August E. Grant

Reconceptualizing the role of habit: A new model of television audience activity

This paper explores the role played by habit in shaping audience behavior through an analysis of Nielsen audience data. Through the use of a structural equation model, comparisons, are made between individuals’ weekday and weekend viewing patterns to determine if similarities persist despite the structural and programmatic differences in those time periods. Results indicate that habit plays a significant role in viewing behavior.

Journalism Degree Motivations The Development of a Scale

Scientific knowledge should reflect valid, consistent measurement. It is argued research on scale development needs to be more systematic and prevalent. The intent of this article is to address scale development by creating and validating a construct that measures the underlying reasons why undergraduate students seek a degree in journalism, the Journalism Degree Motivations (JDM) scale. Through a multimethod approach and seven-step process, a set of motivations that reflect existing theory and measures was developed. The JDM scale is composed of eight factors: social responsibility, reporting, social prestige, sports media, photography, writing, varied career, and numbers and science anxiety.

An Examination of How Academic Advancement of U.S. Journalism Students Relates to Their Degree Motivations, Values, and Technology Use

The newsroom is a powerful influence in a journalist’s identity formation. Research has yet to verify the socializing impact of academia. This research utilized the quantitative survey method applying it to undergraduate journalism students (n = 798) to assess how academic status relates to students’ degree motivations, life values, and technology use. The results show advancement is related to variations in perceptions of some degree motivations, which include perceiving journalism as a path to write and fame, but life values were not significantly different. The implication of this study suggests that academia may not have much impact on certain perceptions and behaviors.

An Examination of Print and Broadcast Journalism Students' Personality Traits.

Journalists identify with a medium because it aligns with their interests and talents, and they may resist tasks incongruent with their perceived creative strengths. Occupational conflict arises when one’s personality does not align with expected work tasks within a role according to Holland’s theory of vocational choice. We carried out a quantitative survey of aspiring print and broadcast journalists to investigate whether they differed in personality traits (i.e., extraversion, conscientiousness, life values, and journalism degree motivations). Results show broadcast journalism students perceived themselves as more extreme on many measures including extraversion, conscientiousness, and certain life values. Broadcast students were also more likely to choose journalism as a degree for social prestige, sports, reporting, and photography reasons, whereas print students were more likely to choose writing as their primary motivation.

Impact of Media on Major Choice: Survey of Communication Undergraduates.

Popular and news media sources may play a key role in influencing undergraduate choice of major, yet their unique impact has not been investigated. Most research has focused on the influence of unm...

Format appears to matter less than story salience

Researchers suggest another factor other than format may be at work in determining the amount of time readers spend with an online news story, and that is the story’s relevance. They suggest journalists choose the format based upon the best way for telling a particular story.

The Convergence Years.

The emergence of the Internet, social media, and digital technologies in the twenty-first century accelerated an evolution in journalism and communication that fit under the broad term of convergence. That evolution changed the relationship between news producers and consumers. It broke down the geographical boundaries in defining our communities, and this change forced new organizational and economic models for news and information. This retrospective on twelve years of Convergence and Society conferences devoted to research and practices reveals a set of lessons for journalism educators. Convergence began to encompass multiple dimensions from collaboration across media outlets to the integrated use of multiple media in collecting and delivering information. It has brought about the rise of emerging neo-communities not confined by place. Despite the upheaval from new technologies, mass media in general have successfully adapted. But to keep pace, those who teach and practice journalism and mass communication must implement sustainable innovation.

Legal and Regulatory Issues

When you think of media regulation, the first things that may come to your mind are the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But media managers must concern themselves with a much broader range of laws and regulations in order to do their day-to-day jobs. Consider the problem this author once faced in putting a new FM radio station on the air.