Abstract
This study shows that undergraduate students can gratify cognitive, affective, social integrative, and personal integrative needs microblogging via a learning management system discussion tool. Moreover, the researchers find that microblogging about news regarding mass media events and issues via Blackboard heightened engagement, expanded knowledge of subject matter, encouraged transactional learning, and reinforced retention of content.
Introduction
Over the past decade, colleges and universities have relied increasingly on standardized, institutional learning management systems (LMSs) like Blackboard or Moodle to provide online educational resources to their faculty and students. As these systems have become more integrated into the instructional and administrative process, criticism has emerged that the LMS structure has begun to influence pedagogy. In fact, LMSs are seen by some as a “symbol of the higher learning status quo,” with instructors using the systems mostly for the content distribution and administrative tools and with much less incorporation of available interactive learning tools. 1 Others have gone so far as to say that “the traditional LMS is dead.” 2 Despite these concerns, few studies examine the ways in which LMSs influence pedagogy. 3
Possibly in reaction to criticisms about the institution or teacher-centric nature of the LMS, systems such as Blackboard have begun adding more interactive, social media modules like blogs and wikis. 4 In addition, individual educators who wish to encourage and facilitate more just-in-time social connections and interactions in a student-centered environment have begun integrating microblogging applications, such as Twitter, into their classes, separate from the LMS. 5
These concerns about the pedagogical impact of LMSs, as well as responses to these concerns, are relevant to programs throughout academia. In particular, the mass communication and journalism industries are experiencing tremendous transformation due to the growth and dissemination of online social media. These changes are challenging journalism and mass communication (JMC) educators to incorporate these technologies into their classes. However, there is limited empirical research that addresses the use of blogs, microblogs, or interactive LMS tools for online student discourse in mass communication or journalism classes. 6 This study addresses this gap by conducting a taxonomic analysis of the gratifications of microblogging about news regarding mass media events and issues via Blackboard in several undergraduate introductory mass communications classes.
Online Courses and JMCs Pedagogy
New media technology applications, such as blogging, are transforming the traditional journalism industry. 7 However, journalism educators use blogs significantly less than journalism professionals. 8 One study found seven challenges for communication instructors teaching courses online: (1) nature of the course, (2) time management and workload challenges, (3) technology issues, (4) student concerns, (5) communication problems, (6) support concerns, and (7) teacher motivation issues. 9 Another study cited the following challenges in teaching an online media history course: (1) encouraging and assessing online discussion participation, (2) improper writing online, (3) real and fake computer and Internet problems affecting group communications and collaborative work, and (4) academic integrity. 10
Despite the challenges of online courses, as well as the criticism of LMSs by some education analysts, computer-supported collaborative learning, using asynchronous discussion groups, has been found to be effective. 11 In a graduate-level online course on technology integration, quality of student discussion postings was consistent throughout the course through the use of peer feedback, even though students preferred feedback from the instructor. Students also described how giving peer feedback contributed to their learning. 12 In an online introductory educational technology class, students found discussion forums helpful in learning course material. 13
In one study of undergraduate JMC classes, incorporation of educational blogs or “edublogs” facilitated student engagement with course content and other students, despite the fact that students tended to treat the blog primarily as a class assignment. 14 This study also found that when required to maintain blogs in JMC courses, students tailored the timing and volume of their contributions to course requirements. However, they also used the blog to raise and explore topics of interest to them, engage in respectful discourse with classmates, and defend personal views about course-related content. The study also suggests that the blogs enhanced students’ ability to think about course topics, articulate those thoughts, and share ideas and opinions through their writing. 15 Singer calls for more research on the nature of blogs in the JMC curriculum. 16
Uses and Gratifications of New Media and Education
The uses and gratifications framework has been widely applied in the study of media effects, which in recent years has expanded to include the Internet. 17 It asserts that media use is influenced by the desire of individual audience members to gratify needs. These needs fall into five categories: (1) cognitive needs, (2) affective needs, (3) personal integrative needs, (4) social integrative needs, and (5) escape or tension-release needs. 18 Cognitive needs relate to acquiring or strengthening information, knowledge, and understanding of one’s environment, or satisfying one’s curiosity or exploratory desires. Affective needs relate to emotions, pleasures, feelings, or aesthetic experiences; personal integrative needs derive from an individual’s desire for self-esteem and are related to one’s credibility, confidence, stability, and status; social integrative needs are based on an individual’s desire for affiliation and relate to strengthening contact with family, friends, and the world; and tension-release needs relate to desires of escape and diversion.
The uses and gratifications framework is also based on a set of assumptions about the media audience: (1) the audience is active and its media use is goal-directed, (2) the audience member takes initiative in linking need gratification and media choice, (3) media compete with other sources of need satisfaction, (4) many of the goals of media use can be derived from data supplied by individual audience members themselves, and (5) value judgments about cultural significance of mass communication should be suspended while audience orientations are explored on their own terms. 19
Rubin 20 (1994) restates the assumptions of the uses and gratifications perspective as (1) communication behavior, including media selection and use, is goal-directed, purposive, and motivated; (2) people take the initiative in selecting and using communication vehicles to satisfy felt needs or desires; (3) media compete with other forms of communication for selection, attention, and use to gratify needs and wants; (4) a host of social and psychological factors mediate communication behaviors; and (5) people are typically more influential than the media, but not always. 21
The uses and gratifications framework has also been used to examine the formation of news habits among college students in an Internet environment, 22 motives for maintaining personal journal blogs, 23 use of MySpace candidate profiles to fulfill political needs, 24 Twitter usage and the need to connect with others, 25 gratifications involved in users generating content online, 26 and the role of teacher immediacy on college student use of text messaging in class. 27 In addition, uses and gratifications has been used favorably with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to more explicitly examine the factors that influence instructors’ adoption and use of an Internet-based course management system. 28
The Internet, specifically social media, increasingly offers users an expanded range of tools for active gratification of needs. Such emerging technologies can assist in broadening awareness of the types of media uses available to individuals to gratify needs in environments where media selection options are circumscribed. In a comprehensive analysis of more than one hundred uses and gratifications studies, Ruggiero draws on media hegemony research to debunk the assumption that media selection is freely initiated by individuals. 29 The importance of acknowledging boundaries or limitations of choice in uses and gratifications studies is punctuated by the fact that the approach has even been applied to correctional facilities to explore motives for prisoner media use. 30 This suggests that uses and gratifications is applicable in environments where media selection is bounded or constrained.
Hence, the uses and gratifications approach is valuable for examining computer-mediated communications in an education context, 31 specifically gratifications obtained in educational contexts in which media use, for example, blogs, microblogs, or LMS discussion tools with blog features, is guided by assignment criteria within a journalism or mass communication curriculum. However, there is scant research that explores this relationship. For this reason, this study poses the following four research questions:
Research Questions
Method
Researchers conducted a qualitative content analysis of student assertions regarding news tweets across four semesters. Inspired by Twitter, News Tweets is a microblog assignment that requires students to write a five- to seven-sentence summary or reaction to a news article that discusses a current mass media event or issue (see appendix). The assignment is designed to illustrate the diversity and complexity of contemporary economic, legal/policy, ethical, political, and social effects issues facing mass media. Within the parameters of the assignment guidelines, students chose newspaper medium (online or print), newspaper type (local or national), newspaper publisher, news article topic, and news tweet focus (summary or reaction). Students posted and responded to news tweets via the Blackboard Discussions tool. They were required to complete five news tweets throughout a given semester and were encouraged to respond to peer news tweets that piqued their interest. News tweets accounted for 15 percent of students’ overall grade.
Sampling
The study involved a purposive sample of eighty-three students enrolled in the primary researcher’s Introduction to Mass Communications class at a southeastern comprehensive university. During the last week of spring 2009, spring 2010, spring 2011, and summer 2011 semesters, students were administered a survey that asked two open-ended questions—what did you like most about news tweets and what did you like least about news tweets. Open-ended questions were deemed to be the most appropriate question form given that response options are unknown due to scant gratification research in regard to microblogging via an LMS and given the aim to broadly explore gratifications from students’ point of view. The summer 2011 sample was selected for a pilot analysis given that it was the most recent semester and given that the remaining three samples were during the spring that increased the likelihood of consistent contextual factors. The summer 2011 sample (n = 23) accounted for 75 assertions, and the three remaining semesters accounted for 147 assertions—spring 2009 (n = 28, 68 assertions), spring 2010 (n = 16, 34 assertions), and spring 2011 (n = 16, 45 assertions).
Data Analysis
The primary researcher conducted a constant comparative analysis with the assistance of a research assistant who served as a second coder. 32 The research assistant completed extensive training in the primary researcher’s Mass Media Research class as well as during one-on-one training post graduation. The primary researcher and research assistant conducted iterative, emergent open coding and axial coding.
Open coding involved unitizing and categorizing open-ended responses. The unit of analysis was defined as an assertion, whether stated as a phrase or sentence. Some phrases and sentences involved more than one assertion. In such cases, each assertion was assigned to a discrete category within sentence context. The pilot analysis included 75 assertions, and subsequent analysis included 147 assertions. Assertions were assigned to eight categories—assessment, assignment criteria, awareness, interaction, newspaper reading, research, satisfaction, and miscellaneous. Each category was labeled with a memo that described assertions assigned to it.
Axial coding involved a taxonomic analysis, that is, analyzing categories for conceptual relationships relative to the uses and gratifications taxonomy which asserts that media use is influenced by the desire of individuals to gratify five primary needs—cognitive, affective, personal integrative, social integrative, and tension release. 33 Tension release was excluded in the analysis given the focus of the News Tweets assignment.
Confirmability and Credibility of Data
Researchers employed investigator triangulation and negative case analysis to strengthen the confirmability and credibility of data analysis, the equivalents of validity and reliability in quantitative analyses. 34 Investigator triangulation is commonly used in qualitative research. It involves the use of more than one observer or coder to reduce subjective bias or dependence on one person’s observations or interpretations and to allow for a more holistic understanding. 35 Negative case analysis is an iterative, revision process that accounts for discrepancies in data by revising coding categories based on new data until there are no new negative cases, 36 that is, assertions that disconfirmed categories. The primary researcher and second coder reviewed and revised assertions and categories across four semesters until data were theoretically saturated, that is, all data were unitized, and categories captured all assertions. When data are theoretically saturated, new categories do not emerge, and existing categories are considered stable. 37
Findings
Emergent open coding resulted in assigning assertions to eight categories, which were labeled with memos as noted below.
Assessment—assertions related to grades or grading criteria, for example, it had a noticeable benefit on my grade; I least liked the technicality with how they were graded.
Assignment criteria—assertions related to assignment requirements, for example, I liked that they were short assignments that were low pressure, so it gave us the opportunity to just soak in the info; I dislike that what we can write on is so limited.
Awareness—assertions related to understanding of subject matter, for example, they [news tweets] really let us see how much media affect every aspect of our lives; It helped me apply what I learned in class to real news and events, helped [me] gain a better understanding of the course material.
Interaction—assertions related to communication with peers and the instructor, for example, I enjoyed reading what other students had to say; it was nice to voice my opinions.
Newspaper reading—assertions related to the practice or habit of reading newspapers, for example, I enjoyed them because that was my chance to read a lot of articles; I’m not an avid reader of newspapers, but this portion of the course definitely stretched me in that area.
Research—assertions related to the process of identifying qualified news articles, for example, I really enjoyed going to different [web]sites and reading the news and trying to decide which news article was appropriate for this class; it was hard to find an article related to mass communication, so I had to search many types of newspapers.
Satisfaction—assertions related to attitudes regarding specific aspects of the assignment or the assignment in general, for example, I thought the news blogs were great; I don’t have any dislikes about the assignment.
Miscellaneous—low-incident assertions that are not related to the other categories, for example, the thing I least liked about the news blog was trying to remember to do them; this industry is suffering financially like all other work establishments. I digress.
Axial coding involved a taxonomic analysis, analyzing assertion categories for conceptual relationships relative to the uses and gratifications taxonomy that asserts that media use is influenced by the desire of individuals to gratify five primary needs as defined previously. 38
However, given the focus of the news tweet assignment, tension release was excluded in the analysis. Moreover, News Tweets proved to be an empowering learning and teaching tool. For the students and instructor, microblogging about news regarding mass media events and issues satisfied cognitive, affective, personal integrative, and social integrative needs as noted in Table 1.
Assertions by Gratifications.
Discussion
Cognitive Gratifications
Overwhelmingly, assertions regarding awareness and assignment criteria (40.5 percent) indicate that news tweets helped students to make cognitive connections between textbook concepts and theory and the real world, that is, to understand the diversity and complexity of contemporary economic, legal/policy, ethical, political, and social effects issues facing mass media. Awareness assertions were generally positive. Students stated that news tweets helped them to keep abreast of and informed about current mass media events and issues, better understand textbook and lecture subject matter, tap (learn from and about) new and diverse news sources and topics, and gain more in-depth knowledge about media-related careers.
The instructor also noted positive outcomes. By design, news tweets reinforced retention of subject matter by allowing multiple takes for learning. That is, students read about specified content, wrote about specified content, and talked about specified content. Moreover, news tweets engender cutting-edge, relevant lectures by design. With a number of students mining select newspapers for mass media news, nearly 100 percent participation, the instructor was able to identify and address scholarship voids in the textbook and integrate more immediate content updates. Also, when news tweets affirmed textbook content, the instructor noted that students were more engaged in lectures. News tweets added a dose of realism and relevance to the lectures and engaged students in the learning process. The instructor also engaged students in the learning process by mining news tweets and integrating their perspectives, interests, and questions in lectures. At times, students pose questions that require instructors to research and revisit during subsequent lectures. However, reading news tweets in advance of lectures allowed the instructor to research and integrate answers without dialogue delay.
Assignment criteria assertions were fewer but less favorable. Students primarily disliked that news articles had to be published in select newspapers, and news tweets were limited to five to seven sentences. A few also expressed concern that news articles had to be published within a specified time frame. Students seemed to affiliate assignment criteria with restricting the scope of their news tweets. Contrarily, the instructor views the assignment criteria as a means to heighten the quality of dialogue and learning. The three national newspapers and primary local newspaper were selected because they play a prominent role in setting the agenda for local, national, and international news. Only news stories published within two weeks of the assignment due dates were considered to ensure timely dialogue about events and issues. Moreover, text was limited to five to seven sentences primarily given that News Tweets is a microblog assignment. However, brevity also encouraged concise, focused writing, a manageable reading load for the students and instructor, and a manageable grading load for the instructor. The instructor noted that news tweets and responses for a given week can typically be read within an hour for a class of thirty-five; and writing responses to select news tweets as well as grading all of them can typically be completed within an additional one to two hours. For many, this is a minor time investment for a major pedagogical return!
Affective Gratifications
Affective gratifications were fairly prominent (24.3 percent). Students nearly unanimously indicated that news tweets were a positive learning experience, and some stated that the instructor should require more! Moreover, both satisfaction and research assertions reflected favorable attitudes. Students described news tweets as an “effective” and “great” learning tool and recommended that the instructor “keep it” as a course assignment. A number of students stated that they enjoyed searching for qualified news articles. They pointed out that they read more, and in turn learned more, about mass media and general news in pursuit of a qualified news article. A few students also bemoaned the challenges of finding qualified news articles due to the assignment criteria, but they too stated that they honed their research skills.
Accordingly, the instructor was pleased with news tweets. The assignment facilitated cutting-edge, relevant lectures; engaged students in the learning process; expanded the scope and depth of their understanding; and encouraged transactional learning.
Social Integrative Gratifications
Ironically, social integrative gratifications (20.3 percent) were predominantly affiliated with newspaper reading assertions rather than interaction assertions. Newspaper reading, particularly online editions, were embraced as a positive experience. Students stated that reading newspapers helped them to feel in touch with and connected to the world around them; and they credited news tweets with encouraging them to read newspapers or read them more regularly. A few also stated that they enjoyed sharing what they read with others and hearing the opinions of others.
From a teaching standpoint, news tweets encourage interaction on three levels—content interaction (newspaper reading), peer interaction, and instructor–student interaction. Moreover, drawing on students’ collective newspaper reading allowed the instructor to round out textbook scholarship and integrate more immediate content updates.
Personal Integrative Gratifications
Arguably, academic performance is a factor in the interplay of students’ self-esteem, credibility, confidence, stability, and status. Accordingly, personal integrative gratifications (14.9 percent) primarily centered on mixed assessment assertions. Although the instructor notes that most students typically earn full or near full credit for news tweets, a minority of students commented on grades. A few stated that news tweets boosted their class grade; a few inferred that their class grade was compromised because news tweets were graded rigidly according to the assignment criteria; and a few admitted that they sometimes forgot to complete news tweets.
Personal integrative gratifications for the instructor are tapping cutting-edge knowledge to inform teaching and research, maintaining a manageable grading load, and having the rewarding pleasure of transforming teaching and learning excellence.
Conclusion and Limitations
This study presents an empirical examination of students’ affective, cognitive, personal integrative, and social integrative needs gratifications as a result of microblogging about news regarding mass media events and issues via Blackboard in an introductory mass communications class. Despite arguments emphasizing the administrative or teacher-focused nature of LMSs, this study indicates that undergraduate students can in fact gratify important needs via an LMS discussion tool. Moreover, the researchers find that the microblog assignment heightened engagement, expanded knowledge of subject matter, encouraged transactional learning, and reinforced retention of content.
Given the limited gratifications research that centers on computer-mediated communication in journalism or mass communications classes, this study also provides valuable insight and suggests directions for future research. One limitation of this study, however, is that the students were enrolled in an introductory mass communications course, which could influence their discriminating attitudes toward the assignment. Therefore, future research should also explore gratifications of needs for students in upper-level journalism or mass communications courses.
Another limitation of the study is that it focused on an assignment for which student work was posted on an LMS (BlackBoard) Discussion Board. As independent interactive communication platforms such as Twitter, and blogs such as Blogger and WordPress become more widely used in the field and ultimately in the classroom, future research should explore the gratifications of students’ needs in courses using these technologies.
A final limitation of this study is its reliance on qualitative methods that are appropriate given the exploratory nature of the study. However, future research, drawing on quantitative and qualitative methods, should build on this foundation and explore similar research questions to enhance the limited body of research regarding gratifications of computer-mediated communication, including journaling, for JMCs instructors and students.
Footnotes
Appendix
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.