Wilson Lowrey

JOURNALISM AND BLOGGING: A test of a model of occupational competition

Adopting a systems framework from the sociology of occupations, this study proposes a model to explain the vulnerabilities of journalism in the face of challenges from blogging, and the conditions under which journalists are likely to change their practices to address these vulnerabilities. A test of this model shows that editors’ awareness of local blogging activity corresponds to increased use of blogs as sources, discussion of blogs in planning meetings and adoption of the blogging form on news websites.

Differential Employment Rates in the Journalism and Mass Communication Labor Force Based on Gender, Race, and Ethnicity: Exploring the Impact of Affirmative Action

This paper examines whether gender, race, and ethnicity are associated with employment in the journalism and mass communication labor market and—if discrepancies in employment exist—what explanations might he offered for them. The data show strong evidence that race and ethnicity are associated with lower levels of employment among journalism and mass communication graduates. These discrepancies in success in the job market are explainable in highly specified situations by factors normally associated with hiring, such as type of training, type of institution offering the training, or qualifications such as internship experience and level of performance in the classroom.

Determinants of Newsroom Use of Staff Expertise The Case of International News

This article examines the role of the community in determining why some news organizations invest in staff expertise in the area of international news and provide extensive international news content, while others do not. Data from daily newspapers in the US show organizational size rather than community factors to be the dominant influence on the news organizations commitment to specialization. Community factors did matter, however, and generally predicted more strongly for larger organizations than for smaller organizations.

Undergrad Enrollments Level Off, Graduate Education Declines.

Undergraduate enrollments in journalism and mass communication programs in the United States increased slightly in the autumn of 1999 in comparison with a year earlier. At the beginning of the 1999-2000 academic year, an estimated 150,250 students were studying journalism across the country, up 0.7 percent from a year earlier. The small growth in undergraduate enrollment followed three years of very dramatic growth. In 1998, enrollments were 5.8 percent higher than a year earlier. The data suggest a softening of enrollment, consistent with the national projections for the next several years. The number of students studying for a masters degree in journalism and mass communication programs across the country dropped a dramatic 9.7 percent in the autumn of 1999 compared with a year earlier. Enrollments in journalism and mass communication masters programs had declined a year earlier by 1.7 percent. The number of students studying for a doctorate in journalism and mass communication programs in the autumn of 1999 also declined from a year earlier. The number, an estimated 1,123, is the smallest recorded since 1995. The enrollment patterns continue to make journalism and mass communication education an increasingly undergraduate curriculum; the ratio of graduate to undergraduate students is the lowest it has been since 1990. Consistent with the pattern of enrollment growth in recent years, the number of bachelors degrees granted in academic year 1998-99 increased by 5.8 percent over a year earlier, while the number of graduate degrees declined 16.9 percent. The percentages of female students remained relatively consistent in 1999 compared with a year earlier; the percentages classified as members of racial or ethnic minorities also held relatively constant. These are some of the key findings of the 1999 Annual Survey of Journalism &Mass Communication Enrollments, conducted in the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research, a unit of the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.1 Important findings * The number of programs reporting the race/ethnicity and gender characteristics of students continued to decline. Only 38 percent of the programs reported enrollments by race and ethnicity in 1999, and only 51 percent reported enrollments by gender. * Faculty hiring and faculty size have stabilized. Only 60 new positions opened in the field for academic year 1999-2000. * Only about half of all those hired on the faculty have a doctorate. At the same time, most hiring is done at the assistant professor level, and nearly two-thirds of those hired at the assistant professor level have a doctorate. * About one in four of those hired come directly from graduate school, and most of those come from doctoral programs. * Administrators anticipate hiring faculty predominantly in print and broadcast journalism and public relations in the next three years. Method The methods used in the Annual Survey of Journalism Fr Mass Communication Enrollments have remained unchanged since 1988. Schools listed in either the Journalism Fr Mass Communication Directory published by the AEJMC or The Journalists Road to Success, A Career and Scholarship Guide, published by The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Inc., are included in the population of surveyed schools. A combination of these two directories produced 464 listings in 1999. In October 1999, a questionnaire was mailed to the administrator of each of these programs. A second mailing of this same questionnaire was sent to the non-responding schools in December, a third mailing was sent in January, and a fourth mailing was sent in February. The administrators of the programs that had not responded by the beginning of April were contacted by telephone. The questionnaire asked the administrators to provide information on total enrollments in the autumn of 1999, enrollment by year in school, enrollment by sequence of study, enrollment by gender, and enrollment by racial or ethnic group. …

MANAGED MEDIOCRITY?: Experienced journalists’ perspectives on the “pampers generation” of Russian reporters

This paper adopts Bourdieus field theory to examine a possible professional gap between young and experienced Russian regional journalists. In-depth interviews revealed that experienced journalists have a negative view of their young colleagues, seeing them as unskilled, poorly motivated, mediocre, and submissive to authority. In turn, beginners see the older generation as lacking dynamism and dedication to helping young reporters master professional skills. It appeared that younger reporters tended to choose different professional priorities, to pursue sources of “capital” that derive from beyond the journalistic field, and to follow different historical trajectories than older journalists. Because of the dependency of media on the state and the governmental reward for mediocrity, older study participants tended to doubt that young reporters would seek or obtain a measure of journalistic autonomy.

Assessing a 10-Year Experiment in Community Journalism Education

This study assesses the degree to which graduates of a 10-year-old master’s program in community journalism have been aiding the “process of community” by helping citizens negotiate community structures and processes, by listening to citizens, and by helping lead their communities. Findings from a survey of graduates and from a content analysis of graduates’ news stories reveal that graduates value all three of these community journalism dimensions, particularly listening to citizens. However, there is a gap between graduates’ aspirations on the one hand and the actual work produced and career paths on the other, consistent with harsh workplace realities.

News Media Ecosystems and Population Dynamics: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Much of the classic sociological research on news production was conducted at the level of the news organization (e.g. Epstein, 1973; Tuchman, 1978; Tunstall, 1971). However, for some time, scholars have also recognized that news organizations are porous, and news is influenced by the organization’s environment (e.g. Carroll and Hannan, 1995; Tichenor, Olien and Donohue, 1980). In the early to mid-1900s, Robert Park of the Chicago School of Sociology mapped urban ecologies, studying the relationship between news media readership, community complexity, and community integration (Janowitz, 1967; Park, 1922). Research on the role of news media in complex ecosystems continued with Tichenor, Olien and Donohue (e.g. 1980), Jeffres and colleagues (e.g. 2000); Kim and Ball-Rokeach (2006); and McLeod and colleagues (e.g. 1999), among others. Within the last few years, studies of changing urban news ecosystems and ecologies in the midst of economic, technological and cultural disruption have been common (e.g. Anderson, 2013; Chicago Community Trust, 2011; Robinson, 2011).