My initial research idea was studying if journalism has picked up a new fashion and might be resorting back to the age of yellow journalism. My current idea has shifted slightly toward looking into what certain factors might be causing this new journalism phenomenon. These might include things like social media and advertising. I have decided to focus more on these elements because I found more research comparing social media, advertising, and journalistic credibility. My original idea was too vast, and narrowing it down to two concepts will help me create a more well-developed research proposal.
I essentially want to find out if journalists can still act as the watchdogs of the media if they are not considered credible due to certain modern elements such as social media and advertising. However, I would also like to investigate how opinion pieces affect how journalism is viewed today. Are opinion pieces valued more than unbiased news, furthermore polarizing media consumers?
I found a research article related to my topic from my Week 6 Blog Post.
- The article I found talked about how native journalism can be damaging to the duty and credibility of journalism. The study was conducted over the fact that “Native advertising’s effectiveness lies in its ability to look like content produced by journalists” (Schauster, Ferrucci, Neill, 2016). This research article also mentioned references related to the background of journalism, which will be helpful when I further my searches.
The three databases I would use to conduct future research are:
- Sage Journals because I found the article above from this database. They have discipline hubs that contain journalism as a category that leads you to the newest and most cited research articles.
- EBSCOhost using the Communication & Mass Media Complete database because it has specific search options that allow me to find precisely the type of research I am looking for. Also, I can change databases or choose them all while staying on one website.
- GALE ONEFILE because it has a communications and mass media collection. Also, it was mentioned in one of the ten databases about informatics on the Forsyth Library A-Z list of databases.
Sources:
Schauster, E. E., Ferrucci, P., & Neill, M. S. (2016). Native Advertising Is the New Journalism: How Deception Affects Social Responsibility. American Behavioral Scientist, 60(12), 1408–1424. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764216660135
Being a network major, I never really got into the subject of journalism and media. It honestly never did pique my interest. However, viewing your posts and learning things from you has made me a little more interested. I like the way you are approaching all of this and you seem to know what you are doing when it comes to the researching part. Keep it up and I look forward to learning so much more from you on this topic.