Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Mottos: Learned Through Life, David Edelstein

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Mottos: Learned Through Life is a is a seven-part video series, investigating leadership and life lessons in multiple forms as experienced and told by people from a diverse set of ages, backgrounds and professions. Through the telling of the story of a defining experience from his or her life, each interviewee relates the lessons he or she learned to a broader set of life mottos that any viewer can utilize. Each story of the series is designed to inspire the viewer and let the viewer feel like he or she is having a personal conversation with the interviewee. This allows …

Call Me Maybe: An Analysis Of The Effect Of The Celebrity Persona On The American Telethon, Kyra Meister

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This study examines the relationship between the celebrity persona and the American telethon. Today, it is rare to find a celebrity that is not connected to a specific, charitable or social cause, making apparent strides in the charity industry because of their ability to influence the general public. In the last 70 years, telethons have evolved in a myriad of ways because celebrities and charity are intertwined. Most significantly, the seriousness and sacredness of the American telethon has decreased because of how many telethons are currently in existence. Additionally, an increase in the number of celebrities involved in telethons has …

#Pawnderadoption Creating A Public Relations Campaign To Increase Adoption Rates Among Shelters In The United States, Hannah Allison

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Pet overpopulation has been a national issue for years. With thousands of unwanted stray cats and dogs found on the streets annually, local shelters are doing their best to rehabilitate and rehome animals. However, funds and resources are limited, and communication efforts are poor. Animal shelters need to begin to focus on public relations efforts in order to boost identity within their local communities. The purpose of this research was to discover what inherently goes into developing a comprehensive, successful public relations campaign. This study specifically focused on the following research questions (a) what makes a public relations campaign successful? …

Petals Of Remembrance: An Applied Pr Campaign For The Syracuse Abroad Centers In Relation To The 30th Anniversary Of The Lockerbie Air Disaster, Hannah Butler

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This thesis uses applied public relations research and tactics to develop, coordinate, and implement a global campaign in partnership with Syracuse University Abroad and the 30th Anniversary Committee to remember the lives of the 270 victims lost in the Lockerbie Air Disaster during the 30th anniversary year. In addition to outreach, promotion, and evaluation, this campaign primarily took the form of a global rose-laying ceremony that occurred across the world during the week of October 27-November 3, 2018 at various Syracuse University Abroad Centers. Using global public relations tactics, strategic planning, and event management, this project explored the strengths, weaknesses, …

Ai In Journalism: Creating An Ethical Framework, Haley Kim

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This thesis is an examination of the ethical use of artificial intelligence in journalism. Artificial intelligence is currently being used in all steps of the news production process: story discovery, story production and story distribution. Newsrooms utilize machine learning to analyze massive quantities of data and discover patterns that humans would normally never be able to pick up. Additionally, journalists also create templates so computers can write stories that are data-based, such as earning reports and game (sports) stories, and free them up to be able to work on other projects. Newsrooms can also use AI to personalize story recommendations …

Student Journalists Fight To Protect First Amendment Rights On College Campuses, Joanna Orland

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This body of work sheds light on the obstacles student newspapers at public universities face while attempting to function as free presses. Public universities are protected by the First Amendment but some administrations take action to suppress those rights in their student journalists. Unfortunately, this trend has existed on college campuses for many years but the attitudes exhibited are increasingly paralleled by the relationship between the mainstream media and the current administration.

Universities will take measures such as cutting budgets, firing faculty advisers, denying open records requests and occasionally taking lawsuits against student publications to keep the truth from circulating. …

The Power And Importance Of Women In Television And Film, Rachael Mackinnon

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Glazed, the pilot episode of a situation comedy series, is just beginning to explore what the world of television has in store for women in 2018. At a time like now where women across the nation are feeling the important effects of entering the Fourth Wave of feminism, there is no time like the present to celebrate the beautiful mind that is that of a woman.

For far too long, women in television have been just something to merely look at. More often than not, the crew would be comprised of mostly men: the strong-willed directors, the scandalous producers, …

Journalism In The Digital Age: The Adaptation Of Facebook Live In News Organizations, Brittany Stephanis

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Given the prevalence of technology and the ability to go live on mobile phones, journalists and news organizations alike are learning why Facebook Live is such an important tool. As part of my research, I found online articles explaining the impact Facebook Live has had on the journalism industry and interviewed three different experts on the subject. In doing so, I was able to demonstrate the perspectives of someone from network news, a print and online publication, as well as a well-versed academic. My short documentary covers the rise of “fake news” and citizen journalism on the social media platform. …

Coffee Powerhouses: Utilizing Pr And Marketing, Laina Pisano

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Over the past few decades, a cup of morning coffee has transformed from a simple supplement, with cream and a dash of sugar, to a daily necessity, luxury and investment. In fact, consumers spent over $74.2 billion on coffee in 2015 alone (The Economic Impact of the Coffee Industry, 2016). Within this billion-dollar industry, a combined 4.3 billion cups are purchased from two coffee powerhouses, Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks Coffee (Lepore, 2011). These industry tycoons can be found brewing beans all day long, serving their daily out-the-door lines of loyal, eager customers. This capstone will take readers on a journey …

A Content Analysis Of The 2014 Immigration Crisis Media Coverage: An Intergroup Threat Theory Approach On The Age Of Immigrants, Carolee Lantigua

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The purpose of this research is to understand, through the intergroup threat theory, how the national and local press perceive unaccompanied minors through their media coverage. Using the 2014 immigration crisis, during which an exodus of unaccompanied minors crossed into the United States beginning in 2013, this paper investigates two central ideas: first, how does media coverage of young unaccompanied immigrants differ from the media coverage of non-minor immigrants? Second, how does spatial proximity to the American-Mexican border affect the tone of the media coverage young unaccompanied immigrants receive? I sampled two national newspapers and two local newspapers to interpret, …

The Glocalist: The Creation Of An Online Cultural-Travel Guide To The City Of Havana, Cuba, Jaye Harris

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Glo-cal-ist: one who is a local of several cities or regions.

Locally sourced and globally spread, The Glocalist takes the world and transforms it into your neighborhood.

The Glocalist is an online, interactive cultural-travel guide tailored to young adult travelers. This series of guides offers authoritative information for those looking to dive into the world’s cultural scenes and emerge a local.

Much like the farm-to-table movement, this digital publication seeks to give you locally sourced, nitty-gritty travel information seasoned with cultural flavor. Glocalist readers can ride the local transportation like a pro commuter; sip on the signature drink at …

Public Relations Research: Syracuse University Catholic Center, Christina Dipietro

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The Syracuse University Catholic Center (SU Catholic Center) is a Catholic organization, offering students, faculty and staff at Syracuse University with spiritual guidance and support. A primary concern of the organization is the limited presence, and lack of identity, the organization has on the Syracuse University campus. Although the organization serves many publics, this report focuses on increasing attendance and awareness among the students on the Syracuse University campus. I conducted a detailed research report to gain insight on where the SU Catholic Center can improve its communication tactics to help increase attendance, and therefore boost identity among students. I …

Living With Loss: A Tv Pilot, Jamie Savarese

Honors Capstone Projects - All

A process – that is what writing a script is. The hard part is not the writing, but knowing what to write. The process is a period of months where there is no written dialogue, instead, endless research, brainstorming, and outlining. The hard part is not the words, those come naturally; the hard part is developing a world in which your characters can effectively tell their stories and portray a deeper truth. Living With Loss is a full feature screenplay. The plot is structured around the main character, Elena Wellington, who has to cope with the death of her best …

Orange Balance: A Health And Wellness Website For Freshmen Women At Syracuse University, Sarah Santos

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Adjusting to a new lifestyle away from home can be a challenge, especially for students who are moving to college for their first year. Based on my own struggles with maintaining my health and finding my balance with food, fitness, and personal wellness, which I endured when first coming to Syracuse University in the fall of 2012, I have created a health and wellness website designed specifically for first year female students at Syracuse University. Using WordPress to build the online platform, and working with writers, photographers, and an illustrator, I have built a site that discusses topics such as …

Trail's End Cafe Branding And Design, Morgan Mcmullen

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Trail’s End is a café which is scheduled to open in the first week of June 2016. For my creative capstone project, I developed the café’s identity, as well as designed the logo, materials, and website, among other things needed to get the café ready to open. Being the sole designer working on the identity development of any venture is a challenge, however this also made my tasks perfect for an honors-level capstone.

Affecting Nicaraguan “Vegetable” Literacy With Social Change Advertising, Summer Schneider

Honors Capstone Projects - All

When the Sandinista socialist government gained control they began a total reformation of the country, most notably, the education system. The government supported a small group of men who created the 1980 Literacy Campaign, which worked to educate the majority of the nation. Nicaraguan literacy rates jumped from 49.65% to 87.04% in five months. Despite their successes, literacy rates still suffer today. Through primary research, it has been determined that the biggest issue facing Nicaraguan literacy are “vegetable literates,” those who lose their literacy because they do not use it. In order to combat the issue, I developed a four-part …

Zest Magazine: An Editorial, Managerial, And Exploration Of Syracuse University's Premier Travel Publication, Madysan Foltz

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Zest Magazine is Syracuse University’s first travel publication dedicated to bursting the bubble of campus life and highlighting student adventures far beyond the Hill. It focuses on servicing students’ curiosity about the world while inspiring a sense of wanderlust in readers. Zest strives to get all students interested in travel, regardless of gender, socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic identity. Initially, Zest appeared in the spring semester of 2015 as an interactive tablet publication. It transitioned over to a print publication in the spring semester of 2016.

“Zest Magazine: An Editorial, Managerial, & Exploration of SU's Premier Travel Publication” sets out not …

Researching Campaign Materials For Ellie Mia Boutique, Mariann Yip

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Before you spend thousands of dollars on a public relations campaign, it is important to test the campaign materials to a sample population to see what their thoughts and opinions are. Using their feedback, you are then able to tailor the information in a more effective way, thus, creating and launching a successful campaign that accomplishes all of your goals and objectives.

Ellie Mia is a fashion boutique located on Marshall Street in Syracuse, N.Y. This capstone project explores the PR branding methods of the store to increase awareness of its existence, to augment store traffic and business and to …

Advertising In The Super Bowl: Worth The Cost?, Avi Steinbach

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The Super Bowl has long been considered an unofficial American holiday. Advertisers look at this day as their Christmas – a day when the audience looks forward to commercials. Because of the immense value that a Super Bowl spot holds, there is an equally high price tag to pay for a spot.

The original question posed in this thesis was: Is a Super Bowl advertisement worth the cost? After diving into countless articles arguing both sides and looking at companies’ successes and failures, it became clear that the wrong question was being asked. Rather than thinking about all companies, the …

Grace Magazine, Emmie Martin

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Grace is an online web magazine aimed at girls ages 13 through 18. This website

features material divided into four distinct categories that each cater to important aspects of a modern teenage girl’s life: Your Life, which covers lifestyle topics; Your Self, which covers health-related subjects including food, exercise, and nutrition; Your Style, which features fashion and beauty advice and news; and Your World, which delves into all aspects of modern culture.

This website publishes all original content, and strives to serve as an intellectual and entertaining resource in young girls’ lives. Grace provides girls with relevant articles that use …

Forward, Together, Yuki Mizuma

Honors Capstone Projects - All

With 12,000 refugees and former refugees currently living in Syracuse, N.Y., there is so much more to the city than being just a college or basketball city. Refugees from Burma, Bhutan, Somalia and nearly 40 more countries have come to Syracuse because of the low cost of living, job opportunities and the strong relationship that refugee organizations have with the Syracuse City School District. Nearly 800 new individuals arrive each year and, yet, many people are unaware of the diverse population living in Syracuse, N.Y. “Forward, Together” uses photographs, informational text and captions to depict the lives of two refugees …

Talking Hands: Does Gesture Production Help Bilingual Preschoolers Learn Words?, Bailey Bell Marks

Honors Capstone Projects - All

As multilingualism grows throughout the world, so does the need to develop appropriate teaching methods for the multilingual population, especially during the crucial stages of language acquisition that occur during childhood. Bilingual children must develop two vocabularies concurrently; this is a difficult task for many, but non-speech expression of language such as gestures may aid the process of acquiring new words in one’s vocabulary. The mirror neuron system provides a physiological basis for the connection between language centers in the brain and the execution and observation of hand movements. To examine how using gestures affects children’s word learning, the researcher …

Find It In Football: An International Marketing Plan For Young Women, Melanie Michelle Holohan

Honors Capstone Projects - All

What follows are multiple components of a creative advertising project. While this work relies heavily on research, it was a very creative process. The premise of this work is an integrated marketing campaign that utilizes my two majors: international relations and advertising, combined with my love for sports. Using primary and secondary research, I found that the benefits that sports have on child development are huge (Humphrey, 2003). I narrowed my sport choice down to soccer and my target down to young women. I wanted to focus on Islamic states because, at least by American standards, Muslim women are often …

Headlines: A Multimedia Approach To Getting 18 To 21 Year Olds Involved In News, Caitlin Landers

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Headlines is a capstone project that attempts to test how to get the 18 to 21 year old demographic interested in news by showing the target audience that news around the world directly affects them in some way. My belief, based on personal experience and observation, is that many young adults do not pay attention to the news because they do not believe it plays a role in how their life plays out. The goal of Headlines is to show the target demographic that the opposite is true; world events do affect what happens in their daily lives.

This capstone …

Syracuse University Trust Barometer: A Study Of Su Students’ Media Consumption Habits And Trust In News, Jessica Hajjar

Honors Capstone Projects - All

In order to communicate effectively with a target audience, public relations professionals must understand the news media their intended public consumes and trusts. In recent years, media polls and surveys have shown the trust Americans place in the news media is declining. The purpose of this study is to examine the news media habits of Syracuse University students and the trust students place in news information.

This study is based off responses from 254 Syracuse University students who agreed to participate in a voluntary response survey. The seventeen question survey was designed to examine students’ daily news consumption patterns and …

Over The Line: Ethical Issues In The Media Coverage Of The Bernie Fine Scandal, Giuseppe S. Diglio

Honors Capstone Projects - All

On Nov. 17, 2011, sports media conglomerate ESPN aired a story in which Bobby Davis and Mike Lang, stepbrothers and former ball boys for the Syracuse University men’s basketball program, accused Bernie Fine, then an assistant coach for the Syracuse men’s basketball team, of sexually abusing them as children. As the story developed, the reporting methods used by ESPN and The Post-Standard, the daily newspaper in Syracuse, were put into question. This report looks at what these news organizations did in their investigative reporting of the allegations against Fine and analyzes whether or not it was morally acceptable. To do …

Public Relations And Promotion In Film: How It’S Done And Why It’S Important, Timothy Cheng

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Films have been huge revenue drivers in the entertainment industry. However, not all films succeed with high profit margins. Success can be contributed to aspects such as the writing, the production quality, or the acting within a film. These aspects contribute to how audiences, critics and media receive a movie. Unfortunately, these aspects typically overshadow one of the most important functions contributing to a film’s success: promotion and public relations.

For my capstone, I researched how films are promoted, branded, and distributed through public relations functions. Research largely relied on secondary research, with primary research added for deeper concepts. After …

What’S Gender Got To Do With It? How Client Gender Influences Public Relations Practices And Crisis Management Strategies, Tiana Rojas

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Media leads gender stereotyping. Consumers of media internalize messages of gender put forth by the media, thus shaping their attitudes and expectations of gender. This paper focuses on gender and how it influences public relations (PR) practices and crisis management strategies, specifically in entertainment PR. This is a subject that has yet to be explored. Utilizing primary, secondary and quantitative research methods, I hope to answer my research question: how does client gender influence PR strategy? To test my research question, I designed an online survey composed of four common PR crises seen in the entertainment industry among celebrities. The …

Beaver Professional Public Relations Research Case Study, Francheska Munoz

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This research study combines public relations and marketing to examine how women think about buying hair products. Using Beaver Professional, a hair care company, as the client, this study incorporates different methods of research to understand what factors affect which products women buy and where they go to buy them. This study also examines how salons think about selling hair products to their customers and where they go to shop or find the products for their salons.

A Sinking Ship: An Extensive Crisis Communications Case Study Of Carnival Cruise Lines, Amanda Ryann Michelson

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This paper examines the problem that Carnival Cruise Lines (Carnival), a famous cruise ship line for vacationing, continues to endure crisis situations yet fails to take the appropriate actions for rectification.

It is common knowledge within the public relations field that a crisis can make or break the sustainability of a successful organization. It is for this reason that it is necessary for professionals to analyze past events within a company’s history in order to improve its relationships with its stakeholders to keep the business afloat.

This study focuses on three major incidents. The first one involves a fire in …