The high school students at the Anacostia Community Museum 

Adjunct SOC Journalism Professor Kristen Hartke has been working on a series of articles for the Washington Post's Food section highlighting elders who have made important contributions to the culinary community but are now less visible in the age of social media. Some of her recent subjects have been Norma Jean and Carole Darden, two sisters who wrote the acclaimed 1978 cookbook memoir "Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine"; a 94-year-old journalist who was one of the first women to cover the wine industry; and Bloodroot, the last remaining feminist restaurant of some 200 that opened across the U.S. in the 1970s.

Patricia Aufderheide's article, "Ethics in Documentary Film Production: Asserting and Changing Norms," was published in Journal of Film and Video, 76:1, Spring 2024, pp. 15-32.

Patricia also published an article in Gwangju News, ROK, discussing a new documentary, Gwangcheon-dong – Mr. Kim , in context of the pro-democracy movements that mark and influence Korea's difficult post-WWII history.

In addition, on July 5th Patricia also gave an invited presentation to the Seoul public prosecutors' association, about fair use in Korean copyright law. In Korea, copyright infringement is a criminal offense, and prosecutors are on the front lines of deciding if a case is worth pursuing.

Finally, Patricia has also been chosen by the Archival Producers Alliance as their Senior Advisor.

Pallavi Kumar has been nominated and selected to participate in the Thriving Spotlights: Champions for Student Success session in-person as part of the AU Student Success Summit on August 13th.

Hewlett-Packard has promoted Christopher Jasinski, an SOC Public Relations and Strategic Communication alum, to global head of strategic engagement.

Aram Sinnreich was interviewed by McKinsey Insights about his latest book The Secret Life of Data (co-authored with Jesse Gilbert). You can watch the video here.

The Secret Life of Data also received a positive review in Choice Reviews, which recommended the book, calling it “highly readable” and praising it for being "neither a sales pitch nor a screed; [the authors] seem genuinely fascinated by the phenomena they describe, and a strength of the book is how effectively they communicate that enthusiasm to the reader” You can read the whole review here.

Aram also published a new article in the open-access journal First Monday, entitled "Laughing to keep from [user input undefined]: ChatGPT, Jewish humor, and cultural erasure" with coauthors Nathaniel Laywine and Victoria Simon. You can read it freely here.

The Washington Post published an article on Aram Sinnreich and his wife and musical partner Dunia Best’s “Out of Our Cells” project with incarcerated composers at the DC jail.

Finally, Aram spent three weeks in June and July traveling to several conferences and events. His scholarly events included:

A paper entitled "Laughing to Keep From [User Input Undefined]: ChatGPT and Jewish Erasure” written with Nathaniel Laywine and former SOC visiting scholar Victoria Simon, presented at the International Communication Association in Gold Coast, Australia

A paper entitled “Can This Platform Survive? Governance Challenges for the Fediverse” written with Rob Gehl, SOC professor Patricia Aufderheide, and SOC PhD student Thomas Struett, presented by Struett at the International Communication Association in Gold Coast, Australia (see photo below).

Co-running the business meeting for the ICA Communication Law & Policy Division in his capacity as Vice Chair of the division.

An invited keynote at an ICA postconference event about generative AI at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, entitled “’Is This Thing On?’ Large Language Models (LLMs) and the Cultural Risks of Bad Jokes,” in conjunction with former SOC visiting scholar Victoria Simon

A paper entitled “A ‘Rich Tapestry’ of Identity: The Discursive Impossibility of Intersectionality in AI- Generated Content and Imagery” written with Nathaniel Laywine and former SOC visiting scholar Victoria Simon, presented at the International Association for Media and Communication Research in Christchurch, New Zealand.

SOC Phd Student Thomas Struett presenting at ICA

Filippo Trevisan was quoted multiple times in an article about the Democrats’ next moves after the first presidential debate published on the website of the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW).

On 7/6, Filippo was interviewed again by DW about President Biden’s recent interview with ABC and the outlook for his campaign.

Finally, Filippo also gave a featured interview about the Labour party’s landslide victory in the July 4 UK general election to the Spanish newspaper La Razòn.

SOC successfully hosted its first Dow Jones News Fund Training program at the end of May, helping prepare 10 students from around the country for their business journalism internships this summer. The eight-day program offered a mix of in-class trainings and experiential work that took advantage of AU’s location in D.C. as well as SOC’s faculty, including Amy Eisman, Chris Halsne, Vandana Mathur, Elvina Nawaguna, Aarushi Sahejpal, Margot Susca, and Sherri Williams.  A highlight of the program was morning spent at the White House press room led by Bloomberg Industry Group White House reporter and double Eagle Courtney Rozen. Paul Albergo directed the program, helping select and place the students and executing the training.

A program like this requires a lot of support to pull off. Kati Vera, Tia Milledge, and Kristi Plahn-Gjersvoldoffered months of behind-the-scenes work, and graduate students Siddhi Mahatole and Julia Mouketo provided on-the ground assistance over the course of the week. And recent graduate Rowan Gjersvold documented the program through photography and video.

Program participants included: Aidan Bush (University of Florida, Royal Media); Georgia Hall (Davidson College, Automotive News); Phineas Hogan (Arizona State University, Advertising Specialty Institute); Graham Krewinghaus (Georgetown University, VTDigger); Karoline Leonard (University of Oklahoma, BusinessDen); Amira McKee (Columbia University, The Current); Cole Reynolds (Northwestern University, Bay City News Foundation); Hugo Rios (California State University, Fullerton, Royal Media); Ianne Salvosa (George Washington University, Richmond BizSense); Allison Wei( University of Michigan, Detroit News).

Top: AU SOC Adjunct Professor Paul Albergo with Dow Jones News Fund interns at the White House. Bottom: Dow Jones News Fund interns at the White House Briefing Room

Professor Kylos Brannon has been named a Humanities Truck Project Fellow for AY 2024-25. He will be integrating the Humanities Truck into the 5th season of Rorschach Theatre's Psychogeographies project as a part of an immersive location based historical fiction story that takes place over 7 months across DC.

The Investigative Reporting Workshop is one of three organizations selected by the Poynter Institute to receive a $11,500 grant from the Gill Foundation for coverage of transgender issues. Over the course of the last year, Aarushi Sahejpal led journalists at the IRW in constructing a comprehensive database of all anti-trans legislation introduced in statehouses across the country (both legislation that has passed and that has failed). The grant project focuses on quantifying and telling the human stories of those who have been impacted by statewide bans on gender-affirming care. It will be especially focused on stories from states with diminished local news coverage.

Margot Susca appeared on the Disinformation podcast in June. "In this episode, host Paul Brandus delves into the issue of the decline of local print journalism and news deserts, focusing on the impact of hedge funds and private equity firms acquiring newspapers. Guest Margot Susca, an assistant professor of journalism, sheds light on how these financial entities prioritize profit over responsible journalism, leading to the decline of local news coverage. There is also a correlation between news deserts, voter apathy, and susceptibility to disinformation, particularly in marginalized communities."

Benjamin Stokes walked the red carpet of the Peabody Awards in LA on June 9th, as part of his service work to launch their Interactive Board. This is the first time that the interactive winners were treated as equals on the main stage, a watershed for the legitimacy of the field. Interactive projects ranged from interactive journalism to VR, interactive documentary, and narrative games. Our visibility with Peabody matches the kind of narrative and social issue games our students make in the AU Game Center. 

Benjamin and Hallie Tingstad brought an AU team for the launch of MET Fest at the Mystics home stadium on June 1st, with thousands of youth gamers. This is a new festival for DC claiming to be its largest gaming event for youth. We had an expert panel on stage (and the Twitch stream), plus a table for our programs featuring alumni and current AU graduate students. We were there on behalf of the AU Game Center, as one of the only programs pitching college and the liberal arts for gamers — and a broad set of careers and graduate programs beyond the mainstream industry. See our write-up, and the SOC News story.

Public Communication adjunct professor Gillie Haynes was recently in Lisbon, Portugal where she presented at the Twenty-fourth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities and Nations on “ The Value and Importance of Communicating within and across cultures with Clear, Respectful, and Intentional Dialogue.”

Jane Hall gave her analysis of media and politics in the aftermath of the Biden-Trump debate as well as the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity in several national media outlets, including Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio's live program "Balance of Power," the Associated Press and CBS News affiliate TV stations across the U.S.  

Congratulations to the AU PRSSA Chapter (Public Relations Student Society of America), which received the honor of "Star Chapter" again this year.  This is the 10th consecutive year the Chapter has won the award. It is given to chapters that demonstrate "outstanding leadership, programming and relationship opportunities" to its members.

Gemma Puglisi will be presenting at this year's PRSA Educator's Academy Conference in Anaheim, California her work “How advocacy continues in the classroom seven years later: Revisiting and honoring a past portfolio/campaigns’ community-based client – The legacy of Run, Hope, Work and its late founder Jose Ortiz” during the conference's poster session.