Here is a list of our scholars and the faculty member who have invested in mentoring these students:

Kylin Munoz, Senior, Communication (Holly Barker, Anthropology)

James Kim, Junior, Communication (Matt McGarrity, Communication)

Yunfei Zhao, Junior, Communication (Jennifer Halpin, English, Odegaard Writing & Research Center; Camille Dodson, English, Odegaard Writing & Research Center)

Riley Taitingfong, Junior, Communication (Ralina Joseph, Communication; Christy Ibrahim, School of Law)

Alexandra (Alex) Kronz Kaethler, Senior, Linguistics, Psychology, Communication (Jason Gilmore, Communication)

Kailin Wang, Senior, Communication, Community, Environment, & Planning
(Daniel Abramson, Urban Design & Planning)

Rachel Donahue, Senior, Communication (Ralina Joseph, Communication; Melanie Hernandez, English)

Trevor Smith, Senior, Communication, International Studies (Mary Callahan, Jackson School of International Studies)

Adiba Khan, Junior, Biochemistry, Communication, Mary Gates Scholar (Heather Mefford, Pediatrics)

Sheridan Smalley, Senior, Communication (Randal Beam, Communication)

Reginald Gillins, Senior, Social Sciences, Evening Degree Program, Communication (Carolyn Jackson, Education (Bothell Campus))

Visit the Undergrad Research website for more information>>

Azeb Madebo

The first National Communication Association (NCA) Undergraduate Honors Conference will take place at American University in Washington D.C. on May 16 to 19. UW undergraduates Samra Mengistu and Azeb Madebo are among the 40 students who will be attending, as the conference is designed to “assist rising seniors majoring in communication in preparing for their capstone projects and post graduation plans.”

Both students found out about the opportunity through Professor Ralina Joseph. They took Black Cultural Studies during winter quarter and developed their research ideas from that course.

Samra Mengistu

Mengistu taught black history every Wednesday morning at Thurgood Marshall Elementary in South Seattle for the service learning aspect of the class, where she began to n

otice how race operated within the school and the differences between the Accelerated Progress Program (APP) classes and general education.

“The neighborhood kids who are predominantly black living in the area are in the general education program,” she said. “The kids in APP are almost 100 percent white and you can tell what kind of class it is just by walking down the hallway and peeking into the classroom. It’s kind of segregation within the school in 2013, so that was really interesting.”

Mengistu attended American University for two and a half years before transferring to the UW and said it will be nice to go back to visit.

“I want to make more contacts with the communication field and get more direction about what I want to do after I graduate,” she said, “whether that be graduate school or getting a job. I would like to work a couple years before grad school, so it just seemed like a really cool opportunity to meet people.”

Madebo’s research paper is titled, “Subversive Black Cultural Production Concealed within Blackface Minstrelsy,” and covers Richards and Pringle’s Famous Georgia Minstrels and the minstrel show from the Northwest African American Museum (NAAM). She will be adding to the research before the conference by looking into audience readings of texts by scholars like Stuart Hall.

“The conference offers a great opportunity to showcase my work, learn from fellow communication undergrads, and network nationwide for graduate programs and mentorship,” Madebo said. “I think it’s cool that as an undergraduate, I can travel to research conferences with the support of the UW Communication Department.”

Madebo added that she is hoping to feel inspired, motivated, and capable of pursuing her academic endeavors after the conference. Both students will be studying abroad in Barbados this summer, where they will continue to study the role of race in a community.

Assistant Professor Katy Pearce is giving a talk titled “Networked Authoritarianism in Azerbaijan: How the Azerbaijani government uses the Internet to deter dissent” on May 2 at 7 p.m. in HUB 214. Pearce holds affiliation with the Ellison Center for Russian East European, and Central Asian Studies and specializes in technology and media use in the Former Soviet Union. Her research focuses on social and political uses of technologies and digital content in the transitioning democracies and semi-authoritarian states of the South Caucasus and Central Asia, but primarily Armenia and Azerbaijan. This talk will cover the increased importance of online political life in Azerbaijan and the role of social media.

For more information about the talk, visit the Ellison Center website. It will also be livestreamed here.

On Monday, Professor Ralina Joseph spoke about her new book “Transcending Blackness” and mixed-race African American representations on KOUW.

When asked about what transcending blackness means, she replied, “I chose this phrase because I think it’s a really disturbing one; the notion that blackness is something that needs to be transcended, that needs to be gotten over. It is inevitably a lack, a slight, a mark as opposed to a positive, wonderful entity.”

Listen to the full podcast here>>

(Joseph’s interview begins at 13:30. And yes, there is a conversation about roasting penguins afterward.)

International Communication Association (ICA) president Cynthia Stohl informed Professor Lance Bennett that his article published with Alexandra Segerberg has won the Outstanding Article Award. Bennett is Ruddick C. Lawrence Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science here at the UW, and Segerberg teaches at Stockholm University in Sweden. The article is titled “The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics.” Congrats!

Assistant professor Katy Pearce, who joined the UW Communication team just last year, was featured in The Economist, a publication that offers “authoritative insight and opinion on international news, politics, finance, science, and technology.” The article discusses how other countries are adopting China’s model for controlling the internet.

Pearce provides the example of Azerbaijan, who she said is running a campaign against the “evils of the web” with only a quarter of the population ever having been on online and only seven percent on Facebook. Pearce received her B.A. in Armenian, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Islamic Studies and also holds an affiliation with the Ellison Center for Russian East European, and Central Asian Studies.

Click here to read the full article>>

Mary Joyce, a first year graduate student in the M.A./Ph.D. track in the UW Communication Department, received a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. With fewer of these awards being given every year, it is a generous source of external support for three years, said professor Phil Howard.

Joyce’s research project is titled “The Global Impact of Information Infrastructure on Identity Formation and Social Movements,” where she studies digital activism – how citizens and civic organizations use digital technology to push for social and political change. She said since it is a personal fellowship, the money will support her cost of living and she won’t need to become a teaching or research assistant.

“I’m really excited,” Joyce said. “It will allow me to focus on my research, a luxury for any grad student, particularly one at the beginning of an M.A. program.”

Joyce would also like to extend a special thank you to Professor Howard for “supporting me in this application, writing a recommendation letter for me, and mentoring me in this Department.”

Photo from thevoyager.net

University of West Florida: Deborah Bassett’s alma mater before earning a doctorate in communication from the UW, and the location of her first public lecture delivered on February 25. With an official title of the 2013 Jerry Maygarden Distinguished Lecture, she spoke about how the Native American community is using social media to fight back against negative stereotypes, using pop culture references, census data, and online networks to back up her theory. Bassett now serves as an Acting Instructor for the UW Department of Communication and is a researcher for the Center for Clinical and Epidemiological Research.

Read more in this article written by Stephen Crawford on thevoyager.net>>

Professor Joseph’s new book “Transcending Blackness”

Seattle Times columnist Jerry Large featured UW Communication Professor Ralina Joseph’s new book “Transcending Blackness: From the New Millennium Mulatta to the Exceptional Multiracial.” Discussing what he learned over coffee with Joseph, Large talks about what it means to be mixed race and how the racial world has gotten to where it is today.

Read the full column here>>

The book cover photo is courtesy of barnesandnoble.com

Alumnus Bob McChesney (B.A., 1986 and Ph.D., 1989), who was also inducted into the UW Communication Hall of Fame in 2010, has a new book out that is receiving national attention from scholars, tech-savvy individuals, and anyone concerned with the Internet.

Author of True Wealth Juliet Schor wrote, “A major new work by one of the nation’s leading analysts of media… A hard to put down, meticulously researched must-read.”

The book is titled “Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Away from Democracy.” McChesney described it as a “political economic examination of the digital revolution based upon 15 years of research” and the capstone of his career.

Written with the aim of helping scholars and citizens be informed participants of the potential of the digital revolution, editor of The Progressive Matthew Rothschild wrote, “With a panoramic sweep and profound insights, McChesney rings the alarm bells, showing clearly how capitalism is swallowing up the promise of the Internet. No one knows this field better than McChesney, and with this book, he has reached the pinnacle.”

“Digital Disconnect” is available at Powell’s Books or on Amazon.