CONCLUSION

The surveys and interviews have been administered and the results are in! Good job to both Paige and Stacy for reaching out to collect data from more than 80 students on-campus. As Paige said we ended up surveying 78 students through Facebook, and Stacy took care of interviewing a total of five students. After Paige's and Stacy's detailed analyses of the data collected from both their interviews and online surveys, it's time to finally conclude our study and sum up the data to see what it says about how and why college students get their news.

One of the first reasons for our survey was to see how students receive their news on-campus, which we defined as by what mediums they received their news by. Based purely on percentages, 31% of students nominated Facebook/Twitter as their primary source of news, which was the largest percentage that any one of the news mediums received. In second came print and/or online newspaper sources, with 25% of students receiving them. Following them came television, with 19% of students, other online sites with 13% of students, magazines at 6%, radio at 5%, and a disregard for news at 1% (it is important to note that students were given the option to choose more than one outlet of news on the survey). Of the interview results all five students interviewed nominated Internet sites, three of them citing Yahoo News, two of the five stating E-mail, one of the five The Daily Texan, one other citing television, and one other Twitter. What the majority of our data indicates is that most students are receiving their news from online sites such as Facebook and Twitter, which are social media sites that present news that users can customize as to relevancy. The secondary role of more traditional news sources like newspapers and especially television and radio among college students is also interesting to note.
So what does this say about college students? The fact that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are the most visited by students exhibits a strong increase in the social capital that these students posses, that is, the resources that can be accessed through social networks. Social media news can be a resource activated instantly by students wishing to receive news, and is thus both fast, efficient, and customized. The more friends or the more people one follows on these sites increases their chances in being able receive a larger amount of news that is personalized to their tastes. On these sites, students can choose to follow a particular newspaper, blogger, or other organization and thus can select the types of news they receive based on personal preference, because who wouldn't want to receive more relevant and interesting news? The enabler of this selectivity in their news is the social capital that these students wield through their social networks. In addition the decline of more traditional news sources may attributed to less efficient modes of transmitting information; television segments, radio, and even newspapers may in the eyes of students take more time to receive. Most importantly, these modes are not customized and may present more news that students may be less interested in. The prevalence of social media as the major source of student news can be related to a larger overall trend in our society which shows a greater personalization of information and a larger focus on the individual and their preferences and capacity of choices. In addition our data suggests that as whole, our society is adopting more technological mediums through which to receive its news by, and as a result is relying more heavily on social networks and capital to receive more relevant data. Based on our data, it seems that how students receives their news is becoming a product of the extent of their social capital.

Our second point of data was how often students receive their news. Based on our data, an overwhelming 61% of students surveyed answered that they received their news at least once a day. Twenty percent of students answered they received news two to four times per week, and 19% said they received the news fewer than once a week. All five of the students interviewed said they receive their news at least once daily as well.
So what does this say about college students? 
The high frequency in which students reported that they receive their news surprised us, as we expected a lower frequency of two to four times a week to be the norm. The fact that almost half of students surveyed checked daily for news leads to two general conclusions which may complement each other: first that the means through which students access news are making it easier to do so, and second that students are developing a greater interest in the world around them and taking more initiative to obtain information. The first conclusion complements the conclusion of the most popular way students receive news through social media like Facebook and Twitter, as both enable easier and faster access to information for students, whose busy academic and social lives may allow for only small windows of time. The second conclusion is interesting, and suggests that students are realizing the importance of staying informed about their world, either for personal reasons or for academic reasons. The large percentage of students who receive daily news may indicate a growing awareness of students for the world around them, which social media sites with a larger global perspective may help foster. As our world becomes more connected through technology, students are realizing the larger effect of global events on their own lives, in itself a result of using the sociological imagination, and are adapting by checking the news with increasing frequency. Our study suggests that almost half of students check the news at least daily, which could be a result of increasing awareness from globalization.

For our last point of data we surveyed and interviewed students as to why they sought news, when they searched for news, and if they thought that receiving news was related to social status. Thirty-four percent of students in the survey stated that they received news to be personally informed, 25% said for entertainment, 14% for discussion with others, 11% for school or a class, 15% for all of the above, and only 1% for never receiving news. In the interviews, four out of the five students said that they received news because they wanted to stay personally informed. Three out of those four students mentioned staying informed about the world, one mentioned because of major issues, and said for events around the University. When asked when they sought news, 29% of students said at their convenience, 24% answered when they were bored, another 24% during coverage of particular events like the Olympics, 21% only after they had heard about an event, and 2% said they never seek news. When interviewed, four out of five students answered that being well-informed about the news was not related to social status, with one student commenting that "now it's so easy to access news and talked about so much I feel like everyone is somewhat informed" (Rickard 2012).
So what does this say about college students?The fact that about one-third of college students surveyed as well as four out of five students interviewed answered that they received news to stay informed is telling. This data seems to reflect the growing sense of awareness for the world that we identified above as being the reason that most students sought their news daily. As our world globalizes, it appears that students are adapting by recognizing a need to stay informed about events both local and global; in a way this need to stay informed is an example of the sociological imagination, and that a large percentage of students surveyed and interviewed are at least practicing its concepts. The fact that one-fourth of students surveyed nominated news as a source of entertainment as well could be due to an interest in outside events or people that may signal the changing role of news as entertainment to students, and not just informing information. The high rate of entertainment may also be due to the fact that students can customize their news on social media sites and thus receive news about topics they enjoy such as sports, celebrities, movies, and the arts. It is also interesting to note that only 14% of students answered that they received news in order to discuss it with peers, which may explain why only one of the students interviewed answered that being well-informed of news is a mark of a higher social status. It seems that, at least to students, receiving news is not at all related to one's social status because "it's so easy to access news and talked about so much" (Rickard 2012). Due to ease of access, it appears that students view the news as something that is a given activity in which they participate in , and thus reveals little as to one's cultural capital and consequently social status. It also would appear that only about one in every six students uses the news as a topic for discussion, but even then the idea of news being a tool of impression management seems to lack much support as most students view receiving the news as a normal and generally regular activity. It is also interesting to see that 29% of students sought news at their own convenience, thus enforcing the idea of easy-to-access social media sites as primary mediums of news. It also seems that about 45% of students receive news conditionally, that is they choose to receive news based on if they know whether certain events are going on already. This may enforce the idea that students, and in general youth in modern times are more self-focused and thus tailor their reception of news to their personal convenience or based on personal perception of the world around them. Based on our data, it appears that students now are increasingly exercising their capacity to have options on the news that they receive and thus may have greater expectations for choices in their lives.

In conclusion, our data refutes the idea that students receive news to in order to demonstrate their social status, cultural capital, and utilize impression management with other students. Based on our data, it seems that the average on-campus college student receives their news primarily through Facebook/Twitter, then through other online news sites. He or she checks these sites at least once a day whenever is convenient for them, but especially if they know that a particular news event has happened or is happening; any other time they check for news is because they are bored. This student will answer that they receive news primarily to stay informed about their campus and the world around them.
This student is an example of the growing importance that students are placing on staying informed in the rapidly globalizing world around them, while simultaneously exercising a large amount of personal choice in how and when they receive their news. To college students, news is a result of wanting to be informed and a medium through which they may project their personal preferences through choices.

Here is the transcript of the interviews that Stacy conducted:

Name: Jeremy Priest

Major: Mechanical Engineering

Extracurricular: No

What is the medium at which you obtain your news?

Internet, The daily Texan

Do you think that someone who is well informed about the news has a higher social status? 

No, not necessarily.

How frequently do you get your news? 

Near daily for the Daily Texan, or throughout the day for Internet.

What is your personal purpose for obtaining the news? 

Keeping up to date on current events happening around the world, not necessarily for conversation, but for knowledge about the University and the world.

Name: Kareece Sacco

Major: International Relations and Global Studies

Are you involved in any extracurricular activities on campus/volunteer organizations? Yes, Texas Tribe. It’s a social and service group on campus.

What is the medium at which you obtain your news?

Internet/ e-mail

Do you think that someone who is well informed about the news has a higher social status? 

No, not necessarily.

How frequently do you get your news?

Everyday.

What is your personal purpose for obtaining the news? 

Keep myself informed on what’s happening in the world around me.

Name: Cory Moczygemba

Major: Political Communications

Are you involved in any extracurricular activities on campus/volunteer organizations? If yes, which? I play intramural football and I am in Texas Wake

What is the medium at which you obtain your news?

Mostly Internet, Yahoo and some TV

Do you think that someone who is well informed about the news has a higher social status?

Not Necessarily, people of higher status may tend to watch the news more but now its so easy to access news and talked about so much I feel like everyone is some what informed

How frequently do you get your news?

Once or twice daily

What is your personal purpose for obtaining the news? 

Usually just cause its on. I don’t care much for news and usually just hear it from other people

Name: Victoria Ayala

Major: Nursing

Are you involved in any extracurricular activities on campus/volunteer organizations? If yes, which? Yes, I am in Hispanic Nursing Students Association and Operation Smile. Volunteering is incorporated in these organizations, currently with HNSA I am an American Heart Association Coach for the Get to Goal program and with Operation Smile we help raise awareness and funds for children born with cleft palates/lips.

What is the medium at which you obtain your news?

I am usually updated about current events through my email, the usual yahoo news or sometimes-even twitter.

Do you think that someone who is well informed about the news has a higher social status?

I don't think that being well informed about the news is necessarily tied to social status.

How frequently do you get your news?

Well I check my email constantly but I probably look at the news updates on yahoo about twice a day.

What is your personal purpose for obtaining the news?

My personal purpose for obtaining the news is to mainly stay informed about major issues and being able to inform others as well in some cases.

Name: Jefferson Remmert

Major: Public Relations

Are you involved in any extracurricular activities on campus/volunteer organizations? If yes, which? Texas Downhill (longboarding), and I sing and play guitar at various gigs with my band, The Knowhow.

What is the medium at which you obtain your news?

Yahoo News

Do you think that someone who is well informed about the news has a higher social status? 

Yes

How frequently do you get your news?

Daily

What is your personal purpose for obtaining the news? So I can know at least somewhat of what’s going on in the world.

SURVEY RESULTS AND ANALYZATION

The Survey distributed through SurveyMonkey was successful, with a total of 78 students participating! All of the students answered each of the questions as well! I created a bar graph for each question which shows the results of the poll. The number above each bar pertains to how many students chose that item. It is important to note that some of these numbers will add up to be over 78 responses. This is because for ALL of the questions, students were able to choose more than one answer (however, their pick for each answer was only counted or cast once). Next to each bar graph is a pie chart, allowing the audience to analyze and breakdown the results themselves. The pie charts allow us to see percentages of student responses, and therefore a broader picture of the results from our survey.

The results of the survey show that a majority of students get their news from facebook and twitter. 1% of students said that they did not care for the news, and therefore we can assume they do not have a source for it either. It is interesting to note that 25% of students receive their news from online and print newspapers. The sociological imagination makes one wonder what makes someone choose one of these mediums over the other? Is a particular news medium more accesible than another? Do people prefer to 'listen' to the news, or to 'read' the news themselves? One could even explore further by separating the groupings of facebook/twitter and online/print newspapers. This would be particularly interesting considering they are the two most popular categories for how college students get their news. After administering the question, I started to actually question the ethics of this actual 'question'. By administering the survey on facebook, was I actually allowing for an experimental bias in favor of those who receive their news from facebook/twitter? I immediately brought up this ethical problem in the survey to my colleagues. After analyzing the question, we agreed there was indeed a bias implemented on the experiment by administering it through facebook. HOWEVER, we continued to keep the question in the survey BECAUSE we still agreed that facebook was the most efficient way to administer the survey. I define 'efficient' in terms that it was the fastest and easiest way to reach a large, diverse and willing population!

Our second question on the survey was questioning how often college students check the news. 33% of students said that they checked more than once a day. A sociologist using his/her sociological imagination would ask if #2's outcome has any particular link to the first question. Who seeks the news more than once a day? those who check through facebook/twitter AND/OR those who get their news from the other categories like newspapers, magazines, etc. For example, personally I receive news from all of the mediums in the first question HOWEVER, I seek news from facebook/twitter far MORE OFTEN than I do from magazines and television. A sociologist would probably want to break down the categories even further to see if there is correlation or variation among 'how often people seek the news' and 'through what particular medium they seek the news through'. 

Our third question asked 'Why do you seek the news?' As with the first question, the response COUNT  is extremely high for this question. Once again, this is because students had the ability to choose more than one reason (or choice/answer). Overall, we see that a majority of students check the news to be personally informed. The second most popular percentage was for entertainment. Entertainment could be even further broken down into categories like sports, celebrities, movie reviews, etc. The sociological imagination pushes us to ask more questions and divide these categories into smaller ones, so that we can understand exactly what students are mostly interested in. We kept the answer choices broad because we were administering the survey to such a diverse crowd, therefore a population with many different interests. The potential categories and questions to be analyzed would be endless, unless a sociologist were to survey a particular group of people like the baseball team, or a sorority. Overall, the pie graph tells us that students seek news for personal information, for school and for other various reasons. It also is evidence for the fact that students need 'news' to interact with their peers and to participate in school. This fact makes the sociological imagination wonder if 'news' is a type of capital culture itself. Does having knowledge of news, or being informed increase or correlate with a person's social status and class? 

Our fourth and final question was 'When do you seek the news?'. Like questions one and three, question four had a large 'multiple response' tally. This is probably because students seek the news under different circumstances, for different reasons and in different locations. Nevertheless, the graph shows that a majority of students seek the news at their own convenience. Sociologists could use this information to conclude that the general college student body is well informed just because they want to be. However, Sociologists can also conclude that the rate of 'news seeking' can be influenced by a variety of things including what is going on in the world and the personal interest of a subject. #4 can be analyzed with question #1, to see if people use a certain medium of news for a certain time that they are seeking it. For example, when I am bored, I usually have my phone and therefore have access to twitter/facebook. However, when I seek news during coverage of the olympics (which is a personal preference), I usually do so on the television. Once again, the sociological imagination pushes one to wonder how, why and when people seek news, and how those motivations influence and vary with each other. 

As Paige has already said, our group has started the interviews. In order to have a variety of answers, I chose to interview different types of people from different majors/extracurricular activities. I am interested to see if the type of activity students participate in has anything to do with their news interest. The fact that every student in my interviews are from a different type of major and extracurricular, this displays cultural capital.

Also, one of our questions in our interview is "Do you think that someone who is well-informed about the news has a higher social status?" A question like this is a way to see if people who obtain news regularly has a higher quantity of social status.

The last question is one that has to do with impression management. It questions why a student would obtain their news; for what purpose are they obtaining their news? If a student says he wants to talk about it with their friends, there is probably a higher chance that he might be trying to influence his friends' perceptions about him. He may use the news as a way to "impress" people on how knowledgable/informed he is.

Today we started our surveying and interviewing! We are trying our best to keep the study reliable and valid! Mark, Stacie and I are all in the same sociology class, however we live in different places and are  interested and involved in different activities throughout campus. This is actually an extremely beneficial attribute to our experiment because we each have our own social network and connections to which we can use to administer and produce the study. In order to keep our study objective and valid, we are trying to reach out to as many different people and 'personalities' as we can! This means people of different organizations, clubs, interests, majors, ethnicities and genders. Understanding and applying the terms Social Capital and Cultural Capital has been extremely useful in achieving this goal! Because of each group member's unique campus involvement, we have Cultural Capital, and because we have the networks to reach out to so many people, we exhibit Social Capital. The more people we survey, the chance for bias in our sample decreases, and therefore our study INCREASES in reliability!

This is a screen shot I took while writing one of the questions
to our online survey, using surveymonkey.com

In order to have reliable and valid results, I wanted to have the largest and most diverse sample size possible. So, I went to facebook. I used www.surveymonkey.com (for free) to create my survey, and then I posted the link to The University of Texas Facebook Wall. Above the link, I had a statement requesting students take the short survey for a sociology project. The participation has been quite successful and it increases by the hour! I used the UT facebook wall because it was a quick, easy way to produce reliable and valid results. I believe this method reached a large population of diverse backgrounds in the most efficient way!

Nov. 6 - We are still working on the questions and format of the survey, however I think that it would be a good idea to define three terms we used in our project proposal as they pertain to our survey.

Impression management refers to the methods in which one tries to control the perceptions of others toward himself/herself. This is most often done when one says or does things that they know will make a favorable impression on their audience, or at least an impression that they want to produce. In our survey, using news as a topic to initiate conversations would be a form of impression management, as one may be trying to give off an impression of being worldly and informed by discussing news with others.

Cultural capital is, according to Pierre Bourdieu, the collection of cultural styles, skills and knowledge that come from one's family background. Common examples of cultural capital would be owning a baby grand piano, speaking another language, or possessing a college diploma. In our survey, we will measure the responses of students to determine if they view receiving news as something that increases their embodied sense of cultural capital, as in they become more knowledgeable of the arts and of events in their world, and thus have a knowledge that is expected of their social status.

Social status is the importance and prestige accorded to one's position in a social hierarchy. In our survey, we hope to measure if students view the act of receiving news as an important factor in maintaining their social status as students. We hope to find out what being an "informed student" means to various students, and whether or not it entails a regular intake of current events in the form of news.

Oct. 31 - We are a group of three UT students - Paige, Stacy and Mark - who are are performing a sociological survey for our SOC 302 class under the direction of Dr. Fulton. Today marks the first formal day of our project; we met in class to discuss what our survey will measure and how we plan to organize the data collection. We decided on the project to be as a follows:

"A survey of the ways and the frequency in which on-campus UT students receive their news and their stated intent for doing so. This blog will serve as a way for us to record and publish our actions and findings as they occur, as well as to allow others to comment and/or provide insight and critiques on our work.

We plan on using the sociological concepts of impression management, to determine if students view the news as a tool to use in conversation with others, and cultural capital to see if students view receiving news as something that increases their knowledge of the arts and of their world around them to maintain social status."

As of now our group has decided on using surveys and several interviews with students to gain an accurate picture of how and why UT students get their news. We have decided that we will select one non-journalistic class (to avoid a potentially biased sample) in which to hand out our surveys, but we have yet to determine the content of the questions. As for the interviews, we plan to interview a variety of students such as those who live in dorms, who are a members of a fraternity/sorority, journalism students, as well as those who we know personally. We plan to post more of our group's decisions and progress soon. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!