In the changing news environment, young adult audiences, often dubbed ‘the Internet generation’, have increasingly gravitated toward online sources of news and information, raising questions about the nature and amount of news consumed. This study joins many others in looking at the emerging processes of news consumption among, in this case, college students, using focus group interviews to further examine how they go about obtaining news. Drawing upon literature in the areas of news consumption, media habits, generational change and news repertoire, this study identifies an emerging three-stage process of consumption that includes the following: routine surveillance, incidental consumption, and directed consumption, each conditioned by various forms of new media use. It suggests continued research in the interaction of a changing media ecology with generational adoption of news habits and the implications of this interaction for news and news engagement.

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This study surveyed sports editors about gender-related issues in hiring and coverage. Although many editors estimate reader interest to be low and do not believe coverage of women’s sports should be improved, results also suggest that sports editors’ values and beliefs have shifted over the past decade in ways that could lead to more opportunities for women journalists and to eventual improvements in coverage of female athletes and women’s sports. The research also suggests when sports editors commit to hiring women, they find women who can move up within organizations and become leaders.

The emergence of social media has provided a space for discourse and activism about sports that traditional media outlets tend to ignore. Using a feminist theoretical lens, a textual analysis of selected blogs on the Women Talk Sports blog network was conducted to determine how fandom and advocacy for women’s sports were expressed in blog posts. The analysis indicated that bloggers enhance the visibility of women’s sports, but their engagement with social issues varies. Some bloggers may reproduce hegemonic norms around sports and gendered sporting bodies, while others may offer a more critical, decidedly feminist view and challenge dominant ideologies. While the blogosphere, and particularly networks such as Women Talk Sports, can serve as a venue for activism around women’s sports and the representation of athletic bodies, its potential to do so may be unmet without a more critical perspective by participants.

Historically, the world of sport has served as a symbolic site for social justice, ushering change in the wider society and inspiring movements that often do not directly or solely tie to sport. Recently, academics and sports journalists have noted a “rebirth” of athlete activism in the United States. Despite the activism of women of color, who have initiated and been at the center of these movements, and sportswomen’s outspokenness on a variety of social justice issues, women’s roles are rendered invisible in narratives that instead privilege sportsmen or men’s professional leagues. We examine articulations of feminism in the context of athlete activism and re-center the role of sportswomen. Drawing upon social media, official statements from athletes, and online news media coverage, we locate feminist narratives in networked communication, specifically in the Women’s National Basketball Association’s activism as it relates to #BlackLivesMatter and the U.S. women’s soccer equal pay lawsuit. Our analytical approach is attuned to how feminism circulates in an economy of visibility, where certain feminisms become more visible than others. Our findings illustrate how narratives of solidarity and collectivism are informed by articulations of intersectional and neoliberal feminisms. This article concludes with a call for sports media scholars to tell stories differently.