Masters Thesis

Competing Identifications Among a Newspaper's Journalists and Advertising Salespeople

ABSTRACT COMPETING IDENTIFICATIONS AMONG A NEWSPAPER’S JOURNALISTS AND ADVERTISING SALESPEOPLE by William F. Kelvin Master of Arts in Communication Studies California State University, Chico Fall 2009 This thesis is a case study attempting to explain the cause of ideological disagreements among a single newspaper’s journalists and its advertising salespeople. The impetus for this study was the researcher’s work experience at this newspaper organization, in both the editorial and advertising departments (not simultaneously). The researcher was informed about divergent, department-based perspectives on past and present interdepartmental episodes, and witnessed agitation during and after communication interactions resulting from work-based interdepartmental disagreements. The researcher hypothesized that such conflicts were caused by value differences between members of these two departments. Using a previously successful study of newspaper journalists’ identifications as a model, the researcher used a standardized instrument to survey journalists and advertising salespeople at one Northern California, mid-sized daily newspaper. The author measured the strength of respondents’ identifications with their employing organization and their respective professions and departments. These measurements were taken for the purpose of determining if these employees’ organizational, professional or departmental identifications might have had some role in the interdepartmental disagreements communicated to and witnessed by the author. While this study found no significant differences between editorial employees’ identifications or between editorial and advertising employees’ identifications, advertising employees surveyed identified significantly more strongly with their profession than with their organization, while journalists surveyed identified in the same direction, but their scores only approached statistical significance. Interactions between professional tenure and departmental identification were also found, as long-term newspaper employees identified significantly stronger with their department than did mid-term employees.

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