Professor Pallavi Kumar was quoted extensively in an article in the Sidney Morning Herald that examines how American audiences might be perceiving the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Among other quotes, Pallavi said that “Right now, the public is hungry for them because we don’t get an unprecedented look at what happens inside ‘The Firm’ and they’re owning the story. But I can’t imagine that the public appetite for this couple will continue if, at some point, it’s just about them milking the system and making money off their name. […] If they do extraordinary charity work, if they make a true impact, or if they make an award-winning film through their Netflix deal, that would be great,” she says. “Right now, it’s very much an airing of grievances. There’s an appetite for that at this particular juncture, but it will not continue.”
Arthur Swift has been promoted to Senior Adjunct Professorial Lecturer for Spring 2023.
"Millstone," a film written and directed by SOC adjunct professor Peter Kimball that has already been profiled in many press outlets including NPR and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, is going to premiere at Slamdance Film Festival next week on January 26 in Park City, Utah.
A review in Critical Studies in Television of the 202 Reclaiming Popular Documentary, an anthology in which Patricia Aufderheide's work was published noted that her chapter provides "a much-needed historical account of the relationship between documentary production and Public Service television in the USA, countering the predominant focus on the British Public Service context in some of the existing scholarship on television documentary," and that overall the book "a captivating collection which should certainly spur new debates in the field of documentary studies." The book also won, in 2022, the Ray and Pat Browne Best Edited Collection in Popular and American Culture from the Popular Culture Association.
CMSI's David Conrad-Pérez and Caty Borum -- together with filmmakers and community activists co-authors Jacqueline Olive, Lisa Flick Wilson, Vanessa Jackson, and Shakita Brooks Jones -- published a new peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Alternative and Community Media, titled "Breaking Cultures of Silence: Learnings From a Participatory Community-centered Approach to Leveraging and Researching Documentaries for Social Change."
Priya Doshi worked with her inclusive excellence Student Ambassadors to launch a new student-led Instagram account called The District of Inclusivity. This IG account was the result of feedback we received from research conducted by Anya Karavanov’s graduate research classes about how to better engage students around DEI programming and foster a greater sense of belonging. It will feature posts about ways members of the AU community support one another, contribute to DEI efforts, and help make our community more inclusive. Please follow us by searching The District of Inclusivity on Instagram!! Also share your DEI work with us for inspiration for our posts!
Priya is also organizing a Q&A event with the UK ambassador Dame Karen Pierce on the future of UK public diplomacy. This event is co-sponsored by SIS Transatlantic Policy Center with Professor Garret Martin, Amerimunc, the British Embassy and SOC. Thank you to Dean Fulwood for his support of the event, Professor Scott Talan for making this event a special session of his Understanding Media class, and Kati Vera and Tia Milledge for their event and promotion support! The event announcement will go out soon but save the date for Friday, Feb 10 form 1-2, with a light reception to follow.
Joe Campbell's presentation about journalistic poll-bashing was aired three times Wednesday and again early Thursday on C-SPAN's "Lectures in History" series. The lecture was recorded in mid-October during Joe's honors colloquium, "When Polls Go Bad." C-SPAN subsequently developed and posted a seven-part video lesson plan drawn from the lecture.
The Executive Committee of the Gridiron Club and Foundation recently voted to award the sum of $10,000 to support AU Journalism students. This is double the amount from the year before in this long-standing scholarship opportunity. This figure allows us to give one $5K award as planned to a weekend journalism graduate and TWO $2500 awards to undergraduate journalism students for 2022. Our deep thanks to Professor Chris Halsne who created and directed the essay selection, and to the undergraduate, graduate and finance offices (in particular, Meriem Tikue) for their support. The Gridiron Club is believed to be the oldest journalism club in Washington, D.C.
Ericka Menchen-Trevino had four submissions accepted for presentation in three divisions at the ICA conference, a poster with AU PhD student Thomas Struett titled "Gender Bias and Search Queries: Is autocomplete the problem?" (Communication and Technology division, which had a 29% acceptance rate for posters this year), a panel contribution titled "Statistical Analysis of Browsing Data: A Guide" (Computational Methods division) and two papers in the Political Communication division “Over-time exposure to media coverage of polarization enhances perceived polarization above and beyond partisan media exposure" and a work in progress paper, “Incentivizing News Exposure on YouTube: Nudging the Algorithm and the Users”