How journalism educators discuss journalism law in their community of practice : insights from a qualitative textual analysis

Often, journalism teachers are the only ones at their school who do their job, and even when the positions are embedded in arts or English departments, it can be isolating. The Journalism Education Association's Listserv creates a virtual community of practice (CoP) for members to contribute to the shared knowledge of best practices in journalism education. The purpose of this research was to understand how middle and high school journalism educators discuss journalism law and its related topics on the Listserv to determine what additional legal resources might benefit the JEA community. This research, via qualitative textual analysis, examined how advisers used their CoP to build shared meaning of journalism law. The study found that journalism advisers primarily use their CoP for Discussing Developments, Documentation Projects, Problem-solving, and Requests for Information. The primary topics discussed on the Listserv were censorship and copyright. The way advisers discussed journalism law varied based on the topic, but most posts were reactions to things that had already happened, either in the news or to individual educators.