Don't trust stories that cite another news outlet as the source of the information.
Pay attention to the language the media uses.
“We are getting reports”… could mean anything.
“We are seeking confirmation”… means they don’t have it.
“[News outlet] has learned”… means it has a scoop or is going out on limb.
Look for news outlets close to the incident.
Compare multiple sources.
Big news brings out the fakers. And photoshoppers.
Beware reflexive retweeting. Some of this is on you.
Call Numbers
There are quite a number of books in the regular collection in the sections of HF5800 to HF6200 PN4700 to PN5650
Communications Books
American Girls by Nancy Jo SalesInstagram. Whisper. Yik Yak. Vine. YouTube. Kik. Ask.fm. Tinder. The dominant force in the lives of girls coming of age in America today is social media. What it is doing to an entire generation of young women is the subject of award-winning Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales's riveting and explosive American Girls. With extraordinary intimacy and precision, Sales captures what it feels like to be a girl in America today. From Montclair to Manhattan and Los Angeles, from Florida and Arizona to Texas and Kentucky, Sales crisscrossed the country, speaking to more than two hundred girls, ages thirteen to nineteen, and documenting a massive change in the way girls are growing up, a phenomenon that transcends race, geography, and household income. American Girls provides a disturbing portrait of the end of childhood as we know it and of the inexorable and ubiquitous experience of a new kind of adolescence-one dominated by new social and sexual norms, where a girl's first crushes and experiences of longing and romance occur in an accelerated electronic environment; where issues of identity and self-esteem are magnified and transformed by social platforms that provide instantaneous judgment. What does it mean to be a girl in America in 2016? It means coming of age online in a hypersexualized culture that has normalized extreme behavior, from pornography to the casual exchange of nude photographs; a culture rife with a virulent new strain of sexism and a sometimes self-undermining notion of feminist empowerment; a culture in which teenagers are spending so much time on technology and social media that they are not developing basic communication skills. From beauty gurus to slut-shaming to a disconcerting trend of exhibitionism, Nancy Jo Sales provides a shocking window into the troubling world of today's teenage girls. Provocative and urgent, American Girls is destined to ignite a much-needed conversation about how we can help our daughters and sons negotiate unprecedented new challenges.
Call Number: HQ799.2.I5 S25 2016
ISBN: 9780385353922
Cases in Communications Law by John ZeleznyWritten as a companion to Zelezny's COMMUNICATIONS LAW, Sixth Edition, book, CASES IN COMMUNICATIONS LAW, Sixth Edition, presents cases that will familiarize communications readers with authoritative judicial reasoning on key principles of communications law. Most of the cases are from the U.S. Supreme Court and stand as precedents that all other courts in the nation must follow.
Call Number: KF2750.Z44 2011
ISBN: 9780495902973
Communication Theory by David Holmes"This is a very clear and concise summary of media studies, present, and future. There is no other book that can both be used as a teaching tool and can help scholars organize their thinking about new media as this book can."-Steve Jones, University of Chicago This book offers an introduction to communication theory that is appropriate to our post-broadcast, interactive media environment. The author contrasts the 'first media age' of broadcast with the 'second media age' of interactivity. Communication Theory argues that the different kinds of communication dynamics found in cyberspace demand a reassessment of the methodologies used to explore media, as well as new understandings of the concepts of interaction and community (virtual communities and broadcast communities).The media are examined not simply in terms of content, but also in terms of medium and network forms. Holmes also explores the differences between analogue and digital cultures, and between cyberspace and virtual reality.The book serves both as an upper level textbook for New Media courses and a good general guide to understanding the sociological complexities of the modern communications environment.
Call Number: P96.T42 H65 2005
ISBN: 0761970703
Encyclopedia of American Journalism by Stephen L. Vaughn (Editor)The Encyclopedia of American Journalism explores the distinctions found in print media, radio, television, and the internet. This work seeks to document the role of these different forms of journalism in the formation of America's understanding and reaction to political campaigns, war, peace, protest, slavery, consumer rights, civil rights, immigration, unionism, feminism, environmentalism, globalization, and more. This work also explores the intersections between journalism and other phenomena in American Society, such as law, crime, business, and consumption. The evolution of journalism's ethical standards is discussed, as well as the important libel and defamation trials that have influenced journalistic practice, its legal protection, and legal responsibilities. Topics covered include: Associations and Organizations; Historical Overview and Practice; Individuals; Journalism in American History; Laws, Acts, and Legislation; Print, Broadcast, Newsgroups, and Corporations; Technologies.
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780415969505
Publication Date: 2007
Journalism by Jo A. CatesJournalism: A Guide to the Reference Literature is a critically annotated bibliographic guide to print and electronic sources in print and broadcast journalism. The first edition was published in 1990; the second in 1997. It has been described as one of the critical reference sources in journalism today, and it is a key bibliographic guide to the literature. Choice magazine called it a benchmark publication for which there are no comparable sources. The format is similar to the second edition. What makes this edition significantly different is the separation of Commercial Databases and Internet Resources. Commercial Databases includes standard fee-based resources. The new chapter on Internet sources features Web-based resources not included in the commercial databases chapter as well as portals, other online files, listservs, newsgroups, and Web logs/blogs. All chapters have been revised, and there are significant revisions in Directories, Yearbooks, and Collections; Miscellaneous Sources; Core Periodicals; Societies and Associations; and Research Centers and Archives. The second edition has 789 entries. The third edition contains almost 1,000 entries. James Carey of Columbia University, who provided the foreword for the first two editions, has updated his foreword for this edition.
Call Number: Z69403.C38 1990
ISBN: 1591580617
NTC's Dictionary of Advertising by Jack G. Wiechmann