Ros Donald, Aarushi Sahejpal, Wesley Lowery and Malini Ranganathan received the faculty springboard grant from the Center for Environment, Community, and Equity for The Climate Story Gaps Project. This spring, they will use mapping, media analysis, and interviews to find the biggest differences between the ways vulnerable communities, experts, and the media talk about climate change to understand the inequities within the climate conversation in D.C.
Ros also presented her paper, co-authored with Lucas Graves, "Comparing 'accountability contexts': How environmental facts matter in two institutional settings", at the annual International Journal of Press/Politics conference in Edinburgh last Friday. It looks at the routes different actors take to establish environmental wrongs and seek accountability for them, and how they strategically deploy facts, forms of knowledge, and narrative.
Benjamin Stokes gave a featured policy talk for Singapore’s series on the “Future Ready Society.” The online audience drew from across Singapore’s civil society, the Ministry of Culture, the National Arts Council and more. The talk was titled “Vibrant Cities and Stronger Communities through Real-World Game Design,” and was based on recent work from SOC’s Playful City Lab. The series is jointly organized by the Centre for Innovative Cities at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and the National Institute of Policy Studies at the National University of Singapore.
Filippo Trevisan was awarded a Visiting Fellowship from the Australian National University’s Australian Studies Institute and will travel to Canberra in the coming weeks to work on a new project about “story listening” in government and other policy-making settings together with ANU colleagues from the Crawford School of Public Policy.
Maya Livio gave an invited public talk at University of Colorado, Boulder titled "Practices at the Eco-Technical Interface." The talk introduced Maya's recent and ongoing research and media projects on justice as it is surfaced by the digital systems used for environmental study.
This week, Kurt Braddock appeared on France 24 to discuss the proliferation of online disinformation in the context of the Israeli-Hamas war. Kurt discussed the strategic influence of disinformation, as well as how X (formerly Twitter) seems to be getting worse in terms of information credibility.
Varsha Ramani was invited to speak at the inaugural "Talk Among Us" webinar series organized by the IMF Family Association (IMFFA). Part of their Professional Development program offerings, this series focuses on overcoming challenges faced by expat partners when moving internationally and adapting to intercultural norms while looking for jobs or professional opportunities.
Pallavi Kumar was a panelist this week for the DEI Series: Leading with Certainty sponsored by AARP and Syracuse University among others. She spoke on the panel "Where’s the “B” in DE&I?: A discussion of "belonging" in a sharply divided world and the role of strategic advisors in advising clients on DEI issues."
The promotion of Rajul Bhaskar (Senior Professorial Lecturer), Chris Halsne (Senior Professorial Lecturer and Investigative Broadcaster in Residence), and Brigid Maher (Professor) was recognized at the annual reception for newly tenured and promoted faculty at AU House on Thursday, October 19. Congratulations!
The AU PRSSA Chapter attended the annual PRSSA Conference. This year, the event was held in Nashville. The AU Chapter was awarded the Star Chapter, and grad student Caroline Cascio, was on hand to receive her Gold Key Award, given to an outstanding senior for their leadership and academics.
The event was attended by 6 students, as well as Professor Jason Mollica, who was selected to present a session titled, "'Empowering Change: Activist PR and the Art of Impactful Communication." Professor Mollica had a packed house for the presentation.
AU PRSSA advisor, Gemma Puglisi, also presented at Saturday's Educators' Academy Summit. Her session, "Congratulations, Godspeed but not Goodbye: How Sustaining Strong Ties with Former Recent Students Builds Community, Chapters, and Future Classroom" also featured colleagues Alisa Agozzino from Ohio Northern; Ken Hagihara from California State University in Fullerton; and Kim Marks Malone, from the University of Memphis.
The AU PRSSA Chapter would like to thank the following for their support at this conference: Dean Leena Jayaswal, and the Grad office including Katerina Kulagina, Stephanie Rucker, and Jean McGee.
The American Forum with AAPI journalists and the launch of AU's student chapter of AAJA, moderated by Aarushi Sahejpal and Jane Hall, has been posted on NBC4 DC's YouTube channel. It premiered this week on NBC 4's streaming channel and will have multiple airings this weekend.
As an SOC '10 MA in Public Communication alumni, Trace Dominguez is an award-winning science communicator, video producer, content creator, podcaster, researcher, and writer for over 1,000 videos for award winning and top ranked Facebook and YouTube channels. Media in the Mix had the pleasure of having Trace on the podcast this week to discuss everything from his award-winning moments to his time at SOC and how it helped launch his career forward! Listen to the podcast here.
Finally, join Media in the Mix in their first-ever Halloween collaboration with the Davenport Coffee Lounge on campus for our new "Monster Mix", (a green Italian soda), available from October 17th until October 31st 🎃
Take a picture of your drink, send it to socmarketing@american.edu or tag @AUSOC on social media and you'll be entered for a chance to win a Media in the Mix swag bag with some Halloween treats (no tricks!).
