Social capital and conflict avoidance in campus news

Abstract

This study explores the roles student media advisers and editors perceive they serve within campus and municipal communities, focusing on the influence of social capital on tendencies toward an adversarial role and conflict reporting. Respondents identified least with the adversarial role, well below the interpretive role, which respondents identified with most strongly. Where social capital between newsroom and administration was stronger and where advisers were more experienced, inclinations toward conflict were weaker.