Journalism Professors’ Information-Seeking Behaviors: Finding Online Tools for Teaching

Abstract

As the journalism profession continues to reinvent itself, journalism professors struggle to keep up with technological advancements that provide their students with industry-relevant skills. This study seeks to understand how journalism professors find information about online tools for teaching, to learn about the efficacy of their current strategies for navigating the fractured information landscape. The diffusion of innovations perspective is applied to in-depth qualitative interviews with journalism professors. The study finds that early adopters are the most adept at seeking information about, and using, online tools. Consequently, they experience the least stress around information seeking about online tools.