Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

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. …

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. …

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 …

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 …

The Next Zuck: The Rise Of Entrepreneurship On America’S College Campuses, Amanda L. Quick

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The Next Zuck is a website featuring student-run startups, college semester programs, business competitions and other startup events. While there are a number of technology and startup websites, The Next Zuck is unique because it is one of the only media outlets strictly dedicated to highlighting college founders and entrepreneurship at universities nationwide. The Next Zuck website includes video, blog posts and articles, while also serving as a resource to college students who want to learn more about entrepreneurial activity at other universities. Bringing together content from various college ecosystems, The Next Zuck has built a community of college CEOs, …

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 …

This Is The Newhouse Network, Clay Lepard

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Over time, Syracuse University and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications have built a vast alumni base, featuring some of the top executives and voices in the media community.

Prior to this project, the only place you could find these Newhouse alumni featured was in a gallery that was last updated sometime in the mid-1990’s.

“This is the Newhouse Network” is a dynamic webpage that allows users to hear stories and advice from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications’ Advisory Board (the A-list alumni).

The website is displayed on an iPad in Newhouse III where current students, faculty, …

The Accused, Nathan Damon Hopper

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Exonerations are increasing, largely thanks to the advent of DNA evidence, which several prisoners’ rights advocacy groups, like the Innocence Project, have used to prove the innocence of the convicted. But returning home after spending years imprisoned for a wrongful conviction brings with it several types of challenges: psychological, financial, and simply personal.

Roy Brown, the main subject of this story (though there are several other important characters) is an incredibly intricate man. Before his 25-to-life sentence for the murder of a county social worker, he’d faced several other convictions for a slew of misbehavings and a general disregard for …

Connecting The Peaces: Working To Make The World A Better Place – The Encompass Journey Of Understanding, Alison Sara Kurtzman

Honors Capstone Projects - All

On October 12, 2002, the Indonesian island of Bali experienced the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history. 202 people were killed when a bomb was detonated outside of a nightclub in the tourist city of Kuta. Among those killed was Daniel Braden, a young British man who was in Bali for a rugby tournament. Daniel’s parents believed that the attack happened because the majority of people in the nightclub were white and therefore viewed as “the enemy.” They believed that if young people had the opportunity to meet and speak with people different from themselves a lot of terrorist …

Syracuse Spotlight: Building A Greater Performing Arts Community, Alison Rose Mierzejewski

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Syracuse Spotlight is a performing arts magazine created in part to build a stronger performing arts community for the Syracuse University campus. Since the campus lacks any sort of regular coverage of live performance, I wanted to provide a resource to fill this void in student publicatons. For the most part, the coverage was not in depth, and most of the coverage was solely of the work done by the Syracuse University Drama Department.

With the creation of Syracuse Spotlight, I bring to the university community an outlet for respresentation of all performing arts – both of majors and …

Hue Magazine, Sadé Khadijah Muhammed

Honors Capstone Projects - All

HUE magazine is a print title dedicated toward the uplift and synergy of women of color in America. At present, there is no publication that makes a conscious effort to not single out women of color in specific ethnic groups, but instead to talk to all of them simultaneously.

At its core, HUE’s target audience is first generation women of color between the ages of 18-25. It is a lifestyle magazine with stories in fashion, beauty, love, culture, health, entrepreneurship, and more. The goal is for the magazine to appeal to the girl in us all who loves fashion and …

Natalee, Natalie Tebbi

Honors Capstone Projects - All

NataLee is a 48-page prom issue of a proposed teen magazine geared toward girls aged 13-17. Though it includes elements of fashion, it does not conform to a fashionable body-type. It approaches teen issues with delicacy, and avoids topics such as sex and drinking in order to appeal to a conservative demographic. Its 15 articles range from the creative (“Make Your Own Corsage”) to the sentimental (“Popping the Question”) to the informative (“What’s Prom Got to Do with It”) to the academic (“Skin Care Science”). These articles follow a theme of “intelligent fashion.” The mission statement of the magazine is, …

Inkstinct Tattoo-Lifestyle Magazine, Celina Rosita Tousignant

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Inkstinct, an American tattoo-lifestyle magazine, covers a broad assortment of editorial content in six regular sections: “Inkternet,” “Fokus,” “Kulture,” “Inkternational,” “Lokal,” and “Your Ink.” Created as a regularly published magazine, Inkstinct’s sections allow for fresh content every month, while enabling consistency in theme and reader expectations.

The target demographic of Inkstinct falls between the age of 18 and 35, has interest in tattoos and body manipulations, and is both male and female. Inkstinct assumes readers have at least a very basic knowledge of tattoos and body manipulations, and avoids explaining basic information in detail. However, Inkstinct’s editorial …

The Fourth Phase: New Media And Political Campaigns, Timothy Martinez Jr.

Honors Capstone Projects - All

With the increased use of new media in political elections, I set out to answer two important questions: how does new media affect the relationship among candidates, journalists, and citizens during elections and how will traditional media adapt to the new technology? Since this topic is evolving, I read blogs and news articles during the 2008 presidential election and reflected on past elections to discover key differences.

I found that four key distinctions pertaining to new media that made the 2008 election different than previous ones. First was the creation of a virtual town hall, which was illustrated through public …

From Page To Screen: Television And The Decline Of Fiction In Magazines, Mirel Ketchiff

Honors Capstone Projects - All

My Capstone project explores how the rise of television contributed to the decline of fiction in magazines and the decline of general interest magazines in America. I argue that television appealed more to advertisers as a mass-market medium than general interest magazines. Magazines had to find a new way to appeal to advertisers, and they did so by becoming niche publications that could offer advertisers a specific type of audience, rather than just a huge amount of readers. Fiction had been used in magazines as a form of mass-market entertainment; with magazines become geared towards specialized interests, fiction fell by …

Remembering Pan Am 103: Lessons Learned 20 Years Later, Victoria Wells

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Twenty years ago, on December 21, 1988, a bomb exploded aboard flight Pan Am 103. The plane crashed intoLockerbie,Scotland, killing 270 people on board and on the ground. Among those lost were 35SyracuseUniversitystudents coming back from a semester abroad inLondon.

This documentary uses interviews with about 40 professors and former students to tell the story of Pan Am 103. These people were reunited on campus during Remembrance Week 2008. This project explores the mistakes that were made and lessons that have been learned. The research is supplemented by interviews with current faculty and staff members. These people have researched and …

Zipped Magazine, Shilpa Prabhakar

Honors Capstone Projects - All

For my capstone project, I chose to do something that fell within the creative category. Being a magazine journalism major, most of my coursework has to do with editing, writing, and layout so I wanted to use the skills I learned in the classroom to create and find a new publication on the S.U. campus. Zipped magazine is S.U.’s only fashion publication and it allows students with an interest in this area, the opportunity to further develop their skills through writing, photography, graphics and design. Furthermore, readers are able to learn about issues that the fashion industry faces in the …

Effect Of Source On Perception Of Bias In Cable News, Braden Lynk

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Problem: The central study question was whether or not believing that a certain media outlet is biased in a certain direction predisposes someone to perceive more or less bias in news content. The following hypotheses were formed:

Hypothesis One: News consumers would find a news story to be more biased toward the corresponding associated political viewpoint of its source regardless of the actual content of the story.

Hypothesis Two: Liberal respondents would be more likely to perceive the news stories as conservatively biased and conservative respondents would be more likely to perceive the new stories as being liberally biased. …

Drive Magazine, Shannon Sweeney

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Abstract Not Included

A Comprehensive Analysis Of The Impact Of Health Journalism Through Women's Magazines, Abigail Cuffey

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The first women’s magazines date back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Throughout the years, they continue to advise, entertain, and give a voice to women. This paper examines one particular area: health journalism, an area that offers the potential for a substantial impact on readers’ health and lifestyle. This thesis explores the potential impact through interviewing the health editors and writers, as well as the readers themselves. The thesis also profiles a pioneer health writer, Barbara Seaman, whose decades of health writing for women’s magazines served as a catalyst for change on several critical women’s issues. Seaman’s work …

Players The First Magazine Dedicated To Young Female Athletes And Women’S College Sports Fans., Stephanie Plotino

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The involvement of women in athletics has exploded over the last 10 years. This project capitalizes on this changing dynamic by creating a prototype of a women’s college sports magazine called Players. No such magazine currently exists in the United States, but I believe there is a market for it among teenage female athletes who are interested in women’s college sports. Without Players, females have only male-dominated publications like Sports Illustrated or ESPN for general sports coverage, or they can read more female-friendly publications such as Shape and Fitness, which cater to an active lifestyle but do …

I Am What I Wear: The Use Of Dress In Constructing And Evaluating Sexual Identity, Jean Stevens

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This thesis explores different disciplinary studies and discussions of dress, and more specifically, the use of dress in constructing a gendered identity and sexual identity. To conduct this research, I performed a literature review and referenced various social psychological, sociological, and/or feminist theoretical frameworks. I argue that dress cannot serve as any sort of innate or accurate indicator of sexual identity; rather, the meanings associated with dress are socially produced and vary across time and place. Evidence for this argument emerges only after a literature review, as one can recognize a common theme linking the literature, or perhaps a commonly …