Serena Carpenter
Biographic Data
| ID | 3619629 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Serena Carpenter |
| GIVEN NAMES | Serena |
| FAMILY NAME | Carpenter |
| SIGNATURE | CARPENTER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8814-4185 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 157 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Explaining the Practice Acceptance of the Solutions Journalism Approach through an Analysis of Journalists’ Adherence to Solutions Journalism Rigors
Who is responsible? Examining the way U.S. newspapers in rural agricultural and ranching states cover water quality
A content analysis of EPPM’s threat and efficacy information in environmental news
The extended parallel process model summarizes the positive impact of threat and efficacy messages on behavioral intentions. In news contexts, research to date shows national journalists emphasize threat information and neglect efficacious information. Findings show U.S. university student journalists emphasized efficacy rather than threats countering past content analysis research. We also found environmental and sustainability communities of pr…
The News Sourcing Practices of Solutions Journalists in Africa, Europe, and the U.S
Solutions journalism is one of the newest alternative journalism strategies aimed at combating news fatigue through rigorous reporting on solutions to society's problems. One of the primary goals for the movement is increased source diversity that features more non-official and citizen voices, like those often used in other forms of alternative media. This study examined the types of sources journalists included in 555 text-based solutions journa…
Reimagining tenure and promotion for creative faculty
Faculty members interested in creating creative scholarship face advancement obstacles due to few known tenure and promotion standards. This study involved qualitative semistructured interviews with U.S. communication and media creative faculty members producing scholarship spanning multiple mediums. Interviewed scholars primarily expressed their scholarship's contributions involved local community engagement. Yet creative scholars perceived depa…
A review of U.S. tenure and promotion guidelines in media and communication and their support for engaged scholarship
People within academia choose their path because they want to make positive differences in society, in their community or practice. A diversity of venues and methodological approaches should be acc
Sustainability and Environmental Communities of Practice’s Impact on News Content Diversity
Communities of practice (CoP) are distinct community groups that share a common interest in which they interact with one another to address problems and reach goals. In the present study, we investigated one niche community—sustainability and environmental communities of practice—to determine whether stronger communities of practices differed from weaker ones. We developed a summative index rating each sampled university student news publication …
The Tenure and Promotion Standards Used to Evaluate Creative Scholarship in the Media and Communication Fields
The tenure and promotion system influences whether, how, and the extent faculty members produce creative scholarship. A thematic analysis of 69 media and communication departments’ documents was carried out to systematically assess creative scholarship standards. The results showed most documents formally recognized creative scholarship and equated it to traditional research. Results showed less concreteness in comparison with traditional researc…
Teaching Performance, Service, and Scholarship
University reward systems (i.e., tenure and promotion standards) can shape educators’ behaviors and dedication to teaching. This study contributes to knowledge by conceptually mapping teaching evaluation standards through a thematic analysis of U.S. tenure and promotion documents from media- and communication-centric departments. The results revealed that evaluation criteria coalesced around three areas: (a) teaching performance, (b) teaching ser…
Navigating the Decisions and Ethics of Authorship
Authorship and authorship order are visual shortcuts that communicate student success. We content analyzed to what extent graduate students published as lead authors in 10 refereed communication and media journals over a decade (2007–2016) examining student authorship, coauthorship, and affiliations. Graduate students appeared in approximately 23% of the sampled articles with graduate students most often appearing as lead author on multiauthored …
An Examination of How Social and Technological Perceptions Predict Social Media News Use on WeChat
The decision to use a particular social media application for news is affected by many factors, but less is understood is how a platform’s technological features promote or impede people’s social media news use. A structural equation model derived from the Unified Theory Acceptance and Use of Technology and Task-Technology Fit models were applied to investigate what social and technological perceptional factors explain people’s news use behaviors…
Climate change in China
Chinese news publications potentially play a crucial role in mitigating global climate change. Presently, the majority of scholars treat the Chinese news media system as one single entity. We expect, however, Chinese party-sponsored and market-oriented newspapers differ in their representation of climate change. Using the conceptual framework of news diversity, we examined how Chinese journalists reported on climate change by examining their use …
Journalistic expertise
Journalists’ privileges and the perceived value of their contributions are being affected by the increasing belief that journalistic work is a product that can be produced by anyone. This perspective should prompt questions related to the conceptualization of journalistic expertise and the functions of educational institutions that assert they teach it. This research contributes to scientific knowledge by introducing an alternative scholarly appr…
Ten Steps in Scale Development and Reporting
Scale development involves numerous theoretical, methodological, and statistical competencies. Despite the central role that scales play in our predictions, scholars often apply measurement building procedures that are inconsistent with best practices. The defaults in statistical programs, inadequate training, and numerous evaluation points can lead to improper practices. Based on a quantitative content analysis of communication journal articles,…
An Exploration of the Complexity of Journalistic Interviewing Competencies
Journalists have engaged in interviewing practices since the nineteenth century to collect information for news stories. Today, it is considered the dominant approach in news-gathering among journalists. We know very little, however, about the theoretical breadth of interviewing and the associated competencies construct that journalists should possess to be classified as an expert interviewer. Consequently, the first appropriate step toward speci…
More of the Same
Sources are an indicator of news quality. They cue readers to the extent that journalists are invested in reporting a topic. Moreover, a diversity of sources may help readers reach more informed decisions. This study investigates the amount and diversity of sources nonprofit and for-profit news organizations use and what factors affect sourcing behaviors. Results indicate that nonprofit organizations use more, but not more diverse sources. In add…
Filling the Void
The public needs to be aware of conflict in order to participate effectively in a democracy. The demise of local news has threatened the normative role of journalism in this process. With traditional news organizations struggling, non-profit sites have set out to fill the void. Whether or not they can indeed function as substitutes, however, has largely been unexplored. This case-oriented study examines how frequently stories about local governme…
It’s About Me
Media sociology literature supports the assumption that freelancing as a way of life should have an impact on the self-presentation behaviors of journalists. The present research is concerned with how journalists—employed and freelance—frame their identities and disclose relevant information in social media spaces through a quantitative content analysis of Facebook fan pages (N = 468). Freelance journalists, faced with employment instability and …
Social Media Communicator Roles
The purpose of this research is to describe the various roles of practitioners who use social media communication through a scale. Human organizations are role systems in which patterned behaviors take place. Literature and theory spanning multiple occupational fields guided the development of items. Through a multi-method approach and six-step process, we created a set of social media communicator roles resulting in a five-factor model: customer…
The Measurement of Journalistic Role Enactments
Media scholars have primarily assessed journalistic role perceptions through the survey method. We propose conceptual and operational definitions for four role enactments observable through content analysis: dissemination, interpretative, adversarial, and mobilization. We also examined how journalistic role enactments in stories related to organization type (nonprofit and for-profit) and reporter workload. Results show that nonprofit journalists …
An Examination of How Academic Advancement of U.S. Journalism Students Relates to Their Degree Motivations, Values, and Technology Use
The newsroom is a powerful influence in a journalist’s identity formation. Research has yet to verify the socializing impact of academia. This research utilized the quantitative survey method applying it to undergraduate journalism students ( n = 798) to assess how academic status relates to students’ degree motivations, life values, and technology use. The results show advancement is related to variations in perceptions of some degree motivation…
A study of US online community journalists and their organizational characteristics and story generation routines
Scientific knowledge in the area of journalism has been predominantly a reflection of research on journalists from elite publications rather than journalists from smaller publications. This research seeks to create a foundation for future research through a web survey of online community journalists in the USA. This study measured the extent to which their perceptions and publications reflect organizational traits such as a reliance on routine so…
Internet Competition and Us Newspaper City Government Coverage
This study used data from a survey of city government reporters at US metropolitan daily newspapers to test the 2008 Lowrey and Mackay model of occupational competition. The results indicate that as the quality of Internet competition (as perceived by the US city hall reporters) increased, reporters were more likely to report stories they might have missed and were more likely to increase the number of city government stories. This study also sug…
A study of content diversity in online citizen journalism and online newspaper articles
The presence of a diversity of information offers citizens access to a range of ideas, expertise and topics. In this study, a measure of content diversity was created to determine whether online citizen journalism and online newspaper publications were serving this function in the USA. Based on the findings from a quantitative content analysis ( n = 962), online citizen journalism articles were more likely to feature a greater diversity of topics…
An Application of the Theory of Expertise
How to educate journalism students for the online world is controversial. For journalism students to become well-rounded journalists, lifelong learners, and experts, journalism education should weave skills with theoretical training, based on Hatano's theory of expertise. To determine to what extent employers are seeking such applicants, this study examined online media job ads. Results show employers want people with a broad and specific backgro…
Ten Steps in Scale Development and Reporting
Scale development involves numerous theoretical, methodological, and statistical competencies. Despite the central role that scales play in our predictions, scholars often apply measurement building procedures that are inconsistent with best practices. The defaults in statistical programs, inadequate training, and numerous evaluation points can lead to improper practices. Based on a quantitative content analysis of communication journal articles,…
A study of content diversity in online citizen journalism and online newspaper articles
The presence of a diversity of information offers citizens access to a range of ideas, expertise and topics. In this study, a measure of content diversity was created to determine whether online citizen journalism and online newspaper publications were serving this function in the USA. Based on the findings from a quantitative content analysis ( n = 962), online citizen journalism articles were more likely to feature a greater diversity of topics…
The Measurement of Journalistic Role Enactments
Media scholars have primarily assessed journalistic role perceptions through the survey method. We propose conceptual and operational definitions for four role enactments observable through content analysis: dissemination, interpretative, adversarial, and mobilization. We also examined how journalistic role enactments in stories related to organization type (nonprofit and for-profit) and reporter workload. Results show that nonprofit journalists …
Climate change in China
Chinese news publications potentially play a crucial role in mitigating global climate change. Presently, the majority of scholars treat the Chinese news media system as one single entity. We expect, however, Chinese party-sponsored and market-oriented newspapers differ in their representation of climate change. Using the conceptual framework of news diversity, we examined how Chinese journalists reported on climate change by examining their use …
An Application of the Theory of Expertise
How to educate journalism students for the online world is controversial. For journalism students to become well-rounded journalists, lifelong learners, and experts, journalism education should weave skills with theoretical training, based on Hatano's theory of expertise. To determine to what extent employers are seeking such applicants, this study examined online media job ads. Results show employers want people with a broad and specific backgro…
An Examination of How Academic Advancement of U.S. Journalism Students Relates to Their Degree Motivations, Values, and Technology Use
The newsroom is a powerful influence in a journalist’s identity formation. Research has yet to verify the socializing impact of academia. This research utilized the quantitative survey method applying it to undergraduate journalism students ( n = 798) to assess how academic status relates to students’ degree motivations, life values, and technology use. The results show advancement is related to variations in perceptions of some degree motivation…
A study of US online community journalists and their organizational characteristics and story generation routines
Scientific knowledge in the area of journalism has been predominantly a reflection of research on journalists from elite publications rather than journalists from smaller publications. This research seeks to create a foundation for future research through a web survey of online community journalists in the USA. This study measured the extent to which their perceptions and publications reflect organizational traits such as a reliance on routine so…
Broadcast and Cable Network News Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election
Broadcast and cable network evening news shows gave more prominence, time, and attention to Democrat John Kerry than to President George Bush in their 2004 presidential election coverage. Broadcast networks were more balanced in their aggregate attention to the candidates than were the cable networks. Individual broadcast network stories and segments were also more balanced than were individual cable network stories and segments, regardless of th…
More of the Same
Sources are an indicator of news quality. They cue readers to the extent that journalists are invested in reporting a topic. Moreover, a diversity of sources may help readers reach more informed decisions. This study investigates the amount and diversity of sources nonprofit and for-profit news organizations use and what factors affect sourcing behaviors. Results indicate that nonprofit organizations use more, but not more diverse sources. In add…
Filling the Void
The public needs to be aware of conflict in order to participate effectively in a democracy. The demise of local news has threatened the normative role of journalism in this process. With traditional news organizations struggling, non-profit sites have set out to fill the void. Whether or not they can indeed function as substitutes, however, has largely been unexplored. This case-oriented study examines how frequently stories about local governme…
An Exploration of the Complexity of Journalistic Interviewing Competencies
Journalists have engaged in interviewing practices since the nineteenth century to collect information for news stories. Today, it is considered the dominant approach in news-gathering among journalists. We know very little, however, about the theoretical breadth of interviewing and the associated competencies construct that journalists should possess to be classified as an expert interviewer. Consequently, the first appropriate step toward speci…
It’s About Me
Media sociology literature supports the assumption that freelancing as a way of life should have an impact on the self-presentation behaviors of journalists. The present research is concerned with how journalists—employed and freelance—frame their identities and disclose relevant information in social media spaces through a quantitative content analysis of Facebook fan pages (N = 468). Freelance journalists, faced with employment instability and …
Who is responsible? Examining the way U.S. newspapers in rural agricultural and ranching states cover water quality
The News Sourcing Practices of Solutions Journalists in Africa, Europe, and the U.S
Solutions journalism is one of the newest alternative journalism strategies aimed at combating news fatigue through rigorous reporting on solutions to society's problems. One of the primary goals for the movement is increased source diversity that features more non-official and citizen voices, like those often used in other forms of alternative media. This study examined the types of sources journalists included in 555 text-based solutions journa…
Sustainability and Environmental Communities of Practice’s Impact on News Content Diversity
Communities of practice (CoP) are distinct community groups that share a common interest in which they interact with one another to address problems and reach goals. In the present study, we investigated one niche community—sustainability and environmental communities of practice—to determine whether stronger communities of practices differed from weaker ones. We developed a summative index rating each sampled university student news publication …
Closing the rural broadband gap
Broadcast and Cable Network News Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election
Broadcast and cable network evening news shows gave more prominence, time, and attention to Democrat John Kerry than to President George Bush in their 2004 presidential election coverage. Broadcast networks were more balanced in their aggregate attention to the candidates than were the cable networks. Individual broadcast network stories and segments were also more balanced than were individual cable network stories and segments, regardless of th…
An Application of the Theory of Expertise
How to educate journalism students for the online world is controversial. For journalism students to become well-rounded journalists, lifelong learners, and experts, journalism education should weave skills with theoretical training, based on Hatano's theory of expertise. To determine to what extent employers are seeking such applicants, this study examined online media job ads. Results show employers want people with a broad and specific backgro…
Internet Competition and Us Newspaper City Government Coverage
This study used data from a survey of city government reporters at US metropolitan daily newspapers to test the 2008 Lowrey and Mackay model of occupational competition. The results indicate that as the quality of Internet competition (as perceived by the US city hall reporters) increased, reporters were more likely to report stories they might have missed and were more likely to increase the number of city government stories. This study also sug…
A study of content diversity in online citizen journalism and online newspaper articles
The presence of a diversity of information offers citizens access to a range of ideas, expertise and topics. In this study, a measure of content diversity was created to determine whether online citizen journalism and online newspaper publications were serving this function in the USA. Based on the findings from a quantitative content analysis ( n = 962), online citizen journalism articles were more likely to feature a greater diversity of topics…
A study of US online community journalists and their organizational characteristics and story generation routines
Scientific knowledge in the area of journalism has been predominantly a reflection of research on journalists from elite publications rather than journalists from smaller publications. This research seeks to create a foundation for future research through a web survey of online community journalists in the USA. This study measured the extent to which their perceptions and publications reflect organizational traits such as a reliance on routine so…
An Examination of How Academic Advancement of U.S. Journalism Students Relates to Their Degree Motivations, Values, and Technology Use
The newsroom is a powerful influence in a journalist’s identity formation. Research has yet to verify the socializing impact of academia. This research utilized the quantitative survey method applying it to undergraduate journalism students ( n = 798) to assess how academic status relates to students’ degree motivations, life values, and technology use. The results show advancement is related to variations in perceptions of some degree motivation…
The Measurement of Journalistic Role Enactments
Media scholars have primarily assessed journalistic role perceptions through the survey method. We propose conceptual and operational definitions for four role enactments observable through content analysis: dissemination, interpretative, adversarial, and mobilization. We also examined how journalistic role enactments in stories related to organization type (nonprofit and for-profit) and reporter workload. Results show that nonprofit journalists …
It’s About Me
Media sociology literature supports the assumption that freelancing as a way of life should have an impact on the self-presentation behaviors of journalists. The present research is concerned with how journalists—employed and freelance—frame their identities and disclose relevant information in social media spaces through a quantitative content analysis of Facebook fan pages (N = 468). Freelance journalists, faced with employment instability and …
Social Media Communicator Roles
The purpose of this research is to describe the various roles of practitioners who use social media communication through a scale. Human organizations are role systems in which patterned behaviors take place. Literature and theory spanning multiple occupational fields guided the development of items. Through a multi-method approach and six-step process, we created a set of social media communicator roles resulting in a five-factor model: customer…
Journalistic expertise
Journalists’ privileges and the perceived value of their contributions are being affected by the increasing belief that journalistic work is a product that can be produced by anyone. This perspective should prompt questions related to the conceptualization of journalistic expertise and the functions of educational institutions that assert they teach it. This research contributes to scientific knowledge by introducing an alternative scholarly appr…
Ten Steps in Scale Development and Reporting
Scale development involves numerous theoretical, methodological, and statistical competencies. Despite the central role that scales play in our predictions, scholars often apply measurement building procedures that are inconsistent with best practices. The defaults in statistical programs, inadequate training, and numerous evaluation points can lead to improper practices. Based on a quantitative content analysis of communication journal articles,…
An Exploration of the Complexity of Journalistic Interviewing Competencies
Journalists have engaged in interviewing practices since the nineteenth century to collect information for news stories. Today, it is considered the dominant approach in news-gathering among journalists. We know very little, however, about the theoretical breadth of interviewing and the associated competencies construct that journalists should possess to be classified as an expert interviewer. Consequently, the first appropriate step toward speci…
More of the Same
Sources are an indicator of news quality. They cue readers to the extent that journalists are invested in reporting a topic. Moreover, a diversity of sources may help readers reach more informed decisions. This study investigates the amount and diversity of sources nonprofit and for-profit news organizations use and what factors affect sourcing behaviors. Results indicate that nonprofit organizations use more, but not more diverse sources. In add…
Filling the Void
The public needs to be aware of conflict in order to participate effectively in a democracy. The demise of local news has threatened the normative role of journalism in this process. With traditional news organizations struggling, non-profit sites have set out to fill the void. Whether or not they can indeed function as substitutes, however, has largely been unexplored. This case-oriented study examines how frequently stories about local governme…
Climate change in China
Chinese news publications potentially play a crucial role in mitigating global climate change. Presently, the majority of scholars treat the Chinese news media system as one single entity. We expect, however, Chinese party-sponsored and market-oriented newspapers differ in their representation of climate change. Using the conceptual framework of news diversity, we examined how Chinese journalists reported on climate change by examining their use …
Navigating the Decisions and Ethics of Authorship
Authorship and authorship order are visual shortcuts that communicate student success. We content analyzed to what extent graduate students published as lead authors in 10 refereed communication and media journals over a decade (2007–2016) examining student authorship, coauthorship, and affiliations. Graduate students appeared in approximately 23% of the sampled articles with graduate students most often appearing as lead author on multiauthored …
An Examination of How Social and Technological Perceptions Predict Social Media News Use on WeChat
The decision to use a particular social media application for news is affected by many factors, but less is understood is how a platform’s technological features promote or impede people’s social media news use. A structural equation model derived from the Unified Theory Acceptance and Use of Technology and Task-Technology Fit models were applied to investigate what social and technological perceptional factors explain people’s news use behaviors…
The Tenure and Promotion Standards Used to Evaluate Creative Scholarship in the Media and Communication Fields
The tenure and promotion system influences whether, how, and the extent faculty members produce creative scholarship. A thematic analysis of 69 media and communication departments’ documents was carried out to systematically assess creative scholarship standards. The results showed most documents formally recognized creative scholarship and equated it to traditional research. Results showed less concreteness in comparison with traditional researc…
Teaching Performance, Service, and Scholarship
University reward systems (i.e., tenure and promotion standards) can shape educators’ behaviors and dedication to teaching. This study contributes to knowledge by conceptually mapping teaching evaluation standards through a thematic analysis of U.S. tenure and promotion documents from media- and communication-centric departments. The results revealed that evaluation criteria coalesced around three areas: (a) teaching performance, (b) teaching ser…
Reimagining tenure and promotion for creative faculty
Faculty members interested in creating creative scholarship face advancement obstacles due to few known tenure and promotion standards. This study involved qualitative semistructured interviews with U.S. communication and media creative faculty members producing scholarship spanning multiple mediums. Interviewed scholars primarily expressed their scholarship's contributions involved local community engagement. Yet creative scholars perceived depa…
A review of U.S. tenure and promotion guidelines in media and communication and their support for engaged scholarship
People within academia choose their path because they want to make positive differences in society, in their community or practice. A diversity of venues and methodological approaches should be acc
Sustainability and Environmental Communities of Practice’s Impact on News Content Diversity
Communities of practice (CoP) are distinct community groups that share a common interest in which they interact with one another to address problems and reach goals. In the present study, we investigated one niche community—sustainability and environmental communities of practice—to determine whether stronger communities of practices differed from weaker ones. We developed a summative index rating each sampled university student news publication …
A content analysis of EPPM’s threat and efficacy information in environmental news
The extended parallel process model summarizes the positive impact of threat and efficacy messages on behavioral intentions. In news contexts, research to date shows national journalists emphasize threat information and neglect efficacious information. Findings show U.S. university student journalists emphasized efficacy rather than threats countering past content analysis research. We also found environmental and sustainability communities of pr…
The News Sourcing Practices of Solutions Journalists in Africa, Europe, and the U.S
Solutions journalism is one of the newest alternative journalism strategies aimed at combating news fatigue through rigorous reporting on solutions to society's problems. One of the primary goals for the movement is increased source diversity that features more non-official and citizen voices, like those often used in other forms of alternative media. This study examined the types of sources journalists included in 555 text-based solutions journa…
Political science (26 works) · Public relations (21 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Media Studies and Communication (16 works) · Social Media and Politics (16 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Journalism (12 works) · Media studies (12 works) · Social science (11 works) · Business (10 works)