The 2008 Presidential Election, 2.0: A Content Analysis of User-Generated Political Facebook Groups

Although Facebook is primarily known for building and maintaining relationships, the 2008 presidential election highlighted this social networking website as a viable tool for political communication. In fact, during primary season until Election Day in 2008, Facebook users created more than 1,000 Facebook group pages that focused on Barack Obama and John McCain. Using quantitative content analysis, the primary purpose of this study was to assess how both John McCain and Barack Obama were portrayed across these Facebook groups. Results indicated that group membership and activity levels were higher for Barack Obama than for John McCain. Overall, Barack Obama was portrayed more positively across Facebook groups than John McCain. In addition, profanity, racial, religious, and age-related language were also coded for and varied with regard to how each candidate was portrayed. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Assessing,Analyzing, and Adapting: Improving a Graduate Student Instruction Program Through Needs Assessment

This article highlights an assessment of library instruction needs among graduate students in the social sciences. The article addresses the development and implementation of the assessment and the application of assessment results to an established set of library instruction workshops. The article provides a detailed summary of assessment findings and a discussion of how the findings were successfully used to create a user-centered instruction program. The findings were used to make significant changes in workshop content, as well as refinements in the overall number and format of workshops offered, schedule of workshops, and marketing of the instruction program.     

Collaborating in Research: Embedded Librarianship in the Learning Management System

Academic librarians engage students in the learning management system to provide information literacy instruction and answer individual reference questions related to scholarly research. When collaborating with faculty, embedded librarians deliver the library’s authoritative electronic resources to students working on research projects. Trends in academic publishing and technological innovations make possible online search for a generation reliant on mobile devices. Although students are able to access much digital content available through academic libraries and open access initiatives, they still appreciate guidance from embedded librarians who visit their learning management system courses to explain the complexities of scholarly research and suggest solutions.     

Improving the Museum Experiences of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Their Families: An Exploratory Examination of Their Motivations and Needs and Using Web‐based Resources to Meet Them

Through a partnership with a local school, the Smithsonian Institution and the Information Policy and Access Center at the University of Maryland conducted an exploratory study to examine the motivations and needs of families visiting museums with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). This study represents one of the first undertakings to study visitors with ASDs, especially children, through a primarily qualitative data collection. Interest‐driven enjoyment emerged as a primary motivation, though to relax and to socialize outside of the family boundaries were not ranked as important motives for visiting museums. Children, who were directly interviewed, gave positive assessments of their museum experiences, while parents commented that challenges, both museum‐ and family‐related (crowds, loud noise, not feeling welcome, and a child's unpredictable behavior) surfaced in public settings like museums. Parents desired a “typical family outing” with their ASDs child, stating that manageable and safe environments helped families experience a museum.     

Hostile Media Perceptions in the Age of Social Media: Following Politicians,Emotions, and Perceptions of Media Bias

This study explores sadness-based message choices among comedy, game show, and sad drama that correspond to the three perceived goals of sadness regulation—optimization, distraction, and embracement, respectively. Results from an experiment showed that some sad participants selected sad drama with the expectation of realizing that their situations were not the worst possible, of creating new meanings and values, and finally of regaining a sense of control over the event and life in general. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of these cognitive gains and growth distinct from pleasurable experience from the use of entertainment messages.     

Book review

Douglas, S. J. (1994). Where the girls are: Growing up female with the mass mediay. New York: Times Books. 340 pages.

Lang, A. (Ed.). (1994). Measuring psychological responses to media messages. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 244 pages.

Cosby, C. O. (1994). Television's imageable influences: The self‐perceptions of young African Americans. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. 172 pages.

Kern‐Foxworth, M. (1994). Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus: Blacks in advertising, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 205 pages.

Fiske, J. (1994). Media matters: Everyday culture and political change. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 253 pages.

Johnson, L. L. (1994). Toward competition in cable television. Cambridge, MA & Washington, DC: MIT Press & AEI Press. 214 pages.

Krattenmaker, T. G., & Powe, L. A., Jr. (1994). Regulating broadcast programming. Cambridge, MA & Washington, DC: MIT Press & AEI Press. 369 pages.

Moores, S. (1993). Interpreting audiences: The ethnography of media consumption. London: Sage. 140 pages.     

ETHNIC CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE CLASSROOM

This article addresses the influence of White American ethnic consciousness on educators in the community college classroom. In the event that issues of a multicultural nature arise in this setting, educators may find themselves responding to the information with differing attitudes and behaviors. These varied stances may stem from the process of moving from an unresolved to a more integrative stage of ethnic consciousness. White identity stages are presented, and their implications for classroom instruction are discussed.     

The Ongoing Pursuit of Educational Equity in Japan: The Accreditation of Ethnic High Schools

In 2003, the Japanese Ministry of Education accredited the high school diplomas of most “ethnic high schools,” which are schools by and for specific ethnic minority populations, such as Korean, Brazilian, or Chinese students in Japan. Prior to this policy, diplomas from most ethnic high schools were not recognized by the Japanese government as valid, and if graduates wanted to apply to universities or colleges, specifically national universities, they were required to take a high school equivalency exam. This article examines the policy's evolution toward championing equity for equal treatment, a concept that ensures that individuals with similar levels of schooling have access to similar levels of status. Through heated debate and resistance, the policy furthered equity for some ethnic minority students while maintaining inequitable circumstances for others, specifically students in ethnic high schools that serve North Korean communities. The analysis reveals four important features of the policy's development that furthered equity: (1) protesting by non-governmental actors, (2) taking advantage of a policy window, (3) using strategic value-laden language, and (4) facilitating incremental change. Often, Japanese education policies rightfully are critiqued as assimilative and discriminatory. However, this article reveals some potential to move the conversation beyond these critiques and offers suggestions to promote and iteratively come closer to educational equity for ethnic minority students.     

An Expansion of the Trait-State-Occasion Model: Accounting for Shared Method Variance

This article examines 4 approaches for explaining shared method variance, each applied to a longitudinal trait–state–occasion (TSO) model. Many approaches have been developed to account for shared method variance in multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) data. Some of these MTMM approaches (correlated method, orthogonal method, correlated method minus one, correlated uniqueness) were therefore borrowed in these analyses such that their effectiveness could be evaluated in conjunction with a TSO model. To this end, datasets were generated according to 4 different covariance matrices (each created according to specifications of a model built with 1 of the 4 approaches) and each model was crossed with each type of data. Whereas the correlated method and correlated method minus one approaches encountered many difficulties in convergence, fit, or parameter estimates, the correlated uniqueness and orthogonal method approaches proved to be quite versatile.     

Integrazione scholastica: on not having all of the answers – a response to Anastasiou,Kauffman and Di Nuovo

Because of its long commitment to inclusive/integrated education, Italy leads the world in educating the largest percentage of its students with disabilities in general education classes. It also boasts the fewest special classes and schools. Inclusion in Italy is based on a principle that disability is not a problem, but rather a positive force in the classroom. Focused on developing the competencies of each student, inclusion/integration shares a belief in the capacity for growth of all learners and an assumption that non-disabled and disabled peers, even those with the most significant learning needs, learn in mutually reinforcing and reciprocal ways. Integrazione scolastica is not, therefore, simply a moral or ethical project but has led to increased achievement for learners with and without disabilities. Yet, despite progressive laws and policies and a 30-year history of inclusive education, there remains a need to be hypervigilant to pressures to revert back to the status quo of segregated education. The problem is not a lack of a US-centric approach, as advocated by Anastasiou, Kaufman, and Di Nuovo (2015), which is increasingly out of step with international policy and deeply mired in racial inequalities and a overall lack of efficacy, but rather to find ways to recommit to fully inclusive practices in an era of increased diversity, diminished economic resources and increasing pressures of neoliberal reforms.