Jeremy Egner in book talk at People’s Book in Takoma Park with Sopan Deb (top); Egner’s new book on the Ted Lasso phenomenon (bottom)

PC adjunct professor Brenda Foster has been named this year's inductee into the PRSA's National Capital Public Relations Hall of Fame, recognizing her more than 30 years of impactful work shaping public policy and championing social change in the greater DC area. As Senior VP and Chief of Innovation at Vanguard Communications, Brenda has brought her expertise to SOC for over a decade, teaching a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses and mentoring future leaders in PR.

The Center for Media & Social Impact is the recipient of two GOLD Anthem Awards, given by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (in collaboration with the Webby Awards) in recognition of purpose- and mission-driven work. Both programs have included SOC students as program and research fellows and interns. The awarded CMSI programs are: 

2024  Anthem Award (Gold) given to CMSI’s Documentary Power Research Institute in the “Human & Civil Rights Special Projects” category.

 2024  Anthem Award (Gold) given to CMSI's and Moore + Associates’ YALLfest, the first and only comedy festival in the United States that celebrates the power of humor to change the world, in the “Education, Art and Culture Events” category.

The Center for Media & Social Impact is also launching the 2024 Story Movements convening video series, comprising 20 talks and panels edited by SOC's Kylos Brannon, who also designed the motion graphics. Story Movements, CMSI's flagship biennial convening (March 2024), curates and presents research and case studies about the role of narrative in contemporary movements for social justice, across platforms and genres of civic media storytelling. CMSI invites you to check out the list of 2024 speakers (from Blackstar Festival Founder Maori Holmes to Color Congress' Sahar Driver and SOC's own Kurt Braddock), and watch and use the Kylos-edited videos (in classes, too!).

PC adjunct professor Kenneth Walsh would like to commend Jacob Audouin and Jada Brown for their outstanding technical support of his course "The PR Presidency" this semester.

Both Jacob and Jada were creative, tireless and diligent in helping to make the technical aspect of this course work smoothly and helping to create a high-level learning experience for the students. In particular, Jada created a video tutorial to demonstrate to students how to use Kaltura to create videos/audio-recordings of their presentation that may also be a resource useful for other faculty members.

Judges for the UK Film Festival in London chose an original screenplay by Investigative Broadcaster in Residence Chris Halsne as one of its official selections. The feature film script is an adaptation of his fiction novel To Suffer is Human. The characters in the screenplay are based on several animal rights extremists Halsne met while reporting in Seattle.

Jill Olmsted took her undergraduate broadcast majors to all news station WTOP on their last day of class and toured the state-of-the-art facility in Friendship Heights. Students talked with AU M.A. grad Julia Ziegler, who is director of news and programming, about how the station is a multi-media news organization providing local news on radio, video, online, and across social media. Students stood behind the traffic reporter as he broadcast live reports and were in the broadcast booth as anchors broadcast. SOC alums currently at the station include former student Liz Anderson and local icon Neal Augenstein.

Broadcast journalism undergrads visit WTOP, hosted by AU alum Julia Ziegler, the director of news and programming

On Wednesday, December 4, Kurt Braddock took his Disinformation and Conspiracy Theories AU Core class to the U.S. Capitol Building. As part of the trip, Capitol educators taught students about the legislative process, having students operate as Senators, ultimately voting on a proposed bill. The students then enjoyed a tour of the Capitol, with a tour guide providing an excellent description of the traditional sights, and Kurt explaining the sites in the Capitol that were relevant to the January 6th insurrection.

Kurt joins his CORE107: Disinformation and Conspiracy Theories class for a tour of the U.S. Capitol (top); students debate the pros and cons of specific legislation and learns how the House of Representatives operates (bottom)

This week, Kylos Brannon presented in two classes at The Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart. He presented his creative/professional work as a Projection Designer and his designs from the 2019 rolling world premiere of Annie Jump and the Library of Heaven, which the students are studying in a drama course. The class found him from the credits listed in the published play and they wanted autographs (a first for Kylos!).

Kylos signing autographs at The Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart!

Talk about a front-row seat to history! What about the third row? That is where two graduate journalism students in Amy Eisman's Reporting of Public Affairs course sat inside the Supreme Court Wednesday for oral arguments about Tennessee's transgender law. Four other grad students covered protests outside or worked the phones for a scene-setter and photo essay, all on deadline. Stories were posted by evening on the Journalism program's thewash.org, thanks to Chris Halsne. Props to Jill Olmsted who facilitated the SCOTUS in-person coverage years ago.

Protesters outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday 12/4

SOC PhD student Thomas Struett, SOC faculty members Aram Sinnreich and Patricia Aufderheide, and coauthor Robert Gehl published a new article in the International Journal of Communication. The article is entitled "Can This Platform Survive? Governance Challenges for the Fediverse." You can read it here.