As online publications increasingly serve as professional entry points into journalism, online journalists are being trained in a professional environment markedly different from traditional publications. Through in-depth interviews with online journalists, this study investigates the professional identities of this new cohort of media workers. We find they respect some established norms but participate in a mutual shaping of the processes of creating news as new technologies are adapted into existing newsroom practices and environments. They are also forming new norms, emphasizing transparency, individualism and risk taking. Overall, a “new normal” appears to be coalescing.

Power dynamics shape, and are shaped by, the tools used by participants in social movements. In this study we explore the values, attitudes, and beliefs of Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street stakeholders as they relate to their use of technology. This multi-method study applies the lens of value sensitive design [VSD; Friedman, B. (Ed.) (1997). Human values and the design of computer technology (vol. 72). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] to examine stakeholder values and sites of value tension. We contextualize our findings with qualitative observation of how these values are reflected in each organization's online spaces, including Facebook, Twitter, and key organizational websites, as well as private spaces such as email.We found liberty, the value most mentioned by Tea Party members, was not reflected in the movement's organizational websites and Facebook pages, where user autonomy is frequently undermined. However, the Occupy value of equality is supported in the movement's web presence. We also found a set of shared central values -privacy and security, inclusion, and consensus -underlying both Tea Party and Occupy's approach to organization and participation. Value tensions around privacy and inclusion emerged for both groups, as some members opted not to use these tools due to security concerns and leaders struggled to adapt their communication strategies accordingly.This study provides insight into the adoption and contestation of different technological tools within grassroots social movements, how those decisions are shaped by core values, and how conflicts over the use of digital tools can result from tension between how different stakeholders prioritize those values.

Deliberative processes can alter participants’ attitudes and behavior, but deliberative minipublics connected to macro-level discourse may also influence the attitudes of non-participants. We theorize that changes in political efficacy occur when non-participants become aware of a minipublic and utilize its deliberative outputs in their decision making during an election. Statewide survey data on the 2010 and 2012 Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Reviews tested the link between awareness and use of the Citizens’ Initiative Review Statements and statewide changes in internal and external political efficacy. Results from a longitudinal 2010 panel survey show that awareness of the Citizens’ Initiative Reviews increases respondents’ external efficacy, whereas use of the Citizens’ Initiative Review Statements on ballot measures increases respondents’ internal efficacy. A cross-sectional 2012 survey found the same associations. Moreover, the 2010 survey showed that greater exposure to—and confidence in—deliberative outputs was associated with higher levels of both internal and external efficacy.

Video games as youth civic educationDistrust in the American government is a persistent problem for democracy, and civic education is thought to be the best hope for its mitigation. Scholars have found that new forms of playful, digital civic education can encourage youth civic engagement, and video game theory suggests that the properties of games make them well suited to the problem at hand. This study experimentally tests whether a custom-designed video game simulating the budgetary process can have an effect on political trust, particularly stealth democracy attitudes. Youth who played the game showed a lower level of stealth democracy attitudes than those who did not, but there was no difference in more general trust beliefs. This suggests that games could play a part in youth engagement efforts, but that such efforts are most effective when they are narrowly targeted.

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