[Air-L] acceptable sources for undergraduate research in new media fields

[Tery G]

Hi all,

I teach a freshman level class called Digital Media Literacy. It's an
introduction to concepts and tools related to digital media. Each student
does a final project, which, of course, requires them to do research. I
spend a lot of time with them -- read articles, give examples, do some
hands-on work, etc. -- covering why Google in particular and websites in
general are not the sources they should be using (or trusting). They know
how to use the library databases, but the topics they're examining are so
new that anything in peer-reviewed journals about those topics is dated.

Does anyone have suggestions about what might be acceptable resources in
this situation? I let them use articles from *The New York Times* and
the *Journal
of Computer-Mediated Communication*, but I have difficulty justifying their
not using some other sources I really would prefer they not use when they
can't find new enough information in the peer-reviewed journals.

TIA,
Tery Griffin

Associate Professor of Media Arts
Wesley College
Dover DE 19901