COLUMBIA, Mo. — Matthew Taylor, an associate professor in Middle Tennessee State University’s School of Journalism and Strategic Media, recently received a grant from a national journalism honor society to support his study that focuses on college sports betting and social media.

Taylor was awarded the $500 Kappa Tau Alpha Chapter Adviser Research Grant for his study, “A Uses and Gratifications Approach to Understanding College Students’ Sports Betting and Fantasy 2.0 Social Media Consumption,” according to an honor society news release.

Taylor’s project explores how college-aged adults use social media to inform their betting behaviors in the rapidly expanding world of legalized sports gambling and so-called “gray market” platforms such as PrizePicks and Underdog.

“Since the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing states to legalize sports betting, young adults have become one of the most engaged and vulnerable audiences in this space,” said Taylor, co-director of the journalism school’s Social Media Insights Lab. “My research aims to understand how social media influences those behaviors and what that means for responsible gambling communication.”

The study will use focus groups with students in two states to identify how young bettors engage with gambling influencers, assess their understanding of regulations, and analyze how responsible gambling messages are received online.

Taylor said he hopes the findings will inform future media literacy and public health initiatives.

Taylor, a Kappa Tau Alpha adviser for three years, has been published in leading journals including the Journal of Radio and Audio Media and the International Journal of Sport Communication.

“I enjoy being the Kappa Tau Alpha adviser because it provides the opportunity to celebrate student success as we induct new members into the honor society each year. That alone would be enough to make the effort worthwhile,” Taylor said, continuing, “I’m grateful that KTA also supports its advisers with these competitive research grants. It’s a great organization, and I appreciate their generous support.”   

Kappa Tau Alpha is the national college honor society for journalism and mass communication. It was founded in 1910 at the University of Missouri and has about 100 chapters in the United States.

Since 2003, Kappa Tau Alpha has awarded over $41,000 in grants to its advisers to promote scholarly excellence in journalism and mass communication.

Other recipients of the 2025 Kappa Tau Alpha research grants are Madeleine Liseblad of California State University, in Long Beach, California, who received $1,000 for her project on media bias and the Federal Communications Commission, and Lei Guo of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, who received $500 to assist in her research on journalists’ mental health in Nepal and Bangladesh.

MTSU’s School of Journalism and Strategic Media is part of the Scott Borchetta College of Media and Entertainment. 

— DeAnn Hays (deann.hays@mtsu.edu)