News

By Beth Hatcher
How can consumers evaluate the accuracy of science information in media? What factors can influence how media frame and build narratives around science information?
Students learn to ask those questions — and find their answers — in an innovative interdisciplinary course at UNC designed for first-year students. “IDST 118: Fake News, Real Science” focuses on science literacy for both the creators and consumers of media.

When Caitlin Russell graduated from high school, she had no idea she could have a career in public relations. It wasn’t until she enlisted in the Air Force in 2016 that the career path set in. She spent the next six years as a public affairs photojournalist, first as a public affairs specialist with the 673rd Air Base Wing at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, and then as a news desk editor for the Defense Media Agency’s Air Force Production Office at Fort Meade, Maryland. To take her public relations career to the next level, Russell has turned to Carolina and the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, where she is studying advertising and public relations with the hope of returning to the Air Force as a civilian public affairs officer.

UNC Hussman Associate Professor Tori Ekstrand recently spoke with UNC Research for their "Rooted" series, which recognizes long-standing members of the UNC community who have aided in the advancement of research by staying at Carolina. Read more below or at UNC Research.
 

Marisa Porto and Michelle LaRoche will join the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media faculty in January 2023, bolstering the school’s expertise in sustainable local news and business journalism.
Porto — an entrepreneurial leader who has served in strategic roles with media, nonprofits, startups and higher education — expands the school’s commitment to local news as the John S. and James L. Knight Chair in Local News and Sustainability.
LaRoche — an educator with deep journalism experience at leading business and financial news outlets — builds the school’s strength in business journalism as its Hussman Professor of Business Journalism.

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.

A randomized, controlled study with over 1,500 US teen participants from across the nation tested the effectiveness of digital vaping prevention ads. Researchers from UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center discovered that “The Real Cost” ads lowered the extent to which teens were open to vaping. The vaping prevention video ads, produced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), also lowered openness to cigarette smoking. Researchers determined similar effectiveness for “health harms” versus “addiction” themed ads. The former focused on the harmful chemicals emitted by vaping devices and the potential for lung damage caused by vapes. The latter focused on the highly addictive nature of vapes and consequences of nicotine addiction, such as loss of autonomy. The findings appeared Oct. 13, 2022, in the journal “JAMA Network Open.”

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.

Growing up in Clinton, North Carolina, Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata ’24 often translated for her Mexican immigrant parents. She remembers those as some of the first experiences in which she really felt like a storyteller. The experiences also reminded her of the responsibility and challenges of being a first-generation kid, as she balanced not only two languages but two distinct cultures as well. Helping her find that balance at UNC Hussman is the student chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) at UNC-Chapel Hill, for which she serves as vice president. Established in 1984, NAHJ is a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the advancement of Latinx journalists in the United States and Puerto Rico. Hussman students Angelica Edwards ’22 and Julian Berger ’22 co-founded UNC Hussman’s NAHJ student chapter in August 2020.

The UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media is pleased to announce the appointment of two new faculty members — Shelvia Dancy and Peter Sherman — who deepen the school’s expertise in strategic priority areas. Both will join the UNC Hussman faculty for the Spring 2023 semester. Dancy adds to the school’s strengths in storytelling instruction as an assistant professor teaching broadcast and digital journalism in courses such as “TV News Reporting and Producing” and “Voice and Diction.” Sherman joins the school as a professor of the practice leading a new certificate program, launching in January 2023, designed to drive progressive marketing principles across health communication. He will teach two courses in the program — “Health Communication and Marketing” and “Health Marketing Capstone.” He will also teach a course in the school’s online master’s in digital communication program.

UNC’s The Well  has a story about the "Weaponizing First Amendment Rhetoric" panel held Sept. 21, 2022, during First Amendment Day, an annual campus-wide, daylong event designed to both celebrate the First Amendment and explore its role in the lives of students. The panel discussion, held in Carroll Hall’s Freedom Forum Conference Center, featured UNC Hussman faculty Edgar Thomas Cato Distinguished Professor Daniel Kreiss and Assistant Professor Shannon McGregor, as well as their colleagues at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP).