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Photo by James Brosher

Roy W. Howard Professor David Weaver talked about journalism research and newspapers’ futures during his Distinguished Faculty Research Lecture Wednesday afternoon. Many colleagues and former mentors attended the talk in Ernie Pyle Auditorium.

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Mentors, colleagues and students packed the Ernie Pyle Auditorium Wednesday afternoon to hear Roy W. Howard Professor David H. Weaver deliver the 2009 Distinguished Faculty Research Lecture.

His talk, “Journalists, Journalism and Research: What Do We Know and Why Should We Care?” highlighted his 35 years of research conducted at Indiana University and discussed the future of print and online journalism.

Weaver earned his Ph.D. in mass communications from the University of North Carolina in 1974 and began to teach at Indiana University the same year. He has lectured around the world and edited several publications, including a new edition of The Global Journalist book that he edited in 1998.

The Distinguished Faculty Research Lecture honor, an annual award highlighting the achievements of an IU-Bloomington faculty member, is one of many awards Weaver has received throughout his teaching career. The Research Lecture award , which is awarded to only one IU-Bloomington faculty member each year, is co-sponsored by the Office of the Bloomington Provost and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research.

While Weaver was pessimistic about the future of newspapers and skeptical about online-only reporting in his lecture, his research painted a more complex picture.

Despite a growing population, the number of full time journalists is declining. While newspapers employed the great majority of these journalists in the past, this number is also dwindling. Educational backgrounds of journalists are now less diverse, and an undergraduate college degree is the minimum requirement for an American journalist.

Furthermore, many reporters feel like their autonomy is deteriorating as newsrooms slash resources. And yet public service journalism remains important in the eyes of many journalists.

“We have some indications that the values of public service are alive and well in the hearts of many journalists,” Weaver said. “But there are also serious concerns about all the closing of newspapers, the layoffs and reductions in size of newsrooms, the declining levels of autonomy and the ability to keep idealistic young men and women of various backgrounds in journalism.”

Photo by James Brosher

Weaver talked about 40 years of research that shows the power of news media to influence public policy or even public opinions. He doubts online media can have this effect without the help of more traditional media.

Several of Weaver’s mentors and former colleagues traveled to Indiana for the lecture. Maxwell McCombs, a professor at the University of Texas-Austin, and Donald Shaw, a professor at the University of North Carolina, both helped Weaver with agenda setting research.

Since their initial studies on the impact of agenda setting on mass communications, hundreds of studies have been conducted around the world. In one study, Weaver and a former doctoral student analyzed agenda setting between the media, public and Congress over a 58-year time span.

The results were surprising. They found a small and decreasing correlation between the New York Times agenda and the public agenda, a substantial and increasing correlation between the Times and Congress, and almost no correlation between Congressional agenda and the public agenda.

“All of these studies and the others we’ve conducted over the last 40 years show considerable power of the news media to set, or at least to reinforce, the public policy agendas and even to influence public opinion,” Weaver said.

The studies conducted by Weaver and other researches also suggest that the independence of journalists and the ability of journalists to do investigative reporting are declining. Newsrooms are cutting reporters and resources as advertisers switch from pricey print ads to cheaper online versions.

“Paper is not just how the news is delivered,” Weaver said. “It’s how it’s paid for.”

While individuals can get news from a variety of sources, there are drawbacks to news Web sites. Online news publications generally have less time for fact checking and fewer resources to devote to investigative work. Policy makers, he said, are not responding to blogs and Twitter feeds in the same way they respond to newspapers.

Photo by James Brosher

Before his introduction, Weaver (left) chatted with colleagues Edward Caudill (center) of the University of Tennessee and Donald Shaw of the University of North Carolina. They were among several who traveled from out of state to attend the lecture.

“The loss of newspapers is not just about the loss of one method of delivering news, or even the loss of jobs for journalists, as important as that is,” Weaver said. “It’s also about the loss of influence on politicians, policy makers, as well as on the public. I do not see any medium waiting in wings that has this kind of influence or resources to challenge powerful institutions of government and business that can jail and tax citizens and have them removed from their homes if they don’t pay their mortgage or rent, or even wage wars.”

Despite the prevalence of citizen journalists and news Web sites, Weaver treated Internet reporting with concerned pessimism.

“I doubt that the Internet has the capabilities to challenge the powerful people in our society without the help of more traditional media,” he said. “This could change, of course, but right now it’s difficult to imagine.”