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When it comes to understanding news audiences in rural areas, scholars often focus on declining readership and the challenge of how to encourage existing audiences to pay for content. There too has been burgeoning interest in news avoidance more broadly in digital spaces, with an emphasis on studying those who actively or intentionally resist or reject the news. This paper explores a gap in the research by seeking to understand the conditions and circumstances in which people who do not engage with their local news in print or digital format might be activated to do so. The paper presents the findings of an Australian survey of Facebook users who live in rural and regional areas and identify as people who do not engage with their local news. Findings highlight the need to conceptualise a subsection of the audience who express a desire to engage with their local news but perceive barriers to doing so. These barriers include cost, accessibility and perceived quality of content. We introduce the term 'latent' audience – potential news consumers who remain hidden from industry and scholarly view until changing conditions and circumstances lead to their manifestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When it comes to examining innovation and small-town newspapers, audience expectations and perspectives have received less focus than newsroom practices and processes. This article presents the findings of Australia's most comprehensive national survey of local newspaper audiences (n = 4116), which engaged with readers of more than 170 independently owned, small-town newspapers across the nation. The survey was underpinned by a 'geo-social' methodology, which provides a multidimensional framework for understanding the 'place' of newspapers in the digital age within their specific geographic context, in this case rural Australia. It used ordinal, nominal and qualitative questions to explore respondents' experiences, histories, expectations and perspectives related to their local newspaper. Respondents were asked about their preferences for reading and receiving local news, what their newspaper can do better, and the policy debates and interventions shaping the sector. Results indicate a continued desire for the printed product, a passion for localness in terms of both production and content, and a greater say for local news audiences on the policies shaping the future of news in non-metropolitan settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the ways in which national and international institutional alliances and professional organizations form the basis of a collaborative approach to the resourcing, production, and distribution of fact-checks through a case study of CoronaCheck, the COVID-19 fact-checking project of Australia's RMIT ABC Fact Check. In doing so, it builds on a theorization that conceives of journalism as a "community of practice." Two themes emerge from attention to the conceptual framework, content analysis of CoronaCheck newsletters and interviews with fact-checkers and journalists. The first relates to the nexus between fact-checking communities of practice and the productive and collaborative networks that underpin their operation. The second builds on this to consider the structures, resources, and approaches that facilitate experimentation within the community. Taken together, the findings suggest that understanding the practices of international and inter-institutional collaboration in fact-checking efforts such as CoronaCheck is key to shedding light on how a subcommunity of journalism practice broadens its remit and reorients the concerns of the domain in response to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study thus was to empirically investigate the association between teachers' self-reported reflective practices and their use of student response systems. Analysis of responses from 214 teacher participants from the southeastern US to the "Teachers' Technology Use and Belief Survey (TTUBS)" revealed the following findings. First, self-reflection scores and reported SRS use were low yet significantly correlated. Second, an increase in SRS predicts an increase in self-reflection. With regard to the relationship of grade level and level of experience, this study shows SRS use the highest in middle school classrooms and that beginning teachers report using SRS more than experienced teachers. Considerations involving SRS availability, training, and use are discussed relative to the findings. Implications for enhancing professional growth through SRS use and reflective practice also are presented. (Contains 4 tables.)