Broadcast and Video Studies Commons^™

Mottos: Learned Through Life, David Edelstein

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis 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 …

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

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis 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, …

Trust In The Media: How Broadcast Format Influences Viewers Of Morning Versus Evening Television Broadcasts, Rebekah Castor

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This study tests whether the format of a television broadcast can affect how a viewer perceives news. Because the style, production and personality of news anchors are different for morning news shows and evening newscasts, viewers might experience different levels of trustworthiness, fairness, and balance between the formats. In today’s media landscape, how a viewer perceives a newscast is extremely important, as network and local news broadcasts compete with social media as a source of news and information. This study considers the relevant literatureont for this subject, and then employs a quasi-experimental design to explore how viewers perceive morning and …

All My Friends: A Short Film, Derrick Owens

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The film that I chose to make as my capstone project is a slice-of-life comedy entitled, All My Friends. The idea for the film was originally conceived back in the summer of 2017, and the process towards creating a final production has gone through numerous script revisions, a two-week long casting session, the assembly of a large crew and extras, and an intricate editing process. The film was shot digitally and the style was meant to emulate some of the most filmmakers I admire most including Richard Linklater, Alexander Payne, and Alfonso Cuarón. Like any collaborative creative work, the …

911: The First First-Responders And America's Unsung Heroes, Lyla Rose-Barwick

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The 911 Dispatch Center of Onondaga County is a vital link to emergency response personel and the public. These unsung heroes are often unacknowledged as they operate behind the scenes of every emergency situation. The 911 Dispatch Center spends a great deal of money on their recruitment process due to the psychological screening portion of the process. In the past, many of their applicants have gone through the process only to discover that they are not cut out for this kind of work. My production crew and I volunteered to help create a new recruitment film for the 911 Dispatch …

Cultivation Theory And The Effects Of Television On Children, Omneya A Shanab

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This project delves into Cultivation Theory and how it has developed over time. I looked not only at television, which was the original platform discussed in relation to the theory, but at digital and social spaces as well. As media develops as a whole I was curious to see how this theory ties into children’s development and lives in general. My main interest was children, including those in lower income and minority homes.

Trade Up, Saumya Vasuthevan

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

There is a gap in the market, both on campus and in the industry, for a digital video series analyzing the latest media trends, beyond their headlines. Through accessible and highly snackable YouTube clips, Trade Up offers an in-depth analysis on how and why new media trends will affect young, media professionals, soon entering the industry. It is a peer-to-peer discussion, designed for Newhouse students, by Newhouse students. From AMC Theatres’ experimental virtual reality venture to Amazon Spark, our topics transverse the symbiotic worlds of advertising, technology, and television. Taking a multidisciplinary approach to tackling the media ecosystem, Trade Up …

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

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis 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. …

School Safety: One Year After The Parkland Shooting, Meredith Kava

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

On February 14th, 2018, 17 students and educators were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland, Florida. What followed was an extraordinary effort from those closely-tied to the tragedy to make schools safer. A year later, a comprehensive list of safety recommendations has been put forth and a new state bill is on the table to improve school safety efforts in Florida. However, these proposals are not without their critics. The following video drives the conversation of school safety and the improvements (or lack thereof) that have been made since the shooting to make schools …

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

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis 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 …

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

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis 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, …

How The Arab Spring Movement Has Been Covered By Cnn, Fox News And Msnbc, Benjamin Snyder

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The Arab Spring movement has captivated the world over the past few years. Cable networks have played a large role covering the Arab Spring in the United States. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC are the three most watched cable networks and the ones that face the most scrutiny.

Cable news is often accussed of catering to specific audiences, biased reporting and a variety of other criticisms. Most of these are leveled at the way the networks handle domestic issues. The Arab Spring represented an opportunity to see if the same critiques were true when cable focused on international events.

In …

Nothing Is Free: A Screenplay, David Hetzron

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Film has been an invaluable part of American society for nearly a century. From having political significance, to solely entertaining purposes, this versatile medium has only garnered more and more cultural investment each year of its existence. While it may not always be a vital component to a completed project, it is within the script writing process that ideas, themes, and messages are negotiated and developed. The real meaning of a story is encoded within the words. The script can be considered provocative, emotional, informative, and may incite a unique effect for each of its readers. While no reader is …

Frente Al Mar (Oceanfront): A Short Film, Adriana González-Vega

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The inspiration for Frente al Mar (Oceanfront) came in 2009 during the winter break vacation in my first year of college. I was visiting my home in Puerto Rico, when the story broke in the news about a group of families being evicted from their houses after living there for many years.

According to the reports, the government identified these families as squatters and Dominican immigrants. As I was watching the news, TV reporter Efrén Arroyo was giving a summary of the entire situation, as well as placing it in the context of similar cases in the past.

February 6, …

"Carneys Point" - A Short Film, Alexander Parkin

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Carneys Point is a fifteen minute short film shot on 16mm film that tells the story of a woman's life, fractured into three facets each representing an important crossroad of a single life: the disenchanting prelude to the coming of age, the anxiety of motherhood, and the mental decay of old age.

The film is divided into three vignettes, which overlap to paint a multi-layered portrait of a woman, a trilogy of the human spirit, heart, and mind.

One is the story of a little girl who is obsessed with flight and dreams of escape. Though she has the naïve …

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

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis 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 …

Late Night Television And Its Impact On The Music Industry Via Album Sales And Social Media, Matthew Robin

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Experiential learning has been a large part of my college experience. My work experiences have allowed me to understand the music industry in a very unique way. One experience was my semester in Los Angeles, where I worked at Jimmy Kimmel Live! It was there that I was able to see the influence that these shows could have on musical guests and vice versa. The late-night landscape is as booming as it ever has been, with many different outlets for talent. I wanted to demonstrate that the process of getting an artist on a late-night show is a very …

This Is The Newhouse Network, Clay Lepard

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis 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, …

Southern Sudan Health Care, Amanda Giger

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Statement of Concept: The concept of my creative project was use pictures, film, and music, and to create short yet visually inspiring promotional videos for the John Dau Sudan Foundation (JDSF), a non-profit organization started by former Lost Boy of Sudan, John Bul Dau. These videos were made to serve a variety of purposes for JDSF including: helping John Dau in acquiring speaking engagements, assisting JDSF in raising money for the clinic, raising awareness on the inadequate healthcare and struggles for Southern Sudan, and serving as web content for JDSF’s website.

Context of Work: I have been working with John …

The Creation, Development, And Operation Of A Spanish-Language News Division, Jason William Tarr

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

My Honors Capstone is the creation, development and operation of a Spanish-language news division on theSyracuseUniversitycampus. I chose to start this division at CitrusTV, the oldest and largest student-run television station in theUnited States. At the heart of the Spanish-language news division, is the Spanish-language news broadcast I created: CitrusTV Noticias en Espanol (CitrusTV News in Spanish). The broadcast is a thirty-minute news program covering campus, local, national and international news for theSyracuseUniversity, andSyracusearea, communities. It is student run and includesSyracuseUniversityundergraduate and graduate students from nearly every college at the University.

Having the broadcast is more important than ever because …

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

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis 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 …

How The Beijing Olympics Has Changed Chinese Popular Television, Entertainment, And People’S Everyday Lives, Fei Ye

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The 2008 Beijing Olympics was one of the greatest achievements for Chinese people around the world. It was an event that changed Chinese popular culture and made the Chinese people proud of themselves. In the past, China had lost its popular cultural identity because of historical upheavals and what cultural identity it did have was dominated by foreign-influenced ideas. Through hosting and preparing for the 29^th Olympiad, China rediscovered its popular cultural identity, which I conclude is a reintroduction of its traditional culture. The country was also able to change how others perceived it. To conduct this study, I …

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

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis 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. …