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Berry and Goguen

Page history last edited by ted.coopman@... 11 years, 11 months ago

 

Topic:

Accessing the News: How College Students Gather Information

As college students who grew up in the ever-changing technological generation, it has become apparent at how much social networking sites (SNS) have affected the population, especially, college students. Social networking, including sites such as Facebook and Twitter, has become a commonplace, even necessary in many college circles to obtain information and communication. With this in mind, our general topic area is SNS’s and how they specifically affect how their users, college students, find out about local, national and international news and events based on their year in college.

 

Research Question:

With regards to SNS usage, how do college students access news?

 

Data:

When deciding how to begin our project, it seemed obvious to start on an SNS, so after creating a 10 question survey through SurveyMonkey, we questioned 100 college students by posting our survey on Facebook and Twitter. Not only was this method stress-free it gave us very interesting data that helped us carry out our face-to-face interviews with 10 college students. We broke down our interviews by taking two students, one boy and one girl, from freshman, sophomore, junior, senior year and graduate students. We originally wanted to conduct twenty interviews, but later changed it because it was going to be a surplus of information; the ten students were just enough. After collecting our information, we only faced a few minor limitations: in our survey, we asked the question, “What type of news are you typically interested in?”. We then listed eight different types of news and the students were able to pick more than one answer. After collecting all 100 surveys back, we realized it would have been better to have just one choice available, or maybe top three because it would have given us a better look at what the students are mainly looking at when discussing news and what the students even consider news. Lastly, in our surveys and interviews, we wished we had asked the question, “How many friends or followers do you have on your own SNS?” because after looking at all our gathered data, we realized that the amount of friends truly determines how broad of a scope of information you will get from your SNS.

 

Discussion:

One of the greatest things about our project was how evenly spread out it was between genders; we did not have any problem with responses being skewed from one gender to another because the survey came back at 46% male and 54% female. Not only was this extremely helpful, but it gave us (a real-life response as it closely represents the actual population breakout of the United States.  This was in all probability, the closest gender response breakout we could have received because we chose a random distribution; we did not count the number of males or females we sent the survey to.  Furthermore, this lined up with our face-to-face interviews because we had five male and five female responses.

 

Once the surveys and interviews were complete, it was enlightening to view the results and compare them to our original hypothesis of the effect of SNS on college student’s lives. Even just from the survey we saw a huge percentage of students that rely on SNS for news from social encounters to world endeavors. For example, in our survey, we asked “Where did you hear about Whitney Houston’s death?” Even though to many, this might not be and important or relevant news story, it was an event that was discussed worldwide; over half of the people surveyed heard through SNS and over 90% got their information online. Seeing this really honed in on the idea that the Internet, and more specifically, SNS really do affect the way college students quickly and easily find out information.  In the face-to-face interviews, this idea was validated even more strongly when 6 out of the 10 students interviewed said that they received SNS updates to their Smart Phone multiple times throughout the day.

 

One of the more interesting findings from the survey was that the higher level of college the student is at, the more likely they are going to use multiple forms of media to receive news information. For example, in our survey, we saw that more Seniors and Graduate students use T.V. and news websites to obtain information rather than from their SNS. This relates to one of the articles we referenced, “The effects of social networking sites on the acquisition of social capital among college students,” which discuses the grade of the student and their main reasons for using SNS: “undergraduate students use SNS to form balanced social networks while graduate students form their SNS to acquire social capital.” (Konetes, G., & McKeague, M., 2011)

 

Taking a step back and reflecting on our other articles, this SNS dependency has both positive and negative effects. To begin, we feel that using an SNS is a great way to stay connected with friends and family. In our interviews, all ten students said that was why they began using SNS and that is why they continue to use them.  As we saw in the article “Old Communication, New Literacies: Social Network Sites as Social Learning Resources,” Greenhow and Robelia discuss the idea that SNS provide valuable tools for maintaining relationships (2009).  Our interview results indicate that our subjects agree that it is important to be able to stay in touch with family and friends that are close and far.

 

However, there are negative effects as well when looking at SNS dependence; 6 of the students in the interviews are receiving constant updates on their Smart Phones from Facebook and Twitter and rarely using other forms of media to gain news information. While there is the ability to “follow” or “Like” news stations, the information received via Facebook or Twitter is merely who you choose to get it from based on your friends. In, Truly Problematic or Merely Habitual? An Integrated Model of the Negative Consequences of Social Networking, the authors discuss the possible harms on a student’s lifestyle while being dependent of SNS and the possible harms it could have on a student. (Tong, S., Vitak, J., & Larose, R., 2010.)

 

References:

Greenhow, C., & Robelia, B. (2009). Old Communication, New Literacies: Social Network Sites as Social Learning Resources.             Journal Of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14(4), 1130-1161.

King, T. (2009). Teens' Use of Online Social Networking. Journal Of New Communications Research, 4(2), 36-41.

Konetes, G., & McKeague, M. (2011). The effects of social networking sites on the acquisition of social capital among college students: A pilot study. Global Media Journal: American Edition, 11(18), 1-10.

Palser, B. (2011). Strategies for Facebook. American Journalism Review, 33(2), 58.

Sheldon, P. (2008). Student Favorite: Facebook and Motives For Its Use. Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, 23(2), 39-53.

Tong, S., Vitak, J., & Larose, R. (2010). Truly Problematic or Merely Habitual? An Integrated Model of the Negative Consequences of Social Networking. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 1.

 

Comments (16)

Tania Berlinski said

at 4:46 pm on Apr 23, 2012

1. Do you think your results would have been different if you had not distributed your survey through Facebook and Twitter?
2. Did you distinguish between getting news from friends/family on an SNS and getting news from news networks?
3. How did your results compare to your original hypothesis?
4. Did you explore the reasons why college students choose to use SNSs to access news information? If so, what were the results, and if not, why not?

-Tania Berlinski

Tyler Gallau said

at 12:15 pm on Apr 24, 2012

1. Why do you think that older college students get their news via multiple forms as apposed to younger college students.
2. Do you feel that by sending out your questions via a SNS that is skewed your results any?
3.How were you able to control who took the survey when sending it out via Facebook...I would imagine you had other friends who aren't college students?
4. Out of the 100 responses that you go on your survey how many did you have to throw out?

-Tyler Gallau

Jose Molina said

at 12:01 am on Apr 25, 2012

- Why did you decided to choose two individuals, male and female, from each year level?
- What differences did you find between the ways males and females separately access news through SNS?
- What challenges did you face in the process of collecting your data, both in your surveys and interviews methods?
- Why do you think there’s harm in solely gaining information through news on SNS? What are specific examples of such harms?

--Jose Molina

Emily Mello said

at 1:23 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. Why do you think more students at the Senior and Graduate level were more likely to get information outside of an SNS?
2. Did you sepcifically ask in your survey the age and grade level so that you were able to get some from each?
3. By putting your survey up on you Facebook, do you think it altered your answers if you had say created a twitter or tumblr or other SNS and put it on there for others to take that may not be as highly used as Facebook?
4. What made you go from wanting 20 to 10 face-to-face interviews?

dannah.sanchez said

at 2:51 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. Did your survey take into account participants who uses SNS to share/receive news from family?
2. How often did your participants log on to Facebook or Twitter for news?
3. What other variables did you find (that you didn't expect to come up) while coding?
4. Was age taken into account?

Laurel Marshall said

at 7:20 pm on Apr 25, 2012

- How is the information found on SNS different from information found in the news?
- It what ways are college students impression of current events affected due to only being updated by SNS?
- What types of questions did you ask in your interviews?
- Do you think there is any correlation with living in the bay area and your results? Could they be different elsewhere?

**Laurel

Sofia Cruz said

at 7:42 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. Do you guys mostly get your news updates via SNS, if not what made you choose this topic?
2. Do you believe Facebook/Twitter/etc. are good ways to be updated about current news ?
3. Did you find that college students use SNS as a news source because of the convenience or are there other reasons why college students use SNS for news?
4. What was the most common finding in your data?

-Sofia

maxbunag@gmail.com said

at 8:50 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. What made you choose this particular topic?
2. Do you think this research could have broader uses?
3. If this study were done on regular citizens, and not necessarily students, would the results be the same?
4. What kind of news can be accounted for that is different on SNS than on regular news sites?

Mark Bateman said

at 9:51 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. Why do you think age or school level changes how people get their news ?
2. How did you pick your interviewees?
3. How does mobile technology affect the way college students get news?
4. Is getting news from SNS that much different than a news site?

Chris Valdez said

at 11:27 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. What was the most used SNS social networking site?
2. What do you think the best way is to receive news?
3. Why do you think the higher level college students use TV and news websites to receive their news?
4. Why do you think the internet is such a popular place to receive news?

Brian Toback said

at 12:11 am on Apr 26, 2012

1. What difference did you find between the way males obtain news compared to the way females obtain their news?
2. How were you able to determine which people were seniors, graduates, sophomores, etc.?
3. You said you found seniors and graduate students obtain their news more through tv and other sources rather than just SNS. Why do upper-class students use these extra ways of obtaining news and not so much lower-leveled students?
4. What made you choose this topic?

michael sheng said

at 2:02 am on Apr 26, 2012

1. Did you feel that smartphones were more accessible when it came to news than through SNS?
2. Do u feel college students actually pay more attention to news on SNS sites or through actually news sites?
3. Was there a population that challenged the validity of news they get posted to their SNS?
4. How did you determine your interviewees?

Michael Wilkerson said

at 7:41 am on Apr 26, 2012

1. How were the interviews chosen?
2. How do you feel the best way to receive news is?
3. What kinds of questions did ask in interviews?
4. How come you changed the number of interviews?

Alex Torres said

at 9:33 am on Apr 26, 2012

Berry and Goguen

1. Did the difference in age play a factor in your respondent’s answers?
2. Did you see any correlation between culture & the use of SNS?
3. Based on your study, do you think college students will turn to television once they graduate?
4. What is the number one reason, college students receive their news from SNS?

matt.collins209@... said

at 10:27 am on Apr 26, 2012

1) What there a noticeable difference in what was considered "news" based on gender?
2) Do college students search SNS for news or if it appears on their screen will they just look at it?
3) Why do you think graduate students look for news in several different places?
4) Did you have any issues collecting data through the online survey monkey?

Kim Calisesi said

at 11:35 am on Apr 26, 2012

1) Did you have to post the survey on Facebook and Twitter multiple times to get the amount of responses you wanted?
2) What are the negative effects from CMC?
3) Was there a difference of CMC use between freshmen, sophomore, junior, & seniors? Or just graduate and undergraduate students?
4) Was there a difference in survey responses from the two SNS you posted them on?

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