Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

The Many Moving Parts Behind Brandon Sanderson’S Record-Breaking Kickstarter Campaign, Kathi Inman Berens

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

The creation and fulfillment of Sanderson’s Kickstarter relies on a crack team managing massive amounts of data as well as all aspects of production. Sanderson had been running a multi-million-dollar, mid-sized publishing company well before his March 1, 2022 Kickstarter shot north of $28 million in two weeks, making it the biggest campaign—for now—in Kickstarter history.

Righteous: What Holocaust Rescuers Can Teach Us About A More Altruistic Society, Jill Bodnar

Graduate Student Research Symposium

Stories about Holocaust rescuers are not well known to the general American public. These unsung heroes were a small subset of non-Jews from across Europe who went against the dark climate of antisemitism and racial cleansing led by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 40s. As the reality of the Final Solution grew, these rescuers made the moral decision to risk their lives to save innocent Jewish friends, neighbors, and strangers from capture and death. On top of the rarity of their actions, after the war they often did not speak of their work, largely because they did not see …

Lee Isaac Chung, Minari (2020): Having An Amerikorean Life, Nagehan Uzuner

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Minari by Lee Isaac Chung is a drama which chronicles the life of a Korean family who moves to the USA during 1980s in pursuit for a better life. The acculturation process is experienced differently by family members. Children are mostly bored with their new life in the rural area of Arkansas while their mother, Monica, is terrified of living in a mobile home which is made of a truck trailer in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, the grandmother joins the family from Korea to take care of the kids with a more positive approach dealing with their struggles. The …

Queer And Trans Prison Voices: A Podcast Archive On Prison Abolition, Josefine Ziebell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project is located at the intersection of Critical Prison Studies, Gender Studies, Sound Studies, and American Studies. It highlights the importance of sonic modes of anti-carceral resistance by featuring the recorded voices of incarcerated people through the creation of a sonic archive of prison writings. By integrating that sonic archive into the podcast medium, this project functions as a digital archive for incarcerated voices, consisting of two tracks: a collection of short-spoken readings by queer and transgender incarcerated authors, and podcast-style interviews with activist scholars, organizations, and sound artists working towards prison abolition. In this paper, I establish …

Is France Having A Populist Moment?, Emma Gilmore

Honors Theses

The word populism is often thrown around in news media and academic scholarship, but there is a lack of understanding of what it actually means as a political theory. In France, the two presidential candidates that made it to the second round in 2017, Emmanuel Macron and Marine le Pen, were both called populist, despite having vastly different campaign strategies and messages. This study used a computer-based method to analyze Campaign books from 24 candidates beginning in 1981 that determined that Populist language is on the rise, but not as aggressively as news media suggests.

Women In American Pop Music: Christina Aguilera’S Impact On Cultural Narratives, Chin Wai (Rosie) Wong

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Pop music as a mainstream medium is often more enjoyed than critically studied. Former studies and literatures point out a major issue that many American female pop music artists face. These artists are often confined in a box that reduces their full human-being attributes to a narrowed view, where their identity is portrayed in a diminishing and inaccurate way. Despite this narrowed narrative of what a woman should be, this box has become a norm that many female artists must adhere to in order to achieve mainstream success. This paper responds to this phenomenon by analyzing Christina Aguilera’s music, spanning …

A Stillness In The Desert? Engaging The Public Through An Immersive Exploration Of Southwest Soundscapes, Julian Kilker, Thomas Bjelic

Creative Collaborations

The pandemic highlighted the anthropocentric nature of soundscapes, while the recent popularity of electric cars, quadcopters, and “noise cancellation” earbuds demonstrated how consumer products can rapidly change our awareness of sound. While light pollution is already extensively addressed in scholarly research, popular works such as The End of Night, and public engagement such as The International Dark Sky Association, the complex interplay of sound, natural resources, and public engagement is still emerging, particularly in creative fields.

Two UNLV scholars and artists are collaborating on this project: Julian Kilker, who specializes in visual and emerging technology research, and Tom Bjelic, who …

Place-Based Podcasting: From Orality To Electracy In Norfolk, Virginia, Daniel P. Richards, Michael J. Faris (Ed.), Courtney S. Danforth (Ed.), Kyle D. Stedman (Ed.)

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Wattpad As An Online Medium For Contemporary Folklore, Alisha Tess Helton

Online Theses and Dissertations

This project focuses its discussion within the discipline of folklore by identifying Wattpad.com as a contemporary medium of online folkloric content. Wattpad provides its users with a text-based—and sometimes multimodal—means of communication via its interface that mimics traditional communication as we know it—a means founded in orality, literacy, and the archive. Wattpad users are creating new folktales that are nuanced with elements from Wattpad’s archive, which characterizes contemporary online folklore in a way that has not been fully explored. This project serves to identify the past and present discourses that inform such a discussion while also explaining the intricacies of …

La Musique Dans Les Cultures Tech. La Synthèse Modulaire En Temps De Covid-19, Eliot Bates

Publications and Research

Depuis 1996, la synthèse modulaire matérielle est passée d’une pratique artisanale de fabrication d’instruments de niche soutenue par un petit nombre de musiciens, à un phénomène transnational, une véritable culture tech. Malgré cet engouement, elle n’a pas donné naissance à de nouveaux genres musicaux populaires, et il n’est pas certain que la « musique », quelle que soit sa définition, soit ce qui rassemble les amateurs de synthèse modulaire. Ce texte a deux objectifs : tout d’abord, il présente les résultats d’une recherche en cours menée en ligne et dans plusieurs pays concernant le rôle des objets technologiques dans la …

Afroam: A Virtual Film Production Group, Bill Taylor Jr.

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Because of the gatekeeping practices of the Hollywood film industry, and the high cost of both filmmaking and distribution in general, Afro-American filmmakers have struggled to produce films with “global reach.” This study visits the possibility of Afro-American filmmakers using alternative technologies and infrastructures to produce high-quality films, thereby bypassing the high cost and exclusionary practices of Hollywood studios. Using new 21st-century digital technology, this study involved the creation of a small geographically dispersed virtual film production team. The study’s foundational framework was a constructivist qualitative research paradigm, using Action Research, and supported by 24 months of triangulated data from …

Online Dating Experiences With Filtering Profile Photos, Jamie Barrett

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study is a qualitative, phenomenological analysis of male Tinder users’ experiences with women over-filtering their visual self-presentation on Tinder using augmented reality (AR) smartphone technology. Tinder users frequently discuss how their dates do not live up to their profile photographs once they meet face-to-face due to the proliferation of filtered photos on dating apps and social media to make themselves appear more attractive. Augmented reality, Tinder, social media, and smartphone filtering are all ingrained in pop culture, yet have not been previously studied. Eight male Tinder users were recruited and interviewed. Coding and thematic analysis were used in this …

Gameplays Versus Playstyles: The Social Construction Of Transmediated Communities Among Filipino Children Gamers In Minecraft And Roblox, Cheeno Marlo Sayuno

ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement

The children of today’s generation are considered as digital natives, which means that they have the capacity to navigate technological terrains to the best of their abilities and create online communities in new storyworlds. Minecraft and Roblox, two sandbox open-world mobile games, are manifestations of such ability to create worlds, survive in difficult gaming situations, face opponents in combat, and interact with players within a community. Even more so, such transmedia engagements allow the child participants, as evidenced in this study, to transact with players and the app itself to introduce new playstyle strategies that complement or subvert the gameplays …

Book Review: Media Education In Latin America, Helen J. Dewaard

Journal of Media Literacy Education

No abstract provided.

Viral Hangouts: The Media Literacy Lifeline I Didn’T Realize I Needed, Scott Spicer

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article describes my experience as an academic media librarian initially seeking guidance on best support practices for the virtual world from other media literacy educators at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. What I found through the Virtual Viral Hangouts community turned out to be so much more! In addition to sharing tips on media literacy education (my contribution emphasized commercial media resources and student created media projects in virtual contexts), I also developed dear friendships with participants from all walks of life. The one hour a day spent away from my daily work served as a lifeline, …

Connect The Dots, Edward Mcdonough

Journal of Media Literacy Education

During the dawn of the Covid Pandemic our isolation was a depressant. As teachers we were struggling with how to teach, as the popular saying explains, in an environment “that was like building an airplane as we were learning how to fly it.” As a teacher in practice, Virtually Viral Hangouts became my antidepressant. This daily online community of educators gave me the skills to teach more effectively during the pandemic and beyond. The experience taught me how to seek and forge connections with students and cyber colleagues; how to carve out a cyber environment of psychological safety to …

Seeding Change: What Vvh Can Teach Us About Teaching And Learning In Digital Spaces, Michelle Ciccone

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In this essay, I reflect on a central question: “why did I experience something so profoundly different in Virtually Viral Hangouts (VVH) than I was able to help seed in my own district during the COVID-19 crisis?” I identify three key components of the VVH ethos that inspired new ways of thinking, namely: digital technologies free us from constraints to build something different, digital technologies are most effective when we use them to build community, and digital collaboration enables us to tap into the wisdom of the group. As we build better and more humane educational spaces, it is important …

Virtually Viral Hangouts: Reflections On The Role Of Community During Crisis, Lauren G. Mcclanahan

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In this essay, I reflect on two key aspects of my membership in the online community known as Virtually Viral Hangouts (VVH). First, I reflect on how membership in this group helped me professionally, providing important, in-time instruction as I learned to make the switch from in-person to remote learning in the early days of Covid-19. Next, I reflect on how membership in this group helped me personally, as I struggled to find my identity as a teacher through a computer screen. I conclude by reflecting upon what it means to be a member of a community and why such …

The Secret Sauce Of Online Community Of Practice During Covid-19 Pandemic: Nonviolent Communication, Yonty Friesem, Elizaveta Friesem

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The challenges of work-family balance while being asked to move to remote instruction and engage students creatively have affected us all globally on multiple levels - from our professional identity, to our own health, mortality and purpose in life. The idea behind Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is that as Rosenberg (2015/1999) put it, it is a language that celebrates life. Applying these practices in a community building initiative of the Media Education Lab during the COVID-19 pandemic supported our community not only for their professional needs, but also and most importantly in their social and emotional resiliency to keep positive their …

Hope Matters: How An Online Learning Community Advanced Emotional Self-Awareness And Caring During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Renee Hobbs

Journal of Media Literacy Education

For many educators with interests in digital and media literacy, the COVID-19 pandemic was an inadvertent opportunity to explore digital and media literacy through online learning and professional development. This paper describes how a diverse and multidisciplinary group of educators gathered each weekday in a Zoom video conference meeting for fellowship, emotional support, and sharing, building relationships which evolved over time to support emotional growth, technology skill development, learning, and reflection. Survey data shows that program participants had higher levels of optimism and emotional self-awareness as compared with a control group. Participants who had more exposure to the program were …

Higher Education Students’ Social Media Literacy In Ethiopia: A Case Of Bahir Dar University., Atinafu Behailu

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This study investigates the status of Bahir Dar University students’ social media literacy and how associated factors affect developing core competencies. A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods have been employed in the study. Both descriptive and inferential statistics of means core, standard deviation, one sample t-test, independent sample t-test, correlation and multiple regressions were used to analyze data gathered from the quantitative design. Data gathered from FGD were analyzed qualitatively. Accordingly, the students’ overall social media level was found to be low. Female students perform slightly lower than their counterpart male students. Among the five skills of social …

A Local Lens On Global Media Literacy: Teaching Media And The Arab World, Katharina Schmoll

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The globalization and transnationalization of media use have facilitated access to voices from the Arab world. Students and teachers in Western higher education can make use of these voices within and outside the classroom to enhance students’ knowledge of the region and challenge Eurocentric imaginations of the ‘Other’. Yet to ensure students engage with these Arab sources in a meaningful way, media literacy is key. Drawing on and challenging a framework of global critical media literacy, this article argues that media literacy is grounded in time and space, meaning an effective teaching of global media literacy skills supposes an awareness …

An Approach To Creative Media Literacy For World Issues, Abduljalil Nasr Hazaea

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article introduces an approach to creative media literacy for world issues (WIs) such as Covid-19. In so doing, the article integrates four positions on discourse and media as terrible facets of globalization in the context of critical discourse analysis (CDA). The objectivist position deals with WIs as neutral discourse shared among humanity and distributed through English as an international language and educational media. The ideologist position treats creative media literacy as relations of power between global and local identities in the form of competing discourses associated with WIs. The rhetorical position reveals the hidden strategies used in global media …

Media, Obesity Discourse, And Participatory Politics: Exploring Digital Engagement Among University Students, Tao Papaioannou

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Situated within research on youth, participatory politics, and media framing of obesity, this study examined how undergraduate students in a media literacy course engaged with obesity discourse as a nexus of civic participation. Twenty-nine students enrolled on the course identified frames of obesity in plus-size model Tess Holliday’s Instagram posts surrounding her controversial Cosmopolitan cover in 2018. Analysis of these frames – self-validation, injustice of fat-shaming and stigmatization, influences of Instagram celebrities on fat embodiment, and health stereotypes of obese people – enabled the students to critique activist responses to accepted body norms and moral values facilitating weight bias. In …

What Interactive Web Features Are Most Used, Travis Tyler

Experiential Learning Projects

The use of interactive features in websites has become common place on the internet. People use these tools to help navigate and understand the content related to that website. However, due the large variety of websites it can be tricky to understand what features are best to utilize based on the topic of your site. This paper seeks to address this issue by researching how users interact and utilized different features on different websites. Research is gathered via scholarly articles and direct data gathered from volunteers. This data shows users tend to favor more interactive tools to help with navigation, …

Audiovisual Metadata Platform Pilot Development (Amppd), Final Project Report, Jon W. Dunn, Ying Feng, Juliet L. Hardesty, Brian Wheeler, Maria Whitaker, Thomas Whittaker, Shawn Averkamp, Bertram Lyons, Amy Rudersdorf, Tanya Clement, Liz Fischer

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

This report documents the experience and findings of the Audiovisual Metadata Platform Pilot Development (AMPPD) project, which has worked to enable more efficient generation of metadata to support discovery and use of digitized and born-digital audio and moving image collections. The AMPPD project was carried out by partners Indiana University Libraries, AVP, University of Texas at Austin, and New York Public Library between 2018-2021.

The Future Is Full Of Monsters: Queer Survival One Click At A Twine, 'Aolani N. Robinson

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Spurred by a desire to explore queer rhetoric through interactive forms of media, this project analyzed the game-making program Twine to uncover how independent queer creators use the tool to explore queer survival against time, capitalism, and constrained identities. A more accessible platform than other game-making tools, Twine’s unique interactivity puts the ability to make interactive games and stories into the hands of indie marginalized creators who are often overlooked in both mainstream gaming and queer rhetorics (Anthropy, 2012). Thus, this thesis contributes to queer rhetoric, game studies, and trans rhetorics by exploring the strategies indie Twine creators use in …

The Impacts Of Social Media On Social Movements, Gabriela Aguilar

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

As time passes by there is more representation of social movements due to their high exposure on social media. Technology has become a major part of our everyday lives and on average we spend many hours on social platforms. We are exposed to the injustices that occur every minute of every day through social media. Before, when technology was not accessible for everyone the news people received were from television, newspapers, or even magazines. Now, we have platforms such as Twitter and TikTok among others that provide us with news on any malpractice that occurs in our communities and society. …

Social Competence As Correlates Of Social Network Sites (Sns) Use By Library And Information Science Undergraduates., Sobayo John Abiola

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

ABSTRACT Social competence is the set of skills and behaviours necessary to get along with others and be well-liked in establishing and maintaining satisfactory interpersonal relationships, gain peer acceptance and friendship. Social networking sites are the online platforms that allow users to create a public profile and interact with other users on the website such as Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Twitter, My Space, Skype etc. The effect of social competence on the use of SNS was the focus of this study. A descriptive research design was adopted while a survey method was employed to elicit information from the respondents for this …

Learning About Metadata And Machines: Teaching Students Using A Novel Structured Database Activity, Andrew Iliadis, Tony Liao, Isabel Pedersen, Jing Han

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Machines produce and operate using complex systems of metadata that need to be catalogued, sorted, and processed. Many students lack the experience with metadata and sufficient knowledge about it to understand it as part of their data literacy skills. This paper describes an educational and interactive database activity designed for teaching undergraduate communication students about the creation, value, and logic of structured data. Through a set of virtual instructional videos and interactive visualizations, the paper describes how students can gain experience with structured data and apply that knowledge to successfully find, curate, and classify a digital archive of media artifacts. …