Claudia Myers and Laura Waters Hinson's short documentary, "The Test," has been selected for the Santa Fe International Film Festival in October. The festival was named among the top 50 festivals in MovieMaker Magazine’s “50 Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” in 2023. It has been dubbed “Toronto, but on a much smaller scale ” by Deadline Hollywood and “a young Sundance” by indieWire. "The Test" tells the story of a Ghanaian maintenance technician at a Virginia retirement community who dreams of becoming an American citizen to provide a better life for his family. With their future at stake, he enlists the help of two elderly residents to prepare for the biggest test of his life: the US Citizenship exam.
Wendy Melillo, in an interview with The Hill newspaper, discussed how former President Donald Trump is trying to boost his brand by selling merchandise sporting his mug shot with the tagline “Never Surrender!” following his arrest in Georgia. “This is a very clever strategy to be able to get your point across,” said Wendy Melillo, a professor of journalism at American University. “To say, ‘I am being persecuted. I did not lose the election.’ Regardless of the facts — facts have nothing to do with this. This is all about how you manipulate people using propaganda to get them to believe what you want them to believe.”
Dr. Andrew Phelps, director of the AU Game Center, co-authored “Playing the (Streaming) Fame Game: (Re)presentations of success, challenges, and demand in streaming simulation games.” with Dr. Kelly Boudreau, Dr. Nick Bowman, and Dr. Mia Consalvo, to be presented at the 57th Hawaiian International Conference on Systems Science (HIICSS 57) in Honolulu in January 2024 and published in the associated proceedings.
Dr. Phelps co-organized the mini-track on ‘Games & Gaming’ at HICSS 57 as well, in collaboration with Dr. Nat Poor and Dr. Stephanie Orme.
Experiential learning earned a new notch for our incoming graduate journalism students. They are now credentialed press members of the Senate Radio-TV Press Gallery, thanks to Professors Jill Olmsted and Amy Eisman and their Reporting of Public Affairs course. Professor Olmsted leveraged years of cajoling into nailing down passes for students, until now not considered equal to the professionals. Previous students managed to report on Congress, but now access has skyrocketed as they have become official, full-fledged members of the press. The efforts paid off this week. Students covered the controversial PGA-LIV deal; attended a State Department briefing; ran around the Capitol on the impeachment inquiry; and scored a one-on-one with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- all due to their new access. They knew what they were doing. Earlier, they received badges and tours of the Capitol and learned "scrum etiquette" from a terrific panel of Hill journalists, including MA alum Heather Caygle of Punchbowl News and formerly Politico; MA alum Erin Logan of the Los Angeles Times; and NPR’s congressional correspondent Deidre Walsh. Heather continued to text students during the day to advise on how to find lawmakers.
