SUMMER 2012
Adviser Update
Page 15A
A trio of student media roles
By ADAM MAKSL
most of the cases of what
Iship”nmany
of us would call “censorof the high school press,
disputes really come down to
what each interested party thinks
is the proper role of scholastic
journalists.
Most student press advocates
— and probably most readers of
this report — probably believe
the role is fundamentally similar
to that of the professional press,
especially in being a watchdog.
Many also view student journalists as providing a necessary
forum for student opinions. Some
principals may view the role
of the press as much more oriented toward cheerleading for the
school and its mission.
To better understand the
roles of the high school press, I
explored how the role of student
journalism has been seen historically, by analyzing mostly high
school journalism textbooks from
the last century. I also surveyed
365 high school journalism teachers across the country to get an
idea of the roles they saw the student press as playing.
Implications
The purpose of this research was to explore how the role
of high school journalism, and the high school newspaper in
particular, have been viewed over the course of scholastic
journalism history. More importantly, I wanted to understand
how advisers today viewed the role of the scholastic press.
Understanding the role perceptions of those involved in
the scholastic journalism production — including advisers —
helps us better understand one possible influence on content.
Also, understanding differences in role perceptions among different stakeholders will help us better understand the nature
of conflicts.
In the historical component, I looked at primarily high
school journalism textbooks over the course of scholastic
journalism history and found that the role drastically changed.
It went from being primarily focused on supporting the English
curriculum (in the early 20th century) to the newspaper being
a mini-version of the professional newspaper and a vehicle for
self-expression (in the late 20th and into the 21st century).
In exploring role perceptions today, a survey of 365 high
school newspaper advisers showed three dominant roles:
school watchdog, arm of school, and free expression-critical
thinking.
black
P10.V53.I01
This finding does suggest that
it might be easier to support critical
thinking with a newspaper that is the
watchdog as opposed to the lapdog
of the school administration.
cyan
Roles today
In their landmark research
“Journalism Kids Do Better,”
published in 1994, Jack Dvorak,
Larry Lain and Tom Dickson suggested that student journalism
tends to take on both utilitarian and conceptual roles. The
utilitarian perspective focused
on outcomes and included an
English-teaching role, a careerexploration role, a public relations role and a role that focused
on students functioning similarly
Adam Maksl
is a doctoral candidate at
the University of Missouri
School of Journalism,
where he studies youth
journalism, media literacy
and censorship/self-censorship issues. Previously,
he was assistant director of
workshops in the Department of Journalism at Ball
State University, where he
helped coordinate various
high school journalism outreach programs and taught
undergraduate courses
as an adjunct instructor.
Maksl briefly worked as a
high school journalism and
English teacher, and he is
a regular speaker at scholastic journalism workshops
and conferences. He has a
bachelor’s degree in journalism and English education from Indiana University
and a master’s degree
in journalism from Ball
State University. He can
be reached at ammaksl@
gmail.com.
magenta
book, still widely used, has gone
through 12 editions dating back
as far as 1939. Controversial topics and the watchdog role of the
student press started to emerge
with the fifth edition in 1972.
Since the 1970s, these professionally oriented purposes of the
student press have persisted, and
in many ways, they have been
strengthened by the work and
publications of various groups
such as the Journalism Education
Association and Student Press
Law Center.
to professional journalism. Conceptual roles focused on processes
and included a critical thinking
role and a free expression role.
I used Dvorak and colleagues’
ideas and developed a way to
measure which roles were most
dominant among high school journalism teachers today. A survey
was sent to high school newspaper advisers who were JEA
members. The survey yielded 365
responses, from 43 states and the
District of Columbia.
Data analysis showed that
three broad categories emerged.
The first, school watchdog,
focused on the newspaper as functioning to keep an eye on those in
power in the school, especially the
school administration. The second
role focused on critical thinking
and free expression. The third
was related to the newspaper
essentially functioning as an arm
of the school.
What’s most interesting, however, is the way in which these
roles were related to each other
and to other information. For
example, younger advisers tended
to have higher watchdog scores.
Also, those who had advised for a
longer period of time were more
likely to view the watchdog role
as being more important. The
same was true for those with professional journalism experience
and those who had been hired
specifically to teach journalism.
Results also showed that
stronger orientation toward the
arm of school role related to a
weaker orientation toward the
critical thinking role. Conversely,
the watchdog role was positively
related to the critical thinking
role. Of course, simply showing a
relationship exists does not mean
that one caused the other. But
this finding does suggest that it
might be easier to support critical
thinking with