Study reveals mild attitude towards job-related Facebook censorship; difference in male and female censoring views

Facebook is part of modern life; student's views somewhat lax towards censorship

On average, 96 percent of high school and college students use the social media website Facebook.com, according to a 2010 study released by the University of New Hampshire.

A study conducted at the University of Maryland this spring set out to discover how students tailor their Facebook profiles to what they believe employers will find acceptable.

The results of the study show a relatively mild student attitude towards censoring Facebooks.

The results also indicate that females are more likely to censor their Facebook than males, and that the sexes view different content as inappropriate.

Survey questions college students on Facebook censorship habits

The study was conducted by University of Maryland Journalism students Ethan Rothstein and Christine Jubert. Data was gathered from a 17-question survey that was distributed by the authors on Facebook and Twitter.

Since the survey was posted on the personal Facebook and Twitter pages of University of Maryland students, the results may not reflect the view of students at other schools or in other areas.

The sample size used in the survey was relatively small.

The respondents were required to be enrolled in a higher education program, and have a personal Facebook page. There were 40 recorded responses.

As upcoming graduates themselves, the researchers were interested to see what precautions, if any, that college students were taking to keep their Facebook pages appropriate enough for a potential employer to view.

Students not overly concerned with “inappropriate content”

The study’s results reveal that many students take a relatively lax approach to guarding their personal Facebook content from potential employers.
Of those surveyed, 90 percent had been warned sometime during their college career that employers may use Facebook to screen potential employees, yet 73 percent actually took steps to censor their pages.

When asked how they would react if a friend posted content on their Facebook that they had deemed inappropriate, only 15 percent of those surveyed said that they would react “very negatively”. The majority of respondents, 60 percent, said they would have little to no reaction.

Only three percent of students surveyed answered that they were “very worried” that a potential employer would access their private Facebook information.

Content considered most inappropriate: photos of active drug/alcohol use

When asked what content the students themselves deemed inappropriate for Facebook, the highest number of students (85 percent) deemed “photos of [them]self actively partaking in alcohol or drug consumption” and “statuses or wall posts including drugs/alcohol/sexual content” equally inappropriate.

When the question was changed to ask students what they thought employers would deem inappropriate, “Photos of [them]self actively partaking in alcohol or drug consumption” got the vote of 98 percent of those surveyed, and “statuses or wall posts including drugs/alcohol/sexual content” got the vote of 95 percent of those surveyed.

Five percent of those surveyed thought that nothing on Facebook, including party photos and photos of public displays of affection, would be considered inappropriate by employers.

Findings differ according to gender: females more likely to censor

According to the study, 73 percent of students censor their Facebook pages, and females were 14.6 percent more likely to censor their pages than males.

Only 16.6 percent of males thought photos containing public displays of affection were inappropriate compared to 43.7 of females.

On the other hand, 18.7 percent of females surveyed thought party photos were inappropriate, compared to 25 percent of males.

When respondents were asked if they would hesitate to hire themselves based on their own Facebook content if they were an employer, 15 percent responded yes. Based on their Facebook content, 18.7 percent of females would hesitate to hire themselves, compared to 12.5 percent of males.

Not now, I’ll censor it tomorrow…

Nearly half of students surveyed had no plans to censor their Facebooks more completely in the future. Since 77 percent of students surveyed thought photos from a party were appropriate content, this attitude could leave quite a few party pictures floating on the web.

Why don’t some students screen their Facebook? Twenty percent cite the fact that they don’t engage in any inappropriate behavior that would need screening. Eight percent believe their desired field isn’t the type that would have employers screen their Facebook pages. Another 8 percent simply don’t care. Lastly, 5 percent want their Facebooks to display who they “really are”.

Fifteen percent of those surveyed plan on censoring their Facebook pages after they’ve graduated from college, and 35 percent plan to censor once they begin applying for jobs.

Real life: what should be censored?

In an article titled “Digital Footprints of a College Graduate”, Michael Stanfield suggests that graduates remove incriminating pictures, videos, and unfavorable comments posted on Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and other social networks.

“A search beginning with Google and ending with Facebook from a prospective employer could mean the difference between a callback and rejection, or even getting that first interview,” says Stanfield.

As Facebook grows, so will the issue of personal privacy

Facebook’s popularity continues to grow, and its U.S. user base grew from 42 million to 103 million in 2009, according to Facebook’s Social Ad System. That’s a 144.9 percent growth rate.

In addition, the 35+ demographic now represents more than 30 percent of the entire user base. With more and more people including administrators and bosses using Facebook, the question of when and to what extent college students will censor their Facebooks will only grow in importance.

Study on Interracial Couples Finds Link Between Quality Marriages and Racial Identity; Results to be Used in Therapy, Family Programs

Racial Identity found as the strongest predictor of marriage quality in interracial couples

The majority of research involving interracial marriages has tended to focus on comparing interracial couples with same-race couples. Often overlooked, is research examining the inner workings of interracial American couples.

A groundbreaking study conducted by Leigh Leslie and Bethany Letiecq found that racial identity was the strongest predictor of marital quality for African Americans and, to a lesser extent, whites involved in an interracial marriage.

The study examined the following three factors in relation to the quality of interracial marriages: racial identity, social support, and experience of discrimination.

According to the study, partners who had pride in their race but were also accepting of other races and cultures experienced higher marital quality.

Interracial couples are more likely to get a divorce than same-race couples, according to the U.S. Census. The results of this study show that a negative racial identity may contribute to this statistic.

The study was published by the Journal of the International Association for Relationship Research in December 2004.

Since publication, the study has been cited by at least 18 scholarly sources, perhaps due in part to the steady increase in the number of interracial couples in the United States.

In 2008, 14.6% of all new marriages in the United States were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another, according to a Pew Research Report.

“…more people are dealing with cross-race perceptions.”

According to Leigh Leslie, one of the lead researchers on the study, research on the subject of interracial couples is important.

“The number of interracial couples is going up… and more people are dealing with cross-race perceptions,” said Leslie in an interview at the University of Maryland.

Interracial marriage was illegal in some states up until as recently as 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned prior rulings and ended all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

In November 2010, there were over 12.5 million multiracial Americans in the U.S.

Findings to aid interracial therapy techniques; family life programs

Leslie says the study has implications for clinicians, since it deals with issues that may need to be brought up and talked about within interracial couples.

The findings could also be used towards family life education, couples therapy, and programs for helping families that are different than the majority, according to Leslie.

“Getting couples to talk about racial identity and pride in race can be good for the relationship,” said Leslie.

Recognizing that things like racial identity are important can help interracial couples tackle miscommunications.

For example, instances where the minority person perceives something as racial prejudice and their spouse does not can cause tension stemming from racial identity. This tension could potentially be avoided with open communication between partners about issues like racial identity, social support, and the experience of discrimination.

University of Maryland student Teresa Rostkowski has been in an interracial relationship for over three years.

"I'd like to think that in most interracial relationships, racial issues don't matter. But having been ridiculed, sneered at, and once even threatened because I am in an interracial relationship, it's important for couples to know how the other feels and reacts to these attitudes that they might encounter," said Rostkowski.


Participants mostly reside in D.C. area, questioned about interactions and emotional processes

The study, titled “Marital quality of African American and white partners in interracial couples” focused on 76 interracial couples.

The purpose of the study, as stated by its lead researchers, was to shed light on factors related to the marital quality of individuals in interracial marriages.

The couples participated in the study by responding to mail surveys, and a majority of the couples were located in the Washington D.C. and Baltimore areas.

Though some participants were from other parts of the country, Leslie believes that participants in the Washington D.C. area had results that were most likely unique to one of the “most racially integrated, accepting areas in the country”.

The four requirements for participation in the study were as follows:

1. The couple must be married
2. The couple must live together
3. The couple must include one White and one African American partner
4. Both spouses must have grown up in the U.S.


Of the couples, 52 consisted of an African American male and a white female, and 24 consisted of an African American female and a white male.

The researchers recognized that marriages exist in highly complex and multifaceted environments, and chose to study the patterns of interaction between spouses, as well as the cognitive and emotional processes that occur with these interactions.

Participants were asked to respond to a series of questions on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

The average age of the participants was 37.1 years old, while 71.5% of participants reported completing college, and 70.4% reported having children.

Positive Racial Identity and support from friends leads to higher marital quality

If African Americans reported a more positive black identity, they were less likely to report feelings of marital ambivalence.

A trend in the data also revealed that survey participants who perceived higher levels of support from friends about their marriage were less likely to work to maintain their marriage. White females reported receiving significantly more support from friends than African American males did.

"Good relationships take work," said Leslie, who suggests that all couples, not just interracial spouses, do maintenance activities, stay positive, and keep their relationship interesting.

New website promotes unbiased news, while a study shows that readers do not judge a story on its source

NewsTrust.com is a new tool for the evaluation of news stories that helps make biases evident to readers

National Public Radio has recently come under fire for an alleged liberal bias stemming from several sources, including a UCLA and University of Missouri study of an NPR program titled Morning Edition.

Several NPR associates have been fired since the accusations began, including CEO Vivian Schiller. The concern surrounding media biases can often be unclear, and difficult to interpret.

In a Harris telephone poll conducted in 2005, NPR was voted the most trusted news source in the U.S., placing its trustworthiness above Fox News Channel, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times in the survey results, which contradicts current news hype.

With issues of ethics and political slant at the forefront of journalistic discussions, a new and novel website titled NewsTrust.com could be an essential tool in solving some of the biggest problems with the public’s understanding of media bias by bridging the gap between good journalism and judicious journalism consumers.

NewsTrust helps eliminate biased news

According to NewsTrust’s website, its aim is to help “people find and share good journalism online, so they can make more informed decisions as citizens.”

Fabrice Florin, executive director of NewsTrust, highlighted at a news literacy conference in 2008 that “the challenge that we all face is trying to address some key problems like information overload, misinformation, mistrust, and civic apathy.”

After signing up for NewsTrust, members post their reviews for stories featured on the site. Featured stories are rated by NewsTrust members for accuracy, fairness, sourcing, context, and other principles of journalism. To increase the reliability of NewsTrust reviews, other reviewers’ and individual comments can be rated in a manner similar to Digg.com.

NewsTrust is a nonprofit organization, and was described by the Poynter Institute for excellence in journalism as one of the tools that is “building the future of news” by helping the public learn news literacy.

Florin described the site as “a social news network, an online community of citizens and journalists that care deeply about journalism, so we can make more informed decisions as citizens.”

Tools such as NewsTrust will become increasingly important in aiding newsreaders with their search for unbiased news, and helping readers to discern good news from untrustworthy news.


Research examines whether content and source influences rating of news stories and finds that it does not


A research project conducted by University of Maryland journalism students Betty Klinck and Tony Herman used NewsTrust’s rating system and comments in order to take a look at how the content and source of a news story influences its’ rating.

The researchers based their study on the hostile media effect.

Hostile media effect theory suggests that when news is produced by the mass media, people with strong positions toward an issue tend to believe that the media is biased against their own opinions. The hostile media effect applies to news that has been predetermined as “bias-free”.


Study finds that readers don’t base opinion on article on source

Klinck and Herman’s research tested “to see whether people’s opinions about the mass media dissuaded them from giving positive reviews based on the principle of hostile media effect”.

According to Klinck, the research suggests that “readers are capable of detecting good journalistic qualities and can separate quality from bias”.

The researchers analyzed the content of four articles featured on NewsTrust’s website, as well as the ratings that 22 University of Maryland students gave the stories.

The stories were rated on how “equally sourced” they were, whether or not data or reports were cited, and how much of the content was opinion.

The reviews were analyzed based on how credible the reviewer rated the story as, whether they commented, if their comments were related to the quality of the story or the issues discussed in the story, and how frequently the reviewer commented on the media source of the article.

The research suggested that readers “don’t gauge an article just based on source,” she said.

While these results seem to speak positively for newsreaders ability to resist bias, Herman states that the results are skewed because “if you sign up to review a story [on NewsTrust], you already have the intention of commenting with journalism in mind.”

“NewsTrust tries to guide you,” added Klinck.

On other news sites, comments may not be linked to your name, potentially causing NewsTrust reviewers to feel more accountable for their review and therefore rate more fairly than they would in other settings.


Continued research on media bias is one way to start getting to the root of the problem of media bias, while NewsTrust’s group ratings are a helpful tool to keep newsreaders from absorbing biased information.

ROUGH DRAFT

750 words

NEWSTRUST

The future of journalism is, at best, unclear.

The New York Times has released a plan that allows online readers to get access to up to 20 articles a month for free, and requires that anyone wishing to view more than 20 articles a month become a digital subscriber at a cost of $15 every four weeks for the cheapest package.

National Public Radio is under fire for an alleged liberal bias.

With issues of economics and ethics at the forefront of journalistic discussions, NewsTrust.com could be an essential tool in solving some of the biggest problems with another important issue: bridging the gap between journalism and journalism consumers.

According to NewsTrust’s website, its aim is to help “people find and share good journalism online, so they can make more informed decisions as citizens.”

Fabrice Florin, executive director of NewsTrust, highlighted at a news literacy conference in 2008 that “the challenge that we all face is trying to address some key problems like information overload, misinformation, mistrust, and civic apathy.”

After signing up for NewsTrust, members have the chance to post and review stories featured on the site. Featured stories are rated by NewsTrust members for accuracy, fairness, sourcing, context, and other principles of journalism. In order to increase the reliability of NewsTrust reviews, both reviewers and individual comments can be rated, in a manner similar to Digg.com.

NewsTrust is a nonprofit organization, and was described by the Poynter Institute for excellence in journalism as one of the tools that is “building the future of news” by helping the public learn news literacy.

Florin described the site as “a social news network, an online community of citizens and journalists that care deeply about journalism, so we can make more informed decisions as citizens.”

RESEARCH

A research project conducted by University of Maryland journalism students Betty Klinck and Tony Herman used NewsTrust’s rating system and comments in order to take a look at how the content and source of a news story influences its’ rating.

The researchers have based their study on the hostile media effect discussed by Gunther and Schmitt in the study titled “Mapping Boundaries of the Hostile Media Effect”, originally researched by Robert Vallone, Lee Ross, and Mark Lepper.

Hostile media effect theory suggests that when news is produced by the mass media, people with strong biases toward an issue tend to believe that the media is biased against their own opinions. The hostile media effect applies to news that has been predetermined as “bias-free”.

Klinck and Herman’s research tested “to see whether people’s opinions about the mass media dissuaded them from giving positive reviews based on the principle of hostile media effect”.

According to Klinck, the research suggests that “readers are capable of detecting good journalistic qualities and can separate quality from bias”.

The research suggested that readers “don’t gauge an article just based on source”, she said.

While these results seem to speak positively for news readers ability to resist bias, Herman states that the results are skewed simple because “if you sign up to review a story [on NewsTrust], you already have the intention of commenting with journalism in mind”. “Newstrust tries to guide you,” added Klinck.

On other news sites, comments may not be linked to your name, potentially causing NewsTrust reviewers to feel more accountable for their review and therefore rate more fairly than they would in other settings.

NewsTrust, in its most noblest goals, aims to discredit the hostile media effect with its group ratings of

Nice Niches

The new age of journalism is all about niches. Local papers are flourishing while national papers flounder. But niches aren’t just a good economic idea, I believe they could help prevent dire reporting mistakes from being made—the kind of reporting mistakes that may have contributed to 8,000 cases of whooping cough and 10 related deaths.

A British researcher faked data that showed a link between autism and childhood vaccines, which was then reported on by journalists. This scare caused a decline in the number of children getting immunizations, and more cases of whooping cough. (http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_17029488)

Here’s how niches could save the day: If publications kept one bright, intelligent expert (a niche reporter) in each of the fields they cover, then mistakes like this one would have a harder time getting through the system and out into public ears. Ideally, a science/health expert’s knowledge alone would be enough to question this report, but even if the expert didn’t have immediate knowledge on the subject, then they would have the background knowledge to research it themselves and confer with other scientific colleagues to find out the truth.

According to the World Federation of Science Journalists, specialists are
“valued advisors in newsrooms”, and are increasingly allowed to author articles without stories being handed of to a general reporter. (http://www.wfsj.org/news/news.php?id=200)

Journalists have a duty to question everything, and play watchdog on subjects like politics, but they also have a duty to question scientific findings, research material they don’t understand, and become a watchdog for the scientific community as well. The more intelligent and educated the next generation of reporters is, the less likely they are to be duped. Here’s hoping the rise of the niche will lead to the fall of reporting mistakes like this one.

NewsTrust: Looking Bright

It is both an exciting and terrifying time for journalists. Print newspaper subscriber numbers are steadily declining, online readers are increasing, and newspaper companies are scrambling to find a way to continue to make a profit out of the honorable, longstanding business of newspapers.

NewsTrust may be the missing link that newspaper people have been searching for since the rise of the colossal gathering of information that we fondly refer to as the Internet. NewsTrust incorporates pieces of other successful sites like Digg.com. The rating system is simple, short and convenient. It contains the perfect amount of questions to keep a nation adled with short attention spans interested: 3. Even better, the questions are yes or no. These simple questions get straight to the point, though. Is this story factual? Is this story fair? Would you recommend this story? Audiences can therefore "digg" articles up and down based on these three important factors. And, you can add an optional comment in, if you so choose.

Another key issue that NewsTrust has delved into is the credibility of readers and commentators. You need to sign up to use NewsTrust, and comments and ratings are tied back to your name, so there are consequences for rude or biases responses. There is a system of rating for the raters of NewsTrust articles, and you must disclose any affiliation you have to an article. The rating of the raters looks at whether or not you tent to only vote positively on conservative articles, for example. It also takes in to account the number of articles you have reviewed. A seasoned reviewer’s votes have more weight that a first timer. One of many positive reviews of NewsTrust can be found here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/886429/a_review_of_newstrustnet_pg2.html?cat=48

All of these aspects of NewsTrust are important in leading me to believe that this is the future of journalism. Articles across news companies that are rated for fairness and factuality as well as how enjoyable it is are an excellent way to bring the best news forward, and get readers into the habit of becoming discerning news viewers. To all those that are frightened about the future of newspapers: put your shades on, the future is starting to look bright.

NPR: iPads & Huffpo

News isn't created by news companies or newspapers, it’s true. Bloggers, especially professional bloggers with journalistic chops, have the capacity to cover more subjects, and are able to take over niches in which they are covering a subject that is an area of expertise to them. This leads, in my opinion, to better journalism. I'm not the only one who thinks Arianna Huffington may be on to something: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dal-lamagna/hail-mary-or-hail-arianna_b_820239.html

One of my Pulitzer-prize winning professors was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. He said that he slowly became an expert in a dozen specific global issues, and learned everything he could about those issues. He said he had to do this because he needed some expertise in order to do his job well, but there simply wasn't enough time for him to become an expert on everything. In the NPR broadcast, it is stated that with online journalism, it is possible to "hear more voices in more ways". AOL's acquisition of the Huffington Post is not quite journalism being bought out by corporation. Arianna Huffington has said that she recognizes the importance of journalists to the extent that she hires them to be her bloggers, which is good news for journalism students worldwide.

Getting news through the iPad is another hot idea in the news media world at the moment. It remains to be seen whether or not large masses of people will be willing to pay for such a service. I could definitely see a market for niche publications on electronics like smart-phones and iPads as time progresses. I think it would be wise for the New York Times and the Washington Post to begin throwing around ideas about how to make money through smart phone and iPad readership. These companies should be investigating whether paying for the service, or getting money through advertisers is the smartest way to go about advancing the field of journalism as a whole.