Placing Facebook

Facebook is challenging professional journalism. These challenges were evident in three incidents from 2016: the allegation that Facebook privileged progressive-leaning news on its trending feature; Facebook’s removal of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Napalm Girl” photo from the pages of prominent users; and the proliferation of “fake news” during the US presidential election. Using theoretical concepts from the field of boundary work, this paper examines how The Guardian, The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review and Poynter editorialized Facebook’s role in these three incidents to discursively construct the boundary between the value of professional journalism to democracy and Facebook’s ascendant role in facilitating essential democratic functions. Findings reveal that these publications attempted to define Facebook as a news organization (i.e., include it within the boundaries of journalism) so that they could then criticize the company for not following duties traditionally incumbent upon news organizations (i.e., place it outside the boundaries of journalism). This paper advances scholarship that focuses on both inward and outward conceptions of boundary work, further explores the complex challenge of defining who a journalist is in the face of rapidly changing technological norms, and advances scholarship in the field of media ethics that positions ethical analysis at the institutional level.     

Childhood Physical Fitness and Performance as Predictors of High School Sport Participation

ABSTRACT

Participation in youth sport is positively associated with physical fitness and performance. The purpose of the current study was to examine if physical fitness measures during childhood and early adolescence predicted high school sport participation. Participants included youth in the Michigan State University Motor Performance Study. Measures consisted of the endurance shuttle run, Wells sit-and-reach, jump and reach, standing long jump, agility shuttle run and 30-yard dash. Individual, generalized estimating equation models were used to estimate the association between each measure and the odds of participating in high school sport. For both sexes, the endurance shuttle run and agility shuttle run were related to sport participation. For boys only, the long jump and 30-yard dash were also associated with sport participation. Better physical fitness and performance across several dimensions in childhood, including those related to motor skills, enhanced the likelihood of sport participation in high school.     

Examining the “Blanket of Protection” Conferred by Inoculation: The Effects of Inoculation Messages on the Cross-protection of Related Attitudes

Although the effectiveness of inoculation as a strategy for promoting resistance to attitude change is fairly well established, the potential of inoculation messages to offer cross-protection for related, but untreated, attitudes warrants additional attention from scholars. The reported study tested the “blanket of protection” conferred by inoculation. Participants (N = 118) were randomly assigned to read an inoculation message addressing a target topic and subsequently had their attitudes toward three related, but untreated, topics attacked. The results offer some evidence that inoculation messages can confer cross-protection for related attitudes. Participants in the inoculation condition reported greater perceptions of threat, greater counterarguing, and less attitude change in response to attacks than participants in the control condition for two of the three untreated topics. Counterarguing in response to attacks on untreated attitudes appears to be primarily responsible for cross-protection.     

Strategies for Expanding E-Journal Preservation

The responsibility for and the initiative to preserve electronic journal content is neither clear nor easy, and knowing the preservation status of an e-journal is not a basic step within the NASIG Core Competencies for Electronic Resources Librarians life cycle of electronic resources management. Columbia and Cornell University Libraries secured funding for a project to specifically evaluate strategies for expanding e-journal preservation. A wide range of e-journal categories are evaluated within the scope of the project, including: content direct from publishers, small and society publishers, Open Access e-journals, full-text content from third-party content providers, and university generated e-journals. Discussed are techniques for identifying at risk e-journals, integrating preservation into license negotiation with publishers, tracking the preservation status of e-journals, and developing relationships with existing preservation agencies. The quality of future of scholarship and teaching hinges on the preservation of the scholarly record.     

Access and Express: Professional Perspectives on Public Library Makerspaces and Intellectual Freedom

This study examines the roles of makerspaces and librarians in public libraries, as defined by nine librarians instituting makerspace services. It explores their understanding of creative spaces and library policy, specifically the foundational principles of intellectual freedom and access. Using constructivist discourse analysis tools, this study analyzes interview data to illuminate a concept of access grounded in expression, incorporating hands-on activities, tools, and social connections. This study has implications for practitioners and policymakers in reconsidering access as a positive liberty enabled by social contexts, and librarians’ enzymatic roles in facilitating those contexts.