News Media

The ability to obtain confidential or classified information through leaks remains crucial to news media practice. Although specific cases may raise vexing questions, countless stories using such information channels have furthered democratic debate and served as a useful check on power, abuse and corruption. Even a cursory glance at the Pulitzer Prize winners over the years affirms this basic truth.

The urge to share a news article or gossip might seem an almost random phenomenon, highly contingent on the chance encounter with a juicy information tidbit. Social scientists who have traditionally studied how and why people pass along information to others, however, have noted that the urge may be more pronounced during times of crisis or conflict. But this doesn’t always explain why information goes viral in the context of happier situations, for example.

A landmark survey in 2011 of more than 500 media companies worldwide found that women made up only about one-third of the journalism workforce.

As issues of crime and race again came into the national spotlight during the 1990s, many social scientists and communications scholars sought to study the portrayal of racial minorities within news media. Numerous studies documented the high rate at which persons of color were typically portrayed as violent or dangerous in newspapers and television.

Just a decade or so ago, most of the fruits of academia were relegated to library shelves and narrow circles of specialists — journals and the studies within them were placed a long way away from the immediate reach of the public and the media.

From the Scholars Strategy Network, written by Ashley M. Howard, Loyola University New Orleans

Scholars who study civil damage awards from U.S. juries continue to debate how best to understand outcomes and the factors that influence them.