Expanding and validating applications of the willingness to self-censor scale: Self-censorship and media advisers' comfort level with controversial topics

Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly

Volumn 86, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 368-382

  Filak, Vincent F ^a   Reinardy, R Scott ^b   Maksl, Adam ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN OSHKOSH   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS   (United States)

^c BALL STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EDUCATION; MEDIA INDUSTRY; PERCEPTION; RESEARCH;

EID: 70349639058     PISSN: 10776990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/107769900908600207     Document Type: Article

References (45)

1. splc.org/newsflash.asp
2. J. Willam Click and Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver, "High School Newspapers Still Censored Thirty Years After Tinker," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 78 (summer 2001): 321-339
3. Thomas Dickson, "Self-Censorship and Freedom of the Public High School Press," Journalism Educator 49 (autumn 1994): 56-63.
4. Andrew Hayes, "Exploring the Forms of Self-Censorship: On the Spiral of Silence and the Use of Opinion Expression Avoidance Strategies," Journal of Communication 57 (December 2007): 785-802;
5. Andrew Hayes, Carroll Glynn, and James Shanahan, "Willingness to Self-Censor: A Construct and Measurement for Public Opinion Research," International Journal of Public Opinion 17 (autumn 2005): 298-323;
6. Andrew Hayes, Carroll Glynn, and James Shanahan, "Validating the Willingness to Self-Censor Scale: Individual Differences in the Effect of the Climate of Opinion on Opinion Expression," International Journal of Public Opinion 17 (winter 2005): 443-455
7. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, "The Spiral of Silence: A Theory of Public Opinion," Journal of Communication 24 (spring 1974): 43-51
8. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, "Advances in Spiral of Silence Research," KEIO Communication Review 10 (spring 1989): 3-29;
9. Elisabeth Noelle- Neumann, The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion -Our Social Skin (Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
10. Hayes, Glynn, and Shanahan, "Validating the Willingness to Self- Censor Scale."
11. Andrew Hayes, Dietram Scheufele, and Michael Huge, "Nonpar- ticipation as Self-Censorship: Publicly Observable Political Activity in aPolarized Opinion Climate," Political Behavior 28 (September 2006): 259-283
12. Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988).
13. Thomas Dickson, "Attitudes of High School Principals about Press Freedom after Hazelwood," Journalism Quarterly 66 (spring 1989): 169-173
14. Robert Trager and Donna Dickerson, "Prior Restraint in High School: Law, Attitudes and Practice," Journalism Quarterly 57 (winter 1980): 135-138
15. Jack Nelson, Captive Voices: The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into High School Journalism (NY: Schocken Books, 1974).
16. Kate Fitzgerald, "Illinois High School to Remove Paper Adviser over Drug Story," Student Press Law Center, March 17,2008, http://www. splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1713&year=
17. Moriah Balingit, "Wash. Teacher Who Advised Independent Publications Fired," Student Press Law Center, November 20, 2007, http:// www.splc.org/newsflash-archives.asp?id=l650&year=2007.
18. Erica Huddock, "Suspended Adviser Settles with District," Student Press Law Center, April 27, 2007, http://www.splc.org/newsflash- archives.asp?id=1512&year=2007
19. Erica Huddock, "Two Ohio High School Newspapers now Subject of Advisory Board Criticism," Student Press Law Center, April 17, 2007, http://www.splc.org/newsflash-archives.asp?id=1506&year=2007
20. Judy Wang, "Virginia High School to Revise Policy after Controversial Articles Published," Student Press Law Center, June 28,2007, http://www.splc.org/newsflash-archives.asp?id=1564&year=2007
21. Noelle-Neumann, The Spiral of Silence.
22. William Gonzenbach, Cynthia King, and Patrick Jablonski, "Homosexuals and the Military: An Analysis of the Spiral of Silence," The Howard Journal of Communications 10 (October-December 1999): 281-296
23. Charles Salmon and Kurt Neuwirth, "Perceptions of Opinion 'Climates' and Willingness to Discuss the Issue of Abortion," Journalism Quarterly 67 (autumn 1990): 567-577
24. William Gonzenbach and Robert Stevenson, "Children with AIDSAttending Public School: An Analysis of the Spiral of Silence," Political Communication and Persuasion 11 (spring 1994): 3-18.
25. Michael Salwen, Carolyn Lin, and Frances Matera, "Willingness to Discuss 'Official English': A Test of Three Communities," Journalism Quarterly 17 (summer 1994): 282-290
26. Patricia Moy, David Domke, and Keith Stamm, "The Spiral of Silence and Public Opinion on Affirmative Action," Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 78 (spring 2001): 7-25.
27. Vincent Filak and Thomas Price, "The Value of Group Identity in Preventing the Spiral of Silence," Visual Communication Quarterly 12 (spring/summer 2005): 46-57.
28. Vincent Price, "Social Identification and Public Opinion: Effects of Communicating Group Conflict," Public Opinion Quarterly 53 (summer 1989): 197-224
29. Vincent Price and Scott Allen, "Opinion Spirals, Silent and Otherwise," Communication Research 17 June 1990): 369-392
30. Carroll Glynn, Andrew Hayes, and James Shanahan, "Perceived Support for One's Opinion and a Willingness to Speak Out: A Meta-Analysis of Survey Studies on the Spiral of Silence," Public Opinion Quarterly 61 (fall 1997): 452-463
31. Hayes, Glynn, and Shanahan, "Willingness to Self-Censor."
32. Hayes, Glynn, and Shanahan, "Validating the Willingness to Self- Censor."
33. Hayes, Scheufele, and Huge, "Nonparticipation as Self-Censorship."
34. Hayes, Glynn, and Shanahan, "Validating the Willingness to Self-Censor."
35. Andrew Hayes, Brian Uldall, and Carroll Glynn, "Validating the Willingness to Self-Censor Scale II: Opinion Expression in a Real Conversational Setting," unpublished manuscript, 2007.
36. Nelson, Captive Voices.
37. John Bowen, "Captive Voices: What Progress, Change has Occurred in 10 years?" Quill & Scroll 59 (February - March 1995): 14-16.
38. www.jea.org
39. Bowen, "Captive Voices"
40. Marcia Kovas, "The Impact of Hazel- wood in the State of Indiana," Quill & Scrol 64 (February-March 1991): 4-8.
41. Thomas Hill and Pawel Lewicki, Statistics: Methods and Applications (Tulsa, OK: StarSoft, 2005).
42. Vincent Filak and Adam Maksl, "An Examination of the Comfort Levels of High School Principals and Newspaper Advisers in Regard to Controversial Topics" (paper presented to the annual meeting of AEJMC, Washington, DC, 2007).
43. In almost one-third of the cases, individuals had incorrectly stated whether a state law protected them. For example, California has a strong press law that is among the best in the nation in protecting high school journalists. That said, eleven of our forty-four respondents from California stated that no such law existed. Conversely, Indiana law offers high school journalists no protection from censorship, but five of the twenty-one respondents from the state noted that it does. We recod-ed the data for all the participants, simply using state legal statutes and the participants' declared location to better study this. In the end, we found no significant correlation between an actual presence of the law and any of the outcome variables. Unfortunately, we were unable to do a similar examination for the publications policy variable, as we did not ask participants what school district they belonged to. However, we were concerned that our findings in regard to these variables might be misinterpreted. To that end, we've renamed each of the protection variables "perception of state protection" and "perception of district protection" to more accurately reflect the true nature of each variable.
44. Hayes, Uldall, and Shanahan, "Validating the Willingness to Self-Censor Scale II."
45. Luc Pelletier, Chantal Sequin-LeVesque, and Louise Legault, "Pressure from above and Pressure from below as Determinants of Teachers' Motivation and Teaching Behaviors," Journal of Educational Psychology 94 (February 2002): 186-196