Research Publication Roundup: December 2016
A vibrant and collaborative interdisciplinary research culture at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media creates new knowledge, advances scholarship and helps reinvent media. Below is a list of recently published or presented scholarship by Hussman School faculty and students.
Harker conducted two studies to examine communication of deviant behavior in sport. The paper analyzed five years of American newspaper coverage and 25 years of internationally published literature from 25 academic journals. Deviant behaviors most frequently discussed were the use of performing enhancing drugs; spoken or Tweeted slurs; aggressive behaviors; rule-breaking or cheating; sexual misconduct; and racial or homophobic slurs.
This study investigates the strategies implemented by an American automaker during a product-harm recall and the negative responses to these strategies. Harker argues that, if corrective action and compensation strategies are to be effective, the response should be precise, deliberative, and carried out as swiftly as possible. When handled poorly, such attempts at organizational apologia become ineffective, create a negative response, and cause even more reputational damage to organizational image.
Lovejoy, J., Watson, B. R., Lacy, S., & Riffe, D. (2016, December). Three Decades of Reliability in Communication Content Analyses: Reporting of Reliability Statistics and Coefficient Levels in Three Top Journals. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 93(4), 1135-1159. doi:10.1177/1077699016644558 This study examines reliability reporting in content analysis articles in three flagship communication journals. In general, the most often used coefficient was Scott’s Pi; however, Krippendorff’s Alpha was most used in the latest study period. The data suggests improvements in reporting across time and also identify areas for improvement.