http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/ Current news items for the Annenberg School for Communications en-us Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:15:43 GMT Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:15:43 GMT 60 http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/ http://www.asc.upenn.edu/assets/images/logo.jpg http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <div style="text-align: center;"><img width="146" height="220" alt="" src="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/userfiles/image/devra-moehler(1).jpg" /><br /> <em>Devra C. Moehler, Ph.D.</em></div> <br /> <div><a href="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/Faculty/Faculty-Bio.aspx?id=177">Devra C. Moehler</a>, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Communication, will present the virtual Paper, titled &ldquo;Parties on the Ballot: Visual Cues and Voting Behavior in Uganda,&rdquo; during the International Communication Association conference in Phoenix in May.&nbsp;(Her co-authors are Jeffrey Conroy‐Krutz, Michigan State University and&nbsp; Rosario Aguilar‐Pariente, CIDE).</div> <div>The virtual conference is a way to highlight work above and beyond presenting the work at the conference.&nbsp;It also enables individuals to hear the presentation even if they are unable to attend the ICA conference. The paper will be posted online from May 14 until June 8.</div> <div><b>&nbsp;</b></div> <div><b>Abstract:<br /> <br /> </b></div> <div>Electoral ballots in developing countries typically contain party symbols, photos, and other information thought to facilitate informed voting by citizens with low levels of literacy, political knowledge, and voting experience. However, these cues might shape voter decisions&mdash;and, hence, election outcomes&mdash;in unintended ways. We conducted a survey experiment days prior to the February 2011 elections in Uganda to test the effects of party identifiers and other features on ballot papers. Respondents were asked to mark randomly assigned ballots that included or excluded different visual and verbal cues about the actual candidates. Our preliminary findings indicate that party cues induce straight-ticket voting and selection of major parties rather than independents. Surprisingly, the party cue effects are similar in magnitude to experimental results from established party systems, despite the fact that multi-party elections are only five-years old and parties do not distinguish themselves along policy lines in Uganda. These findings challenge the conventional view that party cues are consequential because they activate longstanding partisan identities or signal policy preferences. We posit that party cues in Uganda provide information about patronage networks rather than policy positions or performance. Party identifiers on ballots may undermine rather than enhance accountability mechanisms, especially in new and unstable party systems.</div> <br /> http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1028 http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1028 Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:07:00 GMT <div style="text-align: center;"><img width="167" height="250" alt="" src="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/userfiles/image/Nicholas.jpg" /><br /> <em>Nicholas Gilewicz</em></div> <br /> Annenberg doctoral student Nicholas Gilewicz has received a top paper award from the International Communication Association&rsquo;s Journalism Studies Division for his work &ldquo;To Embody and to Embalm: The Uses of Collective Memory in the Final Editions of the Washington Star, the Philadelphia Bulletin, the Rocky Mountain News, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.&rdquo;&nbsp;He will receive the award during the ICA conference in Phoenix in May. <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><b>About the paper:</b></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> Despite widespread handwringing by journalists and by the trade press, very little academic literature has examined the final editions of failed newspapers as text. This essay begins filling that gap by examining the metajournalistic discourse of four such newspapers&mdash;two that closed in the early 1980s, and two that closed in 2009. A close reading of these final editions reveals that journalists turn to collective memory to articulate the meaning of their work. Specifically, they deploy retrospective memory techniques to craft the present meanings of their newspaper closings, and they deploy prospective memory techniques to establish how and why their work should be remembered in the future. The analysis reveals the fundamental issue confronting newspaper journalism to be the dematerialization of news, and because of this, suggests the era of newspaper crisis may be continuous and coincident with the advent of electronic communication. <br /> http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1027 http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1027 Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:53:00 GMT <div style="text-align: center;"><img height="250" width="241" src="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/userfiles/image/Lauren_Sessions_Goulet.jpg" alt="" /><br /> <em>Lauren Sessions Goulet</em></div> <br /> <div>Most Facebook users receive more from their Facebook friends than they give, according to a new study that for the first time combines server logs of Facebook activity with survey data to explore the structure of Facebook friendship networks and measures of social well-being.<br /> &nbsp;</div> <div>Annenberg doctoral candidate <a href="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/Students/Graduate/GraduateStudentProfile.aspx?id=49&amp;pageType=grad">Lauren Sessions Goulet</a> was one of the researchers and authors of the report (along with Keith N. Hampton, Cameron Marlow, and Lee Raine), released today by the Pew Internet &amp; American Life Project.&nbsp;</div> <div><br /> The report, <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Facebook-users.aspx">&ldquo;Why most Facebook users get more than they give,&rdquo;</a> is the result of a telephone survey of 2,255 adults age 18 and older conducted from October to November of 2010. And the new findings show that over a one-month period:</div> <ul type="disc"> <li>40 percent of Facebook users in the sample made a friend request, but 63 percent received at least one request</li> <li>Users in our sample pressed the like button next to friends&rsquo; content an average of 14 times, but had their content &ldquo;liked&rdquo; an average of 20 times</li> <li>Users sent nine personal messages, but received 12</li> <li>12 percent of users tagged a friend in a photo, but 35 percent were themselves tagged in a photo</li> </ul> <div>The report comes two days after Facebook filed for a $5 billion initial public offering of stock that could eventually value the company at $100 billion. Today&rsquo;s Associated Press wire reports that &ldquo;key to that mammoth valuation will be Facebook's ability to convince advertisers they can make money from the billons of connections and interactions that people partake in on its website and beyond. Though Pew's findings don't address the commercial side of people's activities, they shed important light on how people use the site and what they get out of it.&rdquo;</div> <br /> http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1025 http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1025 Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:12:00 GMT <div style="text-align: center;"><img width="287" height="250" src="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/userfiles/image/Matt_Lapierre.JPG" alt="" /><br /> <em>Matthew A. Lapierre</em></div> <br /> <div>A paper by Annenberg doctoral candidate Matthew A. Lapierre (co-authored with Jessica Taylor Piotrowski, Ph.D. (Gr &rsquo;10) and Deborah L. Linebarger, Ph.D.) has received the top paper award from the Children, Adolescents, and Media Division of the International Communication Association (ICA).&nbsp;The award will be presented during the ICA conference in Phoenix, AZ this May.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><b>Paper title:</b></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>&ldquo;Background Television in Homes with Young Children&rdquo;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><b>Abstract:</b></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Research has shown the negative consequences associated with children&rsquo;s exposure to background television. Despite this evidence, researchers do not have reliable estimates of the prevalence of background television in American homes, This study sought to address this gap by providing the first nationally representative estimates of background television exposure. American parents (N = 1454) were surveyed to determine the amount of background television that their children (ages 8 months to 8 years) are exposed to as well as isolate demographic factors associated with this exposure. We also investigated how certain home media practices are linked to exposure. Results indicate that the average American child is exposed to 232.2 minutes of background television on a given day.&nbsp; Younger children and African American children are exposed to more background television. Lastly, leaving the television on while no one is viewing and children&rsquo;s bedroom television ownership are associated with increased background television exposure.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div> <br /> http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1024 http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1024 Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:54:00 GMT <div style="text-align: center;"><img height="247" width="132" alt="" src="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/userfiles/image/David_Conrad_Pulitzer.jpg" /><br /> <em>David Conrad</em></div> <br /> <div>Annenberg doctoral student <a href="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/Students/Graduate/GraduateStudentProfile.aspx?id=107&amp;pageType=grad">David Conrad</a> is the recipient of a grant from the <a href="http://pulitzercenter.org/grants/population-reporting-travel-grant-proposal-apply">Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting</a>.&nbsp; The 2012 Population Grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting supports reporting projects on topics and regions of global importance, with an emphasis on issues that have gone unreported or under-reported in the mainstream American media.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Mr. Conrad, a first year doctoral student, will travel to Nairobi, Kenya in March with <i>New York Times</i> and Redux Pictures photographer Micah Albert to produce a series of news stories that will be offered to news outlets such as BBC - Africa, World Policy Journal, <i>The Columbus Dispatch</i>, <i>Foreign Policy</i> magazine, <i>The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones</i>, PRI The World, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health magazine, The Standard (Kenya) and The Daily Nation (Kenya).</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>With an emphasis on issues that have gone unreported or under-reported in the mainstream American media, Mr. Conrad and Mr. Albert will be reporting on the water, sanitation and hygiene problems that Nairobi - East Africa's most populous city - is facing today, as well as the people and communities who are being overshadowed by the industrializing city's expansion. <br /> <br /> A former news reporter, Mr. Conrad worked in Nairobi from 2007 &ndash; 2008, covering <span>the 2007 presidential elections, as well as producing human-interest, business, politics, and general news coverage pieces for a variety of African and Western publications: including the <i>New York Daily News</i>, <i>Reuters, Columbus Dispatch, Business Daily Africa, </i>and <i>The Nation Media Group (Kenya)</i>.</span></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Mr. Conrad graduated with a journalism degree from Ohio University in June of 2007, and a M.A. in International Affairs, also from Ohio University, in 2011.</div> <br /> http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1026 http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1026 Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:25:00 GMT <div style="text-align: center;"><img width="200" height="300" alt="" src="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/userfiles/image/Piotr_Sqpunar.jpg" /><br /> <em>Piotr Szpunar</em></div> <br /> <div>Annenberg doctoral candidate <a href="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/Students/Graduate/GraduateStudentProfile.aspx?id=78&amp;pageType=grad">Piotr Szpunar</a> has won the Top Student Paper for the Popular Communication Division of the International Communication Association. He will receive his award at the ICA annual conference in Phoenix, AZ this May.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>Title</strong>:</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>&ldquo;Even Muslims are Afraid of Islam!The Impossibility of Communicating Moderateness&rdquo;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>Abstract:</strong></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>This paper examines the persistence of a discourse that posits an inherent link between Islam and violence despite assertions by American politicians that the &ldquo;War on Terror&rdquo; is not a war against Islam.&nbsp; Analyzing <i>New York Times </i>readers&rsquo; comments on two violent incidents (committed by a Christian and Muslim respectively), not only does this discourse resurface but points to an important ideological dimension.&nbsp; This discourse posits an ideological figure (the &ldquo;devout Muslim&rdquo;) which effectively orients subsequent discussions on religion rather than politics.&nbsp; This paper argues that from such a discourse in which devoutness and belief are externalized, demands for Muslims to communicate their moderateness are untenable.&nbsp; Moreover, the search for the &ldquo;moderate Muslim&rdquo; thus reinforces the centrality of religion rather than politics in discussions concerning on the &ldquo;War on Terror,&rdquo; and attempts to naturalize the &ldquo;devout Muslim&rdquo; by shifting the responsibility of constructing this Other onto those associated with it.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div> <br /> <br /> http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1023 http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1023 Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:01:00 GMT <div style="text-align: center;"><img height="250" width="179" src="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/userfiles/image/Aymar_Jean.jpg" alt="" /><br /> <em>Aymar Jean Christian</em></div> <div><br /> Doctoral candidate <a href="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/Students/Graduate/GraduateStudentProfile.aspx?id=68">Aymar Jean Christian</a> is the editor of the blog <i><a href="http://hackitvision.org/">Hackitvision</a></i>, a &ldquo;smart look at the future of television&rdquo; presence on the web.&nbsp;The site was created by Josh Braun, a professor at Quinnipiac, and his university is funding and supporting it. I will serve as the site&rsquo;s editor. The site&rsquo;s <a href="http://hacktivision.org/?page_id=3581">contributors</a> include scholars and practitioners, including Henry Jenkins (USC), Tarleton Gillespie (Cornell), Jean Burgess (QUT) and Liz Miller (<i>NewTeeVee</i>).</div> <br /> http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1022 http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1022 Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:52:00 GMT <div style="text-align: center"><img width="179" height="250" alt="" src="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/userfiles/image/Aymar_Jean.jpg" /><br /> <em>Aymar Jean Christian</em></div> <br /> <div>Doctoral student <a href="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/Students/Graduate/GraduateStudentProfile.aspx?id=68"><font color="#011f5b">Aymar Jean Christian</font></a> has published the article &ldquo;Beyond big video: The instability of independent networks in a new media market&rdquo; in the journal <i>Continuum</i> (2012, 26{1}: 73-87).</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><b>Abstract</b></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>This essay explores the possibility of an online video market operating independent of conglomerations. At stake is whether new media can operate &lsquo;democratically&rsquo;, providing more equal distribution of control to producers and distributors within an unequal market. This is the story of a handful of these websites, all of which promise this possibility: Strike TV, My Damn Channel, KoldCast, Babelgum and Quarterlife. Their stories offer telling case studies of new media in their formative years. In the end, without industrial structures in place, independents must grapple with rapidly changing conditions, improvise business strategies and, ultimately, work with the mainstream, traditional structures to which they were, however superficially, in opposition. Independent distribution in early media emerges as a practice as much indebted to the old media as it pushes new forms of engagement, marketing and production.</div> http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1021 http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1021 Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:48:00 GMT <div style="text-align: center;"><img height="218" width="172" src="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/userfiles/image/jackson_web(1).jpg" alt="" /><br /> <em>John L. Jackson, Jr., Ph.D.</em></div> <br /> <div>John L. Jackson, Jr., Ph.D., the Richard Perry University Professor of Communication and Anthropology, is the editor-in-chief of the anthropology section of the <a href="http://oxfordbibliographiesonline.com/">Oxford Bibliographies</a>.</div> <div><br /> Developed cooperatively with scholars and librarians worldwide, <i>Oxford Bibliographies</i> offers exclusive, authoritative research guides. Combining the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia, this cutting-edge resource guides researchers to the best available scholarship across a wide variety of subjects.</div> <div><br /> Prof. Jackson is a nationally-recognized anthropologist, author, and filmmaker.&nbsp;His most current work is the film &ldquo;<a href="http://badfridaythemovie.com/">Bad Friday: Rastafari and the Coral Gardens</a>,&rdquo; which examines an incident in Jamaica in 1963 where the Jamaican government rounded up, jailed, and tortured hundreds of Rastafarians. &nbsp;Prof. Jackson co-directed the film with Deborah Thomas, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology at Penn.</div> <div><br /> Additionally, Professor Jackson was the first Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, appointed in 2006. He is the author of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Racial-Paranoia-Unintended-Consequences-Correctness/dp/0465002161/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1326125635&amp;sr=8-1">Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness</a></i> (Basic Books, 2008); <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Real-Black-Adventures-Racial-Sincerity/dp/0226390020/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1326125664&amp;sr=1-1">Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity</a></i> (University of Chicago Press, 2005); and <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Harlemworld-Doing-Class-Contemporary-America/dp/0226389995/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1326125703&amp;sr=1-1">Harlemworld: Doing Race and Class in Contemporary Black America</a></i> (University of Chicago Press, 2001).&nbsp; His current book project, to be published by Harvard University Press, focuses on African Hebrews in the US and Israel; and his writing is also featured on the Brainstorm blog of <i>The Chronicle of Higher Education</i> and his own blog, &ldquo;From the Annals of Anthroman.&rdquo;&nbsp;</div> <br /> http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1020 http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1020 Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:58:00 GMT <div style="text-align: center;"><img height="250" width="179" src="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/userfiles/image/Aymar_Jean.jpg" alt="" /><br /> <em>Aymar Jean Christian</em></div> <br /> <div>Doctoral student <a href="http://www.asc.upenn.edu/Students/Graduate/GraduateStudentProfile.aspx?id=68">Aymar Jean Christian</a> presented the paper &ldquo;Web Video and Ethnic Media: Linking Representation and&nbsp;Distribution&rdquo; during the Representation in the Shadow of New Media Technologies panel during the Modern Language Association conference in Seattle, WA Jan. 5 &ndash; 8.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>About the paper:</strong></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>This paper examines the presence of four new &ldquo;black TV networks&rdquo; online.&nbsp;These sites distribute independent video focusing on black stories, or web series, and most of the networks lack the funding or brand recognition of BET. Using interviews with the executives who started these networks and the filmmakers who make their web series, this paper will suggest how to talk about representation when mass audiences are increasingly elusive. It argues that programs on niche networks have different aims than mainstream/corporate ones, focusing more on community enrichment, challenging dominant assumptions and celebrating shared subcultures.</div> <br /> http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1019 http://www.asc.upenn.edu/news/NewsDetail.aspx?nid=1019 Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:58:00 GMT