Browsing by Subject "News"
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Item According to a new study : when bad journalism meets questionable science(2013-05) Burnson, Forrest Matthew; Dahlby, Tracy; Gil de Zúñiga, HomeroAccurately reporting scientific studies remains a challenge for journalists. Often lacking any formal background in science, journalists are expected to communicate the complex findings of scientific research in such a way that average readers can understand. As a result, news coverage tends to exaggerate, misrepresent, or sensationalize the findings of scientific studies. This report examines the common errors that journalists make when reporting on scientific studies, as well as the issues in modern scientific research that contribute to this problem. While total scientific literacy in journalism remains a lofty ideal, the democratizing force of the Internet not only holds journalists more accountable in their reporting, but also provides platforms for skeptics and experts to weigh in on the news treatment that studies receive.Item Another time, another place : archival media content as temporal consciousness and collective memory(2015-05) Britt, Terry Lynn; Bock, Mary Angela; Adut, AriInternet-based video streaming services have arisen in the past decade not only to provide new ways of engaging with current media content, but also with media content of the past, including news archives, movies, and television shows. This ability to “dial up” the mediated past almost at will with a broadband Internet connection suggests new ways for viewers of such content to use it in constructing temporal consciousness, which refers to how someone experiences and perceives time; and temporal frameworks related to the online content. Likewise, online media archives can be used in the formation and preservation of collective memory. Utilizing a targeted focus group study of 18-30-year-olds and their reactions and memories triggered by viewing selected archival news and entertainment content found online, the study contained within this master’s thesis proposes to explore elements of online media archives that might assist viewers in building a type of mediated temporal consciousness – time awareness and structuring through the consumption of media content – as well as collective memory. Consideration of these possible effects may better define the social value of media archives and their accessibility to future generations of potential viewers. Additionally, qualitative investigation of these concepts can help us to understand more about the mind’s ability to connect media content with personal experience and memory, as well as understand more about new media’s sociological and psychological significance as a depository for archival content. Without a method of preserving and presenting archival content, especially pre-digital content on aging, decaying source materials, large periods of time and history represented through news and other media content may become irrevocably lost.Item Civic engagement in a mobile landscape : testing the roles of duration and frequency in learning from news(2015-08) Molyneux, Logan Ken; Poindexter, Paula MaurieConsuming the news is often seen as preparing a person to participate in a democracy by giving them the information they need to make choices and provide input. This relationship has varied depending on the ways in which news is delivered, with different news platforms delivering different results in terms of learning from the news. As society changes and people's news consumption habits shift toward mobile, it is necessary to re-examine this relationship in a mobile age. This dissertation conducts surveys of two samples of U.S. adults one year apart in order to examine civic engagement in a mobile news landscape. Study 1, given to a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults in 2014, tests the Mobile News Dependency Model. The model predicts that reliance on mobile devices for news consumption will lead people to consume news in shorter, inattentive sessions, which should have detrimental effects on news knowledge and therefore civic engagement. Study 2, given in 2015 to a different sample of U.S. adults, refines the tests conducted in Study 1 using updated measures to identify those who snack on the news and compare them with those who get news in larger portions. Results show that news sessions on smartphone are indeed shorter than on other platforms, and that smartphone news use is associated with snacking on the news. But those who get news from smartphones are not significantly less knowledgeable and are in fact slightly more civically engaged than those who do not. Links between smartphone news use and short sessions or snacking are supported, but the overall Mobile News Dependency Model is not supported. The overall relationship between mobile news use and civic engagement appears to take a different path than the one specified. Finally, results show that most people consume news on multiple platforms, perhaps normalizing the effects of any one platform on knowledge. Implications for news consumers, news producers, and democracy in a mobile age are discussed.Item Communicating foreign cultures : the workings of the culture peg in international reporting and communication(2017-05-05) Tanikawa, Miki; Jensen, Robert, 1958-; Straubhaar, Joseph D.; Johnson, Thomas J; Dahlby, Tracy S; McCombs, Maxwell E; Abrahamson, DavidServing as a key concept throughout, “the culture peg,” stereotype-themed content in international news articles in major national newspapers was investigated empirically and theoretically employing quantitative and qualitative methodologies. As operationalized in a content analysis project, this study identified significant amount of such content in three leading news media from three different countries, the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. The volume of it increased significantly in approximately three decades between 1985 and 2014. Theoretical inquiry in this dissertation identified strong connections between such empirical findings and existing theories in social psychology, cultural studies and communication. The way culture pegs are employed in the news, it was found, is highly consistent with the social identity theory from social psychology, the ritual view of communication from communication studies, use of myth in reporting facts and events and certain conceptualizations of culture from cultural studies. This dissertation concludes that national cultural stereotypes essentially behave like culture does generally – as explicated by cultural scholars – and that stereotypes in the media are effective in attracting audience attention because they resonate through the discursive framework commonly shared by the producers of news and the audiences, both of who possess similar cultural frames.Item Cultivation Theory And Violence In Media: Correlations And Observations(2019-05-01) Obert-Hong, Christine; Lewis, RobertCultivation Theory represents the idea that people’s perceptions of the real world are unconsciously influenced by their consumption of media. As technology has improved and increased, so too has the amount of information various platforms are able to spread. However, there is an imbalance between the amount of violence depicted in media and the amount that occurs in real life, leading to unrealistic perceptions of a mean world. Most cultivation research is not experimental. For my thesis, I decided to conduct an experiment of my own using YouTube clips emphasizing violent or fearful content, using a variety of established practices and questions, as well as some of my own. Although result were not conclusive, a few patterns consistent with Cultivation Theory were observed in this online context.Item Framing the news : Deutsche Welle, Sputnik News, and Macedonia’s Colorful Revolution(2020-08-14) Demjanski, Aleksej; Neuburger, Mary, 1966-; Redei, LorincState-owned international broadcasters have since World War II been a fundamental part of a country’s public diplomacy and broader foreign policy efforts. These broadcasters not only serve to present a country’s position to the world, but actively frame the way unfolding current events are seen by the public. Despite the dominance of social media today – international broadcasters have in the past decade seen an expansion in their audience reach as well as an increase in their funding. This research examines how Germany’s Deutsche Welle (DW) and Russia’s Sputnik News (SN) framed the 2016 pro-democracy protests in Macedonia that came to known as the “Colorful Revolution.” While it is no surprise that this research found both DW and SN framed the Macedonian protests in line with their respective government’s policies – how they framed them differed. The use of particular framing devices (subtle and direct), the repetition of certain topics and the omission of others, as well as the intertextual links to prior news texts showcase the specific methods by which Deutsche Welle and Sputnik News framed the Colorful Revolution. This research found that DW utilized (1) a domestic crisis frame in English-language reporting, (2) a divided country frame in Macedonian-language reporting, and (3) a rule of law frame in both English and Macedonian. SN, on the other hand, utilized (1) a foreign meddling frame, (2) an ethnic conflict and regional destabilization frame, and (3) a law and order frame in both English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. Deutsche Welle’s frames were targeted based on the perceived audience – an English speaking and international audience as well as a local Macedonian speaking audience. On the other hand, Sputnik News utilized both international and locally salient discourses in both its English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language editions. Further research is needed that explores the news production of frames as well as the framing effects in order to holistically understand what role Deutsche Welle and Sputnik News play in framing international eventsItem GLBTQ representation on children's television : an analysis of news coverage and cultural conservatism(2015-05) Mayer, Christopher John; Tyner, Kathleen R.; Fuller-Seeley, KathrynThe invisibility of GLBTQ characters on children's television stands in stark contrast to trends in adolescent and adult television over the past decade. A deep cultural ambivalence exists as to whether or not sexual identities are appropriate topics for young children on preschool television programming. For example, a marriage between Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie has been the topic of many petitions, political debates, and academic studies over the years. This analysis seeks to reconcile the cultural ambivalence through analysis of news coverage over the most prominent children's shows associated with latent and/or manifest GLBTQ content. New stories that make up the research sample are analyzed for "Anti-GLBTQ" logics, and placed in a broader discourse analysis of societal expectations for children’s television, and what is considered to be appropriate content. The goal of this study is to draw greater attention to debates over how to best serve the educational needs of young children, and posits that the increasing numbers of children living under same-sex parented households are underserved by the children's television industry. The ambivalence by the industry seems suspect given prior, and well established efforts, of children’s shows, such as Sesame Street, and the ability of educational programming to bridge cultural, class, and racial divides. This study represents a preliminary effort to extend the conversations about children’s television content to be more inclusive of GLBTQ identities.Item How do news issues help frame telenovela plots?: a framing analysis of Brazilian print national press and TV Globo’s 8 p.m. telenovela Duas caras [Two faced/s](2009-12) Cantrell, Tania Heather; Straubhaar, Joseph D.; Reese, Stephen D.This study examines how news issues help frame telenovela plots and compares how the print media and telenovelas frame several key social and political issues. Secondary systematic sampling of the Brazilian leading daily newspaper O Jornal do Brasil and newsmagazine Veja/Veja-Rio from January 2007 to April 2008 generated 313 news stories along with 292 photos for analysis. A five-composite week sample of TV Globo’s 8 p.m. hit telenovela Duas Caras resulted in 31 episodes — including its premiere and finale — or a total of 1,051 scenes to explore. Applying framing theory (Reese, 2003) through a reciprocal and dynamic comparative narrative analysis (Berger, 2005; Berger, 1997) to this body of materials suggests the telenovela, compared to news, is a more progressive storyteller with regard to race, class and gender news issues. Salient latent news frames The Government is the family and Brazilian democracy is more social than racial emerge from this study’s news portion. These are compared with the emergent salient latent novela frames Family first, family forever and It’s not the position that rules, but the influence. For the first time in TV Globo’s history, an Afro-Brazilian is an 8 p.m. telenovela hero. In addition, Duas Caras highlights his successful municipal election campaign, right around the time municipal election campaigns in Brazil were gearing up and while U.S. citizens were considering then electing their first Afro- American president. Duas Caras also sanitizes favelas, or Brazilians shantytowns, contrasting the fictive locale of Portelinha against marginalized portrayals of favelas and their residents in the news. In a diversifying media environment where lines between fact and fiction are increasingly less apparent, Brazilian (alternative) news studies, such as social marketing themes in telenovelas, are critical measures of the state of media opening in Brazil (Porto, 2007). They also reveal from which source(s) Brazilians receive their news information, raising the question, Do telenovelas help frame news issues?Item The instability of incivility : how news frames and citizen perceptions shape conflict in American politics(2013-12) Muddiman, Ashley Rae; Stroud, Natalie JominiPoliticians and media elites have been calling for a return to civility in United States politics, and the vast majority of citizens agree that civility is necessary for a strong democracy. Yet incivility is an ever-present and misunderstood part of politics. In my dissertation, I focus on news, politics, and incivility by asking three questions. First, to what extent does news coverage portray political conflict as uncivil? Second, what political behaviors do citizens perceive as uncivil? Finally, how does news that portrays politics as uncivil affect citizens? I used a mixed method approach to answer these questions. I, first, conducted a content analysis of news surrounding four high-conflict political events to determine whether two conflict frames (interpersonal-level and public-level conflict) emerged. Second, I conducted two experiments and drew from social judgment theory to determine whether citizens perceived multiple types of incivility and whether their partisanship influenced how acceptable they found political behaviors to be. In a final experiment, I tested whether exposure to mediated conflict frames prompted perceptions of incivility from citizens and affected their reactions to politics. This project makes clear that news coverage of conflict emphasizes incivility and negatively affects citizens. Media elites shape political conflict using interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames. Citizens perceive both types of conflict, as well, and tend to think that likeminded partisans are behaving appropriately while counter-attitudinal partisans are behaving badly. Finally, and importantly, the coverage of political conflict affects citizens in troublesome ways. Particularly when both types of conflict frames are present in the news, citizens feel more anxiety and aversion, have decreased levels of favorability toward political institutions, and think of political arguments in partisan ways. Overall, I conclude that incivility is not stable. Instead, incivility is a two-dimensional concept that is shaped by the media, perceived by citizens, and advanced by partisans. By recognizing these dimensions of incivility, researchers may find new and important effects of incivility, and people interested in ridding politics of incivility may be more successful by beginning with the recognition that what is uncivil to one person is not always uncivil to another.Item Juan Coronado Interview(2021-08-18) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious StudiesThis interview is with Dr. Juan Coronado, a professor from the Río Grande Valley. Juan reflects on growing up surrounded by Latino culture and on his exposure to migration and the presence of the border. He talks as a historian about his impressions of changes at the border and in the US at large that followed 9/11. Juan also discusses the effects of wars in the Middle East on Middle Eastern populations, American troops, and American culture.Item The LIBERATOR, Issue 11(University of Texas at Austin, 2014-03-03) University of Texas at AustinItem Maesha Meto Interview(2022-02-22) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious StudiesThis interview is with Maesha Meto, a public affairs grad student and activist in Austin, TX. Maesha talks about her childhood experiences as a young immigrant, such as learning English and feeling alienated from her peers. She shares stories of the Islamophobia she and her family experienced while she was growing up. She also talks about her political awakening and her activist involvement, including police reform work in New York City.Item Making Korean American news : Korean American journalists and their news media(2010-08) Bai, Sang Y.; McCombs, Maxwell E.; Straubhaar, Joseph; Lasorsa, Dominic L.; Rodriguez, America; Coleman, RenitaOne of the main purposes of this dissertation is to examine who Korean American diaspora-oriented journalists are and how they make news, taking into account several forces on the individual, organizational, extramedia, and social system levels that influence the gatekeeping processes and news content. In addition, this dissertation investigates what interests Korean American diaspora-oriented journalists mainly serve. The author surveyed journalists working for major Korean diaspora-oriented media in Los Angeles and conducted in-depth interviews with experienced personnel involved in the Korean diasporic journalism industry. In addition, two major Korean diasporic dailies were content-analyzed. The basic characteristics of the majority of Korean American-oriented journalists in 2008 are depicted as follows: male Korean Americans, 30 to 40 years old, born in Korea, with a bachelor’s degree, in the United States and working as journalists for less than 15 years, politically liberal, Protestant religious backgrounds, with previous journalism experience at another media organization. Korean diaspora-oriented journalists place emphasis on three major news topics: immigration, business/economy, and education. Cultural proximity rather than geographical proximity significantly influence the degree of newsworthiness of a news story. Newsworthiness is highest when an event/issue has both high cultural proximity and geographical proximity. When geographical proximity is low and cultural proximity is high, newsworthiness in Korean American-oriented journalism is moderately high. If the degree of cultural proximity is low, however, it does not matter whether the news story occurred in Los Angeles or other states or countries in determining the degree of newsworthiness. The Korean American journalists value the interracial harmonizer function most, followed by the disseminator, ethnic consolidator, and interpreter functions. The finding suggests that Korean diaspora-oriented journalists keep in mind that their foremost responsibility is to help Korean immigrants settle smoothly in their new host country and to live in harmony with other racial groups. The longer a Korean journalist has lived in the U.S., the more he or she tends to embrace the interracial harmonizer and ethnic consolidator functions. In other words, the longer Korean American journalists stay in the U.S., the more sensitive they become both to racial issues and to their own ethnic identities.Item Media misdiagnosis? : a longitudinal analysis of frames, primes, and public opinion in relation to newspaper coverage of HIV/AIDS and smoking(2016-08) Suran, Melissa Nicole; Coleman, Renita; McCombs, Maxwell E.; Johnson, Thomas J.; Lasorsa, Dominic L.; Mackert, Michael S.Medical issues are considered among the most popular topics in the media. However, because much health news research tends to focus on specific attributes rather than macro frames that are universally applicable to medical issues at large, paired with the fact that most framing studies do not examine topics for more than a decade, this study explores how macro frames and stereotype primes in medical news change over time as well how these changes affect public opinion. This was accomplished by developing a content analysis to longitudinally examine medical news content from The New York Times and The Washington Post. Two topics— HIV/AIDS and smoking—were strategically selected for this study, as they both have been considered major issues for decades and written about extensively. A follow‐up, agenda‐setting study comparing HIV/AIDS and smoking news to related public opinion polls was also conducted to determine how much the media influence the public over time and if the general opinion corresponds with framing and priming changes in the news. Previous research about frames, most of which examines less than a decade of coverage, emphasizes that topics in the news tend to gradually change from being episodic to thematic in nature. Therefore, the first study of this dissertation contributes to framing theory by determining whether similar patterns occur when analyzing issues during a longer period of time. The findings of the first study revealed that when examined over the course of decades, frames did not change in a particular direction; rather, there was an ebb and flow of frame changes based on whether the events of a particular year were inherently episodic (e.g., a celebrity death) or thematic (e.g., the release of a groundbreaking study). Because journalists strive for objectivity, how the news is framed tends to be influenced by the sources they choose. Therefore, this study also examined what sources predict the frames found in news about HIV/AIDS and smoking. The results indicated that experts and government organizations were significant predictors of thematic news while laypeople predicted episodic coverage. This study also determined that the media did not perpetuate exaggerated stereotypes in coverage of HIV/AIDS or smoking. The second study found that coverage of HIV/AIDS with combined episodic and loss frames was significantly associated with the public attributing the contraction of HIV/AIDS to individual blame. News that featured both thematic and loss frames significantly correlated with the public being in favor of societal efforts to end smoking. Thus, this study confirmed the results from experimental research that found pairing thematic and loss frames causes similar audience effects. However, unlike the former experiments, this study concluded that episodic/loss frame combinations influence public opinion as well.Item Mehlam Bhuriwala Interview(2021-09-27) Institute for Diversity & Civic LifeThis interview is with Mehlam Bhuriwala, an activist with experience in a variety of organizing settings and a former employee of IDCL. Mehlam tells his story of growing up in Texas as a Pakistani-American and part of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and how he navigated his senses of belonging and identity. He shares formative experiences of grappling with grief and mental health at a young age. He discusses involvement, such as high school debate club and college participation in United Students Against Sweatshops, that shaped his worldview and commitment to social justice. Mehlam also talks about his involvement in the Palestinian Solidarity Committee and his current work with Family Eldercare. Content Warning: The following interview contains sensitive material. Please note that the interview includes description of suicidal ideation and psychiatric hospitalization. These subjects will be discussed at 23:01-24:29 (in the transcript p. 6).Item News engagement logics : examining practices of media outlets and their audiences on social networking sites(2020-12-04) Tenenboim, Ori; Reese, Stephen D.; Chen, Gina; Chyi, Hsiang; Johnson, Thomas J; Stroud , Natalie JIn an attempt to build relationships with audience members in the digital media environment, news organizations operate beyond their proprietary platforms. On non-proprietary platforms, such as Facebook, they occupy spaces that are termed here triple-party news-spaces: digital spaces that involve a news publisher, a platform owner, and users. The proposed dissertation seeks to identify and explicate the underlying logics of media production and usage in these spaces. On the production side, it draws on 28 interviews to investigate how 14 news organizations in the United States of America and Israel produce messages for triple-party news-spaces. On the media usage side, it employs a content analysis of 1,600 messages and an analysis of engagement metrics for 157,962 messages to examine to what extent and how news organizations’ messages differ in the modes of engagement they generate: commenting versus sharing versus liking/reacting. By examining media production and usage in triple-party news-spaces, the dissertation develops conceptually and empirically news engagement logics that are employed in these spaces—logics by which news organizations act to evoke audience interaction with their content, and audience members actually interact with it. While audience engagement is generally important for news organizations, it is particularly important on social networking sites where algorithms prioritize posts that generate engagement. In developing news engagement logics, the dissertation uses the theoretical construct of media logics, news value theory and literature on engagement enhancers, and the participatory paradigm in audience research, suggesting that certain content characteristics are associated with each of the examined modes of engagement in more than one country and other content characteristics are associated with particular modes of engagement. The dissertation also suggests that the news organizations under study strive to balance between perceived journalistic imperatives or standards and perceived rules of the social media “game” by combining older and newer logics in selecting content, deciding when to post it, choosing expression style, signaling which content deserves more attention, and determining the organizations’ approach toward user-generated content. Business implications for news organizations and democratic implications for civic life are discussed.Item News, nations, and power relations : a study of newsmaking and policymaking as transnational practices(2017-08) Shahin, Syed Saif; Reese, Stephen D.; Bock, Mary A.; Johnson, Thomas J.; Sparrow, Bartholomew H.; Straubhaar, Joseph D.In this dissertation, I examine the relationship between newsmaking and policymaking as interpretive practices that operate by making sense of the social world based on stocks of knowledge about the nation and its stature and role vis-à-vis other nations. To do so, I study the news coverage of “foreign aid” from four nations – the United States, Britain, India, and Pakistan – over a 15-year period (2001-15). I also examine foreign policymaking in the form of speeches delivered by the leaders of these nations over the same period at the United Nations General Assembly. While machine learning helps me conduct a broad exploration of my large-volume data, critical discourse analysis aided by natural language processing leads to a rich, contextually sensitive understanding of the data based on purposive samples. The analysis illustrates a mutually constitutive relationship between newsmaking and foreign policymaking in all four nations. Both the news media and the political elite in each of these nations draw upon similar conceptions of national identity, respectively. In addition, these conceptions are complementary and transnationally shared. Journalists and policymakers everywhere rely on the same discourses of neoliberalism as the natural economic order and unipolarity as the functional political order of international relations: featuring the United States as the global superpower that enforces a capitalist free trade regime, Britain as a secondary power that helps the U.S. maintain this regime, India as an emerging power that aspires to a secondary position of power similar to Britain’s, and Pakistan as a subordinate nation that values itself as an ally of the superpower. I thus show how nations become willing participants in their own subordination. I also argue that voluntary subordination takes place because newsmaking and policymaking reify nations as the basic building blocks of social reality – thus according ontological equivalence and agency to all the peoples of the world qua nations. Subordinate nations, in particular, value this illusory sense of equality and agency, but it paradoxically makes them complicit in maintaining a hegemonic international order that curtails their choices and leaves them open to exploitation.Item Personalizing politics : producing accountability on Pakistan's news television(2017-05) Bolton, Elizabeth Anne; Kumar, Shanti; Minault, Gail; Mallapragada, Madhavi; Straubhaar, Joseph; Hyder, S. Akbar; Ali, Kamran AThis dissertation, through analysis of news television texts and ethnographic study of new workers, identifies a movement in Pakistani society to close the gap between the country’s elite and the larger population and to rewrite the rules of political engagement to include the voices of ordinary people. This collective aspiration is both mobilized and manifest in a shift of the nature of Pakistan’s news television from its initial focus on national news bulletins and serious political talk shows to what this dissertation terms specific accountability news television. The programs of specific accountability news television are a cluster of platforms of expression, whose formats lend them to being a landing place for the collective pursuit of accountability from the elite and visibility for ordinary people. The shows of specific accountability news television are connected not by categories of genre, but their ability to satisfy two major incentives. First push for institutional response at local levels and/or material reparation to ordinary people. Second they validate the personal experience of struggle as a form of evidence in an arena where the personal and emotional is not considered part of discourse. Ethnographically the study focuses on news workers in Lahore, Pakistan at Samaa TV, Geo News and City 42, three privately owned, market-oriented, 24-hour news channels. The perspectives and practices of news workers are analyzed with an eye for how they are a response to those same forces with which society grapples. The dissertation concludes that the shift in the nature of news television is indicative of larger changes in Pakistani society in the terms of political discourse and engagement.Item Seriously social : crafting opinion leaders to spur a two-step flow of news(2011-05) Kaufhold, William Thomas; Lasorsa, Dominic L.Since the 1960s, the United States has experienced steady declines in news consumption and commensurate attrition in civic engagement and political participation. Americans read newspapers at less than one fourth the rate of 60 years ago; voter turnout has fallen to the point where the U.S. ranks 23 out of 24 established democracies; signing petitions, volunteering for a civic organization like the PTA and political party affiliation are all at contemporary lows. But these indicators only tell half the story…the younger half. Because among Americans over age 50, attrition in all these areas is much milder; among those under age 30 they are much steeper. So do young adults get news? If so, how do they get news? If not, how do they find out about things? A 21-year old journalism student reported that: “I usually just hear it from friends, when I talk to friends.” The present study employed four methods: Secondary analysis of longitudinal Pew data; interviews and focus groups about news consumption and media use habits, including social media and wireless devices; a survey on social media use and its relationship to news and news knowledge; and an experiment testing a novel game as a way to convey news and civics knowledge, all involving students at three large state universities. Findings include the following: students often rank social media use, like Facebook, as their most important and most-used media; social media are negatively related with traditional news use and with news knowledge; students draw clear and important distinctions between news and information; one method of teaching (direct instruction) works well while another (a news game) works, but not as well. Of particular interest is the role of opinion leaders in the two-step flow of news, and the role of relevance and need for orientation in agenda setting. Novel contributions include a clearer definition of students’ distinction between news and important information as they define it, a framework by which to experiment with creating an interactive game using news to promote news seeking, and some provocative recommendations for future research.Item Tara Bonds Interview(2022-03-26) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life; Department of Religious StudiesThis interview is with Tara Bonds, an educator and librarian in Elgin, TX. Tara shares the story of a trip she took to Egypt with her grandmother after college, and how it opened her eyes to cultural diversity and intercultural connection. She then describes her first year teaching middle school, which began with the events of 9/11, and how she navigated that in the classroom and provided a safe escape for students. Tara also discusses the lasting impacts of post-9/11 legislation on every-day freedoms and national security.