First Annual Fall Graduate Student Poster Session/Scholar Slam

Posted: 11.17.03 4:00 PM PST

On November 4th, 2003, our graduate students gathered for the first in a series of Poster Sessions. Please read further for a description of the event from graduate student and event co-organizer Ted Coopman.

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Tuesday, November 4th, 2003
6:00 - 7:30pm
Communications126

Co-conspirators/organizers: Ted M. Coopman & Clifford Tatum
Sponsored by the Communication Graduate Students Association
Special thanks to Maria Garrido, Whitney D Anspach, and Taso Lagos

COMGSA and the presenters would like to thank the graduate students, including those from other departments, as well as Communication faculty, staff, and friends for their support in making this event a resounding success. Well over 60 people attended!!

The Method of our Madness

The Poster Session/Scholar Slam is part of an ongoing student lead project to build community and a culture of intellectual sharing in the Communication Graduate Program. Like the Graduate Student Salon Series, the idea is to combine a festive and relaxed atmosphere to share our ideas and gain new perspectives on our programs of research.

The Poster Session/Scholar Slam combines hors d'oeuvres and beverages with poster presentations of student research in a variety of stages. Presenter's projects spanned the spectrum from early exploration to dissertation. Traditional text as well as film and interactive web-enhanced projects were represented. The idea was not only to daylight the work of students to their peers and faculty, but to encourage intellectual exchange across the many literatures and areas of interest within Communication.

In this environment, the line separating presenters and attendees disappears and everyone becomes a participant. Reaction to this first session has been overwhelming positive and the insights shared by participants invaluable in refining and expanding programs of research.

And it was a lot of fun.

Program

17 presenters with 11 individual displays.
Communication, Master of Communication (MOC), Native Voices, and Sociology.

1) Giorgia Aiello & Irina Gendelman, Communication - Communication in Microfinance: An Exploratory Case Study

In this case study, questions are posed whether the official donors or the needs of their beneficiaries determine the actions and motives of an NGO. This question is explored through an examination of the discourse between institutions and beneficiaries of a Microfinance institution. Mission statements, outreach models, media and presence in virtual and physical public space (e.g. web and/or physical location) all act as evidence to inform the research

2) Whitney Anspach & Kevin Coe, Communication - The other closet?

An examination of Atheist Organizations' appropriation of the closet metaphor.

3) Ling Chen & Diane Beall, Dept of Sociology - Digital Journalism: Article 23

A feature website reporting the Article 23 event that happened in HongKong last year. We tell the story by collecting news reports from different perspectives and interviewing HongKong students and officials.

4) Ted Coopman, Communication - Dissentworks: Identity and Emergent Dissent as Network Structures

The impact of pervasive, overlapping interpersonal, old, and new communication networks have only begun to be explored. I combine research and theory on networks, activism, dissent, and identity to construct a model of emergent ad hoc networks of individuals, what I term "dissentworks." A dissentwork is a network of networks of individuals that emerges as an alternative, or in opposition to, entrenched hierarchical organizations and systems.

5) Kate Dunsmore & Taso Lagos, Communication - Generation Z: A study of media influence and the potential for civic engagement

Survey data indicate that youth are less politically aware and engaged than older cohorts. We wanted to dig into this a little more and completed a qualitative study employing participant observation and content analysis of subject-generated video footage to do so.

6) Maria Garrido, Communication - The Zapatistas and the Landless Peasants Movements: A Comparative Analysis of Networks, Structures and Locality

Analysis of the interplay between the networks of support created around these two social movements and the specific cultural, political and economic characteristics of each locality: Brazil and Mexico. I hope to find the way in which the dynamics between networks and local characteristics contribute to economic and social development of movements' members. Methodology: Social Network Analysis and Network Ethnography.

7) Pattijean Hooper, Communication - Finding Milton Wright: understanding how public relations campaigns contribute to the cultural production of disaster and their impact on the elderly.

This is a deconstruction of public communication campaigns used by relief organizations at the onset of disasters. It is an attempt to show how public relations campaigns are a part of the social construction of disaster. It explores the impact of the resulting cultural product and how older populations are directly effected by institutional attempts to scientifically objectify these events.

8) Clifford Tatum, Communication - Comparative Spatiality: Is there a there here?

Spatiality theory delves into issues of power, perception, and geography, among others. Cyberspace literature moves this discussion into the realm of virtual space. The intersection of these will be used as a critical lens from which to analyze the ways in which space and place contribute to and/or hinder the goals of cultural resistance communities on the web.

9) Jonathon Tomhave, Communication, Native Voices - Documentary Methods

10) Kevin Wang, Communication: MC program; Digital Journalism - America: Least Wanted

In the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, anti-American sentiment took center stage. For many of us, it is difficult to imagine why people from countries around the world would harbor such deep hatred towards the US. The truth is these feelings are nothing new - they have existed in the past in many forms and on many levels. This project examines anti-American sentiment at large and uses South Korea as a case study to explore the reasons behind this rising phenomenon.

11) Laura W. Black, Jay Leighter, John Gastil. Communication: “I’m just raising the question”: An analysis of a cultural category of speech found in “deliberation” and “debate”