Grant and Nonprofit Research

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been getting a lot of questions from students about how to find information about nonprofits, specifically how to find out about charitable contributions and grants.

Actually, a great resource is the new Nonprofits Subject Gateway, created by Business Librarian Shana Gass. This resource lists resources for finding charitable giving statistics, charity tax filings, and grant applications.

Two other things of note:

• The Mediamark (MRI+) database does have some information on charitable contributions so you can find out what media contributors are more likely to use. Oddly enough, that info is listed under the category of "Contributions to Public TV/Radio" so it is easy to miss.
• The Foundation Center has released a new GrantSpace site. This site offers lots tools to help novice grantseekers navigate the application process.

Since nonprofits and grants are becoming more of a part of the vernacular of communications, I think these requests are only the tip of the iceberg. I wouldn't be surprised if nonprofit research/grant writing become a larger part of the communications curriculum in the future.

2 Much Txting Bad 4 Teens

Dr. Scott Frank, a physician from Case Western University, presented research at the American Public Health Association conference that shows a correlation between teen hyper-texting (that is sending more than 120 texts a day) and other risky behavior such as smoking, drinking, drug use and having sex. Dr. Catriona Morrison of Leeds University in the UK says that this research suggests that hyper-texting is similar to other addictive behaviors, like gambling, in its co-morbidity with other risky behaviors.

I think it is interesting how this study measures hyper-texting in only quantitative terms and I wonder if we are going to see more robust measures of "texting addiction" (which I think would measure not only the number of texts but also people's attitudes about texting) in future studies.

To learn more about texting, check out these books from Cook Library.

It's the World Series and No One Seems to Care

Yet again last night, "Sunday Night Football" beat Major League Baseball (MLB) playoff games in the ratings according to an AP story on ABC.com.

So what's the big deal? I believe we are witnessing a shift here. Baseball used to be king. In fact, this is the first time that NBC aired a "Sunday Night Football" game in direct competition with the World Series because they were afraid of losing in the ratings. Now it seems they have nothing to fear because these ratings suggest that football has replaced baseball as America's pastime.

So from a communications perspective, I can't help but wonder where baseball lost its way. Is it that they need to sell the game in a new way and reintroduce the game to younger viewers? Maybe it is a fundamental problem with the product of baseball itself, meaning that the game just moves too slowly for our hyper-driven world? Whatever it is, MLB better figure it out fast or else they risk being about as popular as competitive basket weaving.

For more information about sports, media, and economics, check out the following resources:

• Center field shot: A history of baseball on television by James R. Walker and Robert V. Bellamy
• National pastime: How America plays baseball and the rest of the world plays soccer by Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist
  

Red Brand/Blue Brand

There's a fascinating piece in Ad Age this week about what brands are top with Republicans and Democrats.

No surprises for the number one slot for either party with Google topping the Democratic list and Fox News Channel leading the GOP list. There are some brands that are on both lists such as the History Channel.

The article talks a bit about what impact such partisanship can have on the brand, but in this political season I think the far more interesting thing is how campaigns utilize consumer data. Back in 2004, I was fortunate enough to coordinate an election debriefing with the top political operatives for both the Kerry and the Bush campaigns. One of the things that stuck out in my mind was how the Bush camp was able to successfully target their get-out-the-vote efforts using consumer data. They knew for example that if a person drove a Volvo, that person probably wouldn't be voting for Bush so they didn't bother trying to get that person to vote. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first election to use such consumer data in this way and it probably made a difference in the 2004 race.

Unveiling the Wish List

There are a lot of books that we'd like to purchase for the library, but can't because of budget cutbacks. So we've created an Amazon wish list for Cook Library.

The books on this list have been selected by the library liaisons, including yours truly.

To purchase a book, just click on the link to the list and purchase it through Amazon. Then the book is shipped directly to the library and we'll send you a thank you note. Also, each donated item added to the collection will include a placard recognizing the donor.

Please consider donating a book to the library. For as little as $20, you can make a big difference.

How Does God Communicate?

I saw a USA Today story last week about a new book, America's Four Gods: What We Say about God and What That Says about Us by Paul Froese and Christopher Bader.

The book lays out the four different ways that people think about God:

• The Authoritative God (engaged in people's lives and is judgmental)
  
• The Benevolent God (engaged in people's lives, but is loving)
  
• The Critical God (keeps track of our sins, but doesn't intervene in the world)
  
• The Distant God (created the world, but doesn't intervene in the world)

What struck me about these descriptions is that an integral part of a person's portrait of God is how that person thinks God communicates with humanity. So even when it comes to something very abstract, like God, we find that communication is the heart of how people make sense of things. Communication is such a great field!

Cook Library doesn't have this new book, but you can request it through interlibrary loan.

Science News in a Nutshell

I come from a family of engineers and I am married to a scientist in a family of doctors. When I began studying journalism and news many moons ago, all of them pointed out how bad they felt science news coverage is. One of the chief criticisms I often hear is that science news lacks context and depth. Reporters cover a study like it is the be-all and end-all, studies are covered only if they are easy to understand instead of if they have merit, science only gets covered if it is political, etc...

I think this Guardian blog post that outlines what a typical science news story contains sums up their criticisms quite nicely. The fact that such a piece can be written (and be so darn funny) points to the fact that journalists may want to take a second look at how they cover science.

Cook Library has lots of great books about science news coverage including:

• Journalism, science, and society: Science Communication between News and Public Relations
• Covering the environment: How journalists work the green beat