This brief is the first of a series of applied research briefs that focus on specific challenges and opportunities public media faces in its approaches to youth content and engagement. Drawing from priorities surfaced through focus group interviews with youth across the country, these briefs highlight recent research and public discussions about…

What kinds of questions guide ePortfolio-based reflections that are meaningful, and what kinds of meaning do students make in response to such questions? These questions directed our work in designing a new reflective prompt for an internship ePortfolio completed by students in the Editing, Writing, and Media major at Florida State University. As…

As many U.S. school administrators create policies around hair, many often neglect to consider racial differences, especially those pertaining to hair care and maintenance styles. News media outlets have recently highlighted the ways schools create and sustain racially biased policies and schooling environments, demonstrating the media's role in…

In this paper we grapple with the ways in which real-world issues directly impact children's lives and ask "what else" gets produced through encounters with children's global news media, specifically within the contexts of the United Kingdom and Norway. Our aim is to experiment with storytelling and worldling practices as a means to open…

There is a dearth of studies on how college students prepare for the threat of natural disasters. This study surveyed college students' preferences in mass media use prior to an approaching hurricane. The convenience sample (n = 76) were from a university located in the hurricane-prone area of the central Gulf of Mexico coast. Interestingly,…

This qualitative investigation reports on the use of Parent Resource Centers (PRCs) as a mechanism for parental involvement in public school choice decisions. Interviews with parents and staff at seven PRCs in Florida revealed that PRCs employ multiple strategies to communicate choice information to parents: community-, school- and media-based…

There are two distinct purposes to this investigation: to develop the predictive power of the theory of political information efficacy and to determine how exposure to political information formats on the Internet under distinctly different interactive conditions affects cognitive and affective processes. Examined in the first section of this…

Access to safe, affordable, and convenient transportation shapes the "geography of opportunity" for many children and youth. This study looks at how ?localities across the country are implementing new and innovative alternative approaches to student transportation that expand regional transportation access for K-12 students, improve…

Access to safe, affordable, and convenient transportation shapes the 'geography of opportunity' for many children and youth. This study looks at how ?localities acrossthe country are implementing new and innovative alternative approaches to student transportation that expand regionaltransportation access for K-12 students, improve…

Theory-driven, mass media interventions prevent smoking among youth. This study examined effects of a media campaign on adolescent smoking cessation. Four matched pairs of media markets in four states were randomized to receive or not receive a 3-year television/radio campaign aimed at adolescent smoking cessation based on social cognitive theory.…

Many Cuban Americans embrace a distinctive anti-Castro ideology. Although this ideology supports the embargo against Cuba--purportedly to bring about the Castro regime's compliance or collapse--the real objectives may be more symbolic than practical. Ultimately, the institutional completeness provided by the enclave in South Florida insulates and…

A study examined mass media use and ability to predict public support for two heavily publicized Florida referenda--casino gambling and a statewide lottery. It was hypothesized that (1) voters who read newspapers that publish election public opinion poll stories will be better able to predict support for the issues than voters who rely on friends…

Papers for the fifth Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) Conference include the following papers: "The State and the Global Marketplace in the Provision of Minority Media Services" (George Jones); "Local Language Media: What Does It Take?" (Paul Lewis); "Power of the Media for the Good of Small Languages: An Indian…

An intensive study of 30 Florida school districts explored the nature of open bargaining, its impact on union and management behavior, and its overall effect on the negotiation process. The author concludes that open bargaining does not differ radically from closed bargaining. (Author/WD)

The Media and Law section of this collection of conference presentations contains the following 12 papers: "An Analysis of the Role of Insurance, Prepublication Review and Correction Policies in Threatened and Actual Libel Suits" (Elizabeth K. Hansen and Roy L. Moore); "Private Defamation Plaintiffs and Falsity since 'Philadelphia…