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An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses various articles published within the issue on several topics including the influence of extramedia on journalists, the relocation of a government center in South Korea, and the U.S. Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines.

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Chia and Poo concerning media use of young Singaporean people, a study by Ragas and Roberts that applies the agenda-melding hypothesis and agenda-setting theory to the virtual brand community, and an article by Geertsema on gender mainstreaming in the international news.

The article presents an editorial about the minimum standards for publishable research. The author states that research must be original and conducted in accordance with ethical and professional standards, and must also be presented in a lucid and thorough manner. Contrary theories of standards are examined.

The article presents information on a survey conducted by the Publications Committee of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) to assess the views of members on AEJMC publications and other journals. 641 members of the association participated in the survey. The result show that respondents averaged just over sixteen career articles in refereed journals and nearly twenty-six refereed conference papers. The journals identified by respondents where they often publish include "Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly," "Newspaper Research Journal" and "Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media."

Using statewide telephone survey data from North Carolinians (N=406), this digital divide study oversampled rural households to explore urban rural differences in Internet access, use, and information seeking pertaining to environmental risk. The data suggest that the urban rural access divide has closed, and that urban and rural residents are making similar use of the Internet, particularly for environmental risk information. Moreover, survey respondents deemed the Internet more useful for environmental risk information than either television news or newspaper sources, but Internet use was not a predictor of respondents "sense of 'environmental confidence," a new variable introduced to the digital divide and online information seeking literatures through this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telephone survey data (N=511) are used to explore relationships among exposure, attention, and usefulness of online, newspaper, and television environmental news; subjective knowledge; personal efficacy; and environmental risk. Correlations show exposure to online environmental news was related to personal efficacy while online attention to such news was related to subjective knowledge, but not personal efficacy or perceived risk. Attention to television and newspaper environmental news were both related to subjective knowledge and perceived risk. After controls (particularly education), many of these relationships disappeared, but both attention to and perceived usefulness of online environmental news were related to perception of being at environmental risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the effectiveness and efficiency of sample sizes for content analysis of online newspaper sites. Using simple random sampling, the comparisons showed that a sample size of six days was effective and efficient to represent one year of content of the New York Times Online. Generalizing theresults to content analyses of other online news sites may require special caution due to Web sites' varying formats and contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used content analysis to explore the policies, citizen participation features, and means of financial support for sixty-four citizen journalism sites-both news sites and blogs-in 15 randomly selected U.S. cities. Community size was related to number of sites in a market, and nearly half of all sites-but three-fourths of news sites-featured home-page advertising, while six of ten news sites actively sought the time and service of citizen volunteers. However, neither type of site took advantage of the interactivity possible with the Internet, and opportunities for citizen participation (via polls and forums, and uploading of content) were limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's media companies seem to be more intertwined than ever. But are they? Do these "interlocks" affect editors and the content journalists produce? This study uses a three-method design to examine the connections among newspaper organizations and corporations. The network analysis examined the interlocks among newspaper companies' directors. The second phase surveyed editors of newspapers owned by these companies to assess the influence on the newsroom from the board and parent company. In the third phase, news coverage of directors and their affiliated organizations was content analyzed for newspapers whose editors perceived pressure "from above." The network analysis results suggest a monolithic interlocking structure that previous scholars feared. For one-third of survey respondents, corporate parents and the boardroom were seen as influencing the newsroom. These "pressured editors" perceived significantly stronger pressures from the boardroom, "ownership/upper management," and business interests than editors who did not indicate pressure from above. So, how did pressured newsrooms cover ownership and directors? Routine coverage of directors and their affiliated organizations was lacking. Disclosure of a relationship between a director or affiliated organization and the newspaper was disclosed half of the time and traditional journalistic scrutiny was applied less than half of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Importance: Rap artists are among the most recognizable celebrities in the US, serving as role models to an increasingly diverse audience of listeners. Through their lyrics, these artists have the potential to shape mental health discourse and reduce stigma., Objective: To investigate the prevalence and nature of mental health themes in popular rap music amid a period of documented increases in mental health distress and suicide risk among young people in the US and young Black/African American male individuals in particular., Design and Setting: Lyric sheets from the 25 most popular rap songs in the US in 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2018, totaling  125 songs, were analyzed by 2 trained coders from March 1 to April 15, 2019, for references to anxiety, depression, suicide, metaphors suggesting mental health struggles, and stressors associated with mental health risk., Main Outcomes and Measures: Mental health references were identified and categorized based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fifth Edition) and Mayo Clinic definitions. Stressors included issues with authorities, environmental conditions, work, and love life. Descriptive language and trend analyses were used to examine changes over time in the proportion of songs with mental health references. Stressors were analyzed for their co-occurrence with mental health references., Results: Most of the 125 analyzed songs featured lead artists from North America (123 [98%]). Most lead artists were Black/African American male individuals (97 [78%]), and artists' mean (SD) age was 28.2 (4.5) years. Across the sample, 35 songs (28%) referenced anxiety; 28 (22%) referenced depression; 8 (6%) referenced suicide; and 26 (21%) used a mental health metaphor. Significant increases were found from 1998 to 2018 in the proportion of songs referencing suicide (0% to 12%), depression (16% to 32%), and mental health metaphors (8% to 44%). Stressors related to environmental conditions (adjusted odds ratio, 8.1; 95% CI, 2.1-32.0) and love life (adjusted odds ratio, 4.8; 95% CI, 1.3-18.1) were most likely to co-occur with lyrics referencing mental health., Conclusions and Relevance: References to mental health struggles have increased significantly in popular rap music from 1998 to 2018. Future research is needed to examine the potential positive and negative effects these increasingly prevalent messages may have in shaping mental health discourse and behavioral intentions for US youth.