below.

Libraries --->  Research Tools ---> Government Information --->  Census ---> Social Explorer

The Pros & Cons of Amazon Mechanical Turk for Scientific Surveys

Sounds like a fairly promising online survey service option:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guilty-planet/2011/07/07/the-pros-cons-of-amazon-mechanical-turk-for-scientific-surveys/

Writing an Online Survey Questionnaire

Using the guidelines discussed in class and your readings for writing valid survey questions and response categories, write at least 10 questions about a topic of interest to you. Your survey questionnaire should also include the following:

a.  Specify the title that reflects specific focus of your questionnaire, and include a short description of your sampling frame.

b.  An opening paragraph introducing your survey.

c.  At least one contingency question.

d.  At least one matrix question.

e.  At least one open-ended question.

f.  At least one nominal level question.

g.  At least one ordinal level question.

h.  At least one ratio level question.

i.  Demographics. 

k. Questionnaire closing. 

You may use the survey questionnaire in Appendix A2 as a guide for a correct questionnaire format.  Please label the following in your questionnaire:

(1).  Open-ended question.

(2).  Contingency question.

(3).  Matrix question.

(4).  Ordinal question.

(5).  Ratio question.

Labels should be placed adjacent to the question referred to.

                                                                                                                       

Proofread your questionnaire so it will be free of errors.

You are encouraged to use your free account on Qualtrics to complete this assignment. Sign up at: http://www.qualtrics.com/academic-solutions/university-of-texas-college-of-communication/

Turn in a hard copy in class on Thursday, Oct. 3.

Video: Michel Teló - Ai Se Eu Te Pego

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcm55lU9knw

I have a question

Using the data set from the twitter research group, I'd like to answer the question of "What type of frame were political journalists establishing through mention of religion in the last presidential election?" "Were the tweets, mentions, and RTs positive or negative?"

First Thoughts: Research Topics

(New topic) 
1) The messaging behind drone attacks. I'd like to look at how drone attacks carried out overseas in Pakistan and Afghanistan have been reported domestically and also the messaging behind these attacks from government sources. Targets have often described as 'militants' for being male and within a broad age range, while many civilians have been killed in the process. The Obama administration ramped up the number of drone attacks throughout his presidency and I'd like to see how these operations have been covered, and what the public opinion has been as a result. 

I'd like to do a data analysis of articles and look at broadcast stories covering drone attacks. Tone, questions asked and the amount of information presented are all things I'd like to focus on. Has the government tried to make attacks seem automatic and not with a human element? What is the benefit of that messaging? I may also look at articles about drone technology in general and how related issues (privacy, security) are covered.

Links:
Covering Obama's Secret War
Columbia Journalism Review

Drone Warfare: Blowback from the New American Way of War
Middle East Policy

2) I'm interested in exploring the use of Twitter in political movements/elections in developing countries, and the lasting effects. From Venezuela to Iran to the many Arab Spring movements, Twitter played a major role in connecting people and inciting them to join together for a common cause (or hashtag). I'd like to look at Twitter effects in demonstrations and uprisings versus elections. 

Have these political movements and political hashtags come from average citizens or are there now more political players that have access to the general population, thus creating more divisions in those societies? I could do a content analysis of tweets and hashtags from various countries. 

Also, I'd like to explore the longevity/likelihood of these movements and what this means. 

Some links: 

Gatekeeping Twitter: message diffusion in political hashtags

Media Culture Society March 2013 vol. 35 no. 2 260-270
http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/35/2/260

Pakistan testing powerful Internet filtering software
Al Jazeera America
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/18/pakistan-testingpowerfulinternetfilteringsoftware.html

'Citizen Journalists' Evade Blackout On Myanmar News
Wall Street Journal, 2007
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119090803430841433.html

Preliminary Research Topic

     My research interested lies in that how mobile phone/tablet change the media structure, dynamic of competition between traditional news media, online news media and news on mobile phone/tablet.

  

     According to an annual report on American Journal (The state of the news media 2013), people with mobile phone/tablet spend more time consuming news than they did before. That is to say, mobile phone/tablet are becoming the major media for people getting news. Our habit of consuming news is changing rapidly with the launch of mobile phone/tablet. According to the same report (The state of the news media 2013), “Most mobile news users are not replacing one platform with another; they are consuming more news than they had in the past.” It also raises my interest that will there be “cannibalization effect” of mobile phone/tablet on online media and traditional media? 

  

     In addition, since the current trend of getting news is toward mobile phone/tablet, can media companies make profit on the advertising in mobile phone/tablet?  In order to answer these questions, we may need to know that, how to define media structure, how is the competition relationship between traditional, online, and mobile media?  Based on previous study on online news, it is modality, not content that influences reader’s usage of media (Thurman & Myllylahti, 2009), here comes to my concern that how about mobile phone/tablet, will it be the same as people consuming online news?

    Traditional media is struggling, online media was thought to be the future of traditional media. Here comes the rapid growth of mobile phone/tablet, ultimately, I want to figure out that will the mobile phone/tablet be the solution of the demise of traditional media?

     The scope of my research topic is still broad. Either newspaper on mobile device or cable TV on mobile is considered to be the objects of the research.

Some related article:

Chyi, H.I.,& Huang, J. S. (2012). Demystifying the demand relationship between online and print products under one newspaper brand: the case of Taiwan and the emergence of a universal pattern. Asian Journal of Communication. 21(3), 243-261.

Chyi, H. I.,& Sylvia, G. (2010). Are Long-Distance Users an Inconvenient Truth? Profiling U.S. Newspapers’ Online Readership in the Dual-Geographic Market. The International Journal on Media Management, 12:93–112.

Cha, J.,& Chan-Olmsted, S. M. (2012). Substitutability between Online Video Platforms and Television. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.89: 261-278.

Thurman, N., & Myllylahti, M. (2009). Taking the paper out of news. Journalism Studies, 10(1), 1-18.

The state of the news media 2013. Retrieved from: http://stateofthemedia.org/2013/digital-as-mobile-grows-rapidly-the-pressures-on-news-intensify/