The following research article was published today by First Monday.
Title
Across the Great Divide: How Today’s College Students Engage with News
Authors
Alison J Head
Founder and Director of Project Information Literacy (PIL)
Senior Researcher, MetaLAB (at) Harvard University
Visiting Scholar, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Erica DeFrain
PIL Researcher
Assistant Professor and Social Sciences Librarian
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Barbara Fister
Scholar-in-Residence, PIL
Professor Emerita at Gustavus Adolphus College
Margy MacMillan
Senior Researcher, PIL
Professor Emerita at Mount Royal University
Source
First Monday
Volume 24, Number 8
August 5, 2019
DOI: 10.5210/fm.v24i8.10166
This paper reports results from a mixed-methods study about how college students engage with news when questions of credibility and “fake news” abound in the U.S. Findings are based on 5,844 online survey responses, one open-ended survey question (N=1,252), and 37 follow-up telephone interviews with students enrolled at 11 U.S. colleges and universities. More than two-thirds of respondents had received news from at least five pathways to news during the previous week; often their news came from discussions with peers, posts on social media platforms, online newspaper sites, discussions with professors, or news feeds.
Source: DOI: 10.5210/fm.v24i8.10166
The classroom was an influential incubator for news habits; discussions of news provided relevant connections to curricular content as well as guidance for navigating a complex and crowded online media landscape. Respondents majoring in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and business administration were far more likely to get news from their professors than were students in computer science or engineering. The interplay between unmediated and mediated pathways to news underscored the value of the socialness of news; discussions with peers, parents, and professors helped students identify which stories they might follow and trust. Opportunities and strategies are identified for preparing students to gather and evaluate credible news sources, first as students and then as lifelong learners, based on the assumption that instructors discussing news in class can demonstrate intentionally, or unintentionally, that familiarity with news is a social practice and a form of civic engagement.
Direct to Full Text Article
See Also: New Report From Project Information Literacy: “How Students Engage with News” (November 6, 2018)
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