ACADEMIA

The Soundbite University is a large-scale study conducted by Kalev Leetaru and Dr. Paul Magelli at the University of Illinois to explore the broader changes in how higher education has been covered in the national press over the last 60 years. More than 18 million documents comprising the entire run of the New York Times from 1945 to 2005 were examined for all references to United States research universities and compared to spatial, temporal, and a variety of institutional indicators to examine how coverage has changed over this period and the characteristics most commonly associated with elevated national press visibility. One of the most surprising findings is the transition of the research university from a newsmaker to a news commentator, suggesting a need for universities to profoundly change the ways in which they interact with the press, especially as we enter a new era in media.

The Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications provided hosting and computational support for this project.

For further information visit the Soundbite University page at http://www.ichass.illinois.edu/SoundbiteUniversity/ or contact Kalev Leetaru at leetaru@illinois.edu.