Class of 2020 Commencement events to be held Sept. 17-19
Syracuse University will host a Commencement ceremony—delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic—and other celebratory events for the Class of 2020 during the weekend of Sept. 17–19.
Commencement will be held Sept. 19 at 10 a.m. at the Stadium. This University-wide ceremony, where Syracuse University Chancellor and President Kent Syverud will formally confer degrees, is for all undergraduate, graduate and doctoral candidates. Doors open at 8 a.m.
Following Commencement, all 2020 Newhouse graduates and their families are invited to join Dean Mark J. Lodato and the faculty and staff for a celebratory reception. The event will include a dean’s welcome, recognition of participating graduates and an opportunity to reconnect with faculty. A precise time and location will be announced soon; stay tuned for details.
For more information about Commencement activities for the Class of 2020, see the event listing.
‘Entitled to Equality’ Wins Award of Excellence in Society for News Design Competition
Enterprise reporting project “Entitled to Equality” by TheNewsHouse.com won an Award of Excellence in the Society for News Design’s (SND) Best of Digital Design Creative Competition.
SND judges awarded honors to less than a quarter of the 4,500 entries from professional media outlets and designers around the world. Only three other outlets were honored in the News Site, Page, App category with “Entitled to Equality” — The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and The Telegraph.
TheNewsHouse.com is a multimedia news site for Syracuse University to teach practical and digital skills needed for the media industry. Produced in partnership with WAER-88.3 and The Stand South Side newspaper, “Entitled to Equality” explores how the landmark civil rights legislation Title IX has impacted—and continues to impact—colleges, sports and society at large.
More than 100 Newhouse students and faculty worked tirelessly as reporters, editors, photographers, designers, videographers, illustrators, social media coordinators and mentors to produce the 17 stories contained in the project.
The Best of Digital Design Creative Competition honors excellence in visual storytelling, design and journalism produced in 2022.
A Look Back: The Alexia 2023 Winners
A visual exploration of artificial intelligence’s impact on the $800 billion trucking industry, and a comprehensive photo essay that delves into the connection between martial arts in Bangladesh and the country’s cultures, history and lifestyles are the subjects of the top prizes of The Alexia 2023 grant competition.
Through grants, scholarships and special projects, The Alexia supports photographers, filmmakers and other visual creatives whose work promotes the power of visual storytelling to shed light on significant issues around the world.
James Year, a Newhouse graduate student, won the professional grant category for “Stealing Fire: The Collision of Trucking and Automation.” Md. Zobayer Hossain Joati, a student at Counter Foto, a visual arts school in Dhaka, Bangladesh, won the student grant category for “We Live to Fight.”
Winners will work on their projects over the next year. Judging took place March 31-April 1 at the Newhouse School. Now in its 32nd year, the competition received over 350 project proposals from more than 50 countries.
Professional
Professional Grant Recipient
James Year
“Stealing Fire: The Collision of Trucking and Automation”
Year is focusing on AI, the development of self-driving trucks and how automation might affect the trucking industry and workforce, as well as the environment. A Newhouse graduate student in the visual communications department, Year will receive $20,000 and a Sony A9II camera and lens.
“Having the support of the Alexia Foundation will be a godsend and make it possible to take this project past the finish line,” Year said. “Before the award, I had put everything I had into this work and was up against a wall financially. Now, I’ll be able to effectively cover the communities who are at highest risk of labor displacement and show how these expected trends relate to everyone, within the broader context of AI driven automation.”
Runner-up
Tomás Ayuso
“Palestinians of Latin America”
This project explores the interlinked stories of the Palestinian diaspora in Latin America, the assimilation of displaced people into asylum-giving countries and the bonds tethering families still in Palestinian territories.
Awards of excellence
- Gili Benita, “By the Time You Grow Up, You Won’t Have to Serve Anymore”
- Dieu-Nalio Chery, “The Haitian Diaspora: Fighting Stereotypes and Struggling to Maintain Culture in the U.S.”
- Greta Rico, “Substitute Mother”
- Nicola Zolin, “A Cry of Life in Gaza”
Student
Student Grant Recipient
Md. Zobayer Hossain Joati
Counter Foto — A Center for Visual Arts, Bangladesh
“We Live to Fight”
The project explores the underlying cultures, history, politics, lifestyles, emotions and untold stories of martial arts communities in Bangladesh and in doing so, hopes to unveil national issues such as the gender violence used against women and girls, the lack of funding for sports and the struggle of low-income communities. Joati will receive tuition for three courses at the Newhouse School, a $1,000 grant and a Sony A9II camera and lens.
“Winning The Alexia is an important opportunity for photographers around the world to be recognized globally and get support for the continuation of their projects that matter,” Joati said. “Being a photography student, it will help much to grow my photography career in the global photography industry and community.”
Runner-up
Vincent Alban
Rochester Institute of Technology
“Absence and Presence”
Through this photo series, Alban hopes to show a comprehensive picture of what residents in Rochester, New York are doing to help reduce the record rate of gun violence in the city.
Awards of excellence
- Angelina Katsanis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Stripped of Womanhood”
- Mandana Mahdavi, International Center of Photography, New York City, “ÂME”
- Jordi Jon Pardo, Universitat Ramon Llull, Spain, “Almanzora’s Dust”
About The Alexia
The Alexia 2023 professional and student grants were judged by Nicole Werbeck, deputy director of visuals at NPR; Gail Fletcher, photo editor and producer at The Guardian; and David Gonzalez, a photographer, writer and editor at The New York Times. Judging was moderated by Whitney Latorre, vice president for visuals and immersive experiences at National Geographic. Submissions were judged based on the overall quality, feasibility and outcomes of the project proposal as well as imagery provided.
The Alexia is directed by its endowed chair, Bruce Strong, an associate professor of visual communications. The competition was founded by Peter and Aphrodite Tsairis in 1991 in honor of their daughter, Alexia Tsairis, a photography major at Newhouse who was one of 35 Syracuse University students lost in the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Since the competition’s inception, more than $1.7 million in grants has been award to over 170 student and professional photographers through the program’s annual competitions. For more information, visit newhouse.syr.edu/alexia or email Strong at TheAlexia@syr.edu.
LA Life!
Being in LA has been one of the best experiences in my life and I have learned so much. It makes moving out to LA seem less daunting for my future career. My internship with Don’t Tell Comedy has been so fun to be a part of. Every week I travel to new places around LA and help out at their comedy shows. The culture here is definitely different than the East Coast. Everyone feels very locked into their career and passion; very focused and driven, but relaxed. The pace out here feels slower than the aggressive speed walking in New York. Every mentor I’ve met with has told me that they all just want everyone to succeed. There is a lot of support from superiors in the industry and the Syracuse University ties have been very prominent since being out here. I never feel alone in LA.
The traffic here is pretty bad, though. If you need to get somewhere on time, you have to add at LEAST an hour to the travel time. It’s very congested during rush hours.
The food is good and I enjoy finding new places to eat. My favorite place is Jinky’s, which is a great café down the street from us. I’ve been there a bunch, we are on first name basis with the staff. Being in LA has made me learn to be more independent and I’m not relying on a college campus for social life anymore. We really have to immerse ourselves in the towns and city life around us. It’s been a great and eye-opening experience and I could see myself living out here after graduation.
Emily Farrell is a sophomore in the television, radio and film program at the Newhouse School.
Newhouse Faculty, Students to Participate in 2023 ICA Conference
Several Newhouse School faculty members, as well as undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students, will participate in the annual International Communication Association conference on May 25-29, in Toronto, Canada. Their involvement includes paper presentations, panel appearances and roles as panel moderators and/or paper session discussants.
Note: For times and locations of presentations, please visit the conference website.
Friday, May 26
Game Studies Welcome Meeting
Nick Bowman (moderator)
Media Resistances, Collective Organizing and Global Activism
Srivi Ramasubramanian (chair)
CCA Panel: More than Who: Evaluating Authenticity through Media Literacy Habits
Srivi Ramasubramanian (participant)
Mass Comm Division Top Student-Only Papers
Srivi Ramasubramanian (chair)
Hybrid High-Density: Immersive Media and Metaverse (“Virtual Influencers and their Authenticity: The Effects of Machine Heuristic on Perceived Source Authenticity in Social Media Advertising”)
Heejae Lee, Shengjie Yao, Jeongwon Yang and Makana Chock
High Density GIFTS (“Meanings of Media: Promoting Media Literacy and Social Awareness Among First-Year Media Industry Students through Research Methods”)
Big Ideas Session: Media Entertainment as an Authentic Field of Study: 21st Century Answers to Age-Old Questions
Nick Bowman (chair) and Charisse Corsbie-Massay (discussant)
High-Density: Critical Comm Research with Global Inclusivity (“Combining Critical Perspectives and Quantitative Approaches”)
Srivi Ramasubramanian
Pedagogical Workshop: Decolonizing Comm Pedagogy: Principles and Practices
Srivi Ramasubramanian (chair)
Hybrid: Developments in Corporate Social Responsibility Research
Yu Tian (chair)
Blue Sky Secac Skills Workshop: Show Me the Money: Grant Writing 101 in an Era of Shrinking Academic Budgets
Martina Santia (panelist)
Saturday, May 27
Hybrid: Games and Real World Histories, Economies and Social Norms
Nick Bowman (chair)
Hybrid: Games and Real World Histories, Economies and Social Norms (“Animating a Plausible Past: Perceived Realism and Sense of Place Influence Entertainment of and Tourism Intentions from Historical Video Games”)
Nick Bowman, Yoon Lee and Siyang Chen
High-Density: Info Systems Promising Student Papers (“Mega vs. Nano-Influencer: The Effect of Construal Matching between Endorsers and Ad Messages on Advertising Persuasiveness”)
Ploypin Chuenterawong, Jeongwon Yang and Makana Chock
Ethnicity and Race in Comm Research Escalator (“I’m Asian and Also Not Asian: Deconstructing the Interplay Between Asian Subgroups’ Health Inequities and the Model Minority Stereotype Created by American Media”)
High-Density: Info Systems Promising Papers Session (“AR vs VR: An Exploratory Study Comparing User Responses to Emotional Stimuli Conveyed by AR and VR”)
Heejae Lee
Hybrid High-Density: Feminist Activism and #MeToo Movement: Global and Comparative Cases (“Feminist Activism in China: Coalition Building in Women’s Social Media Conversations”)
Covering Conflicts & Violence
Martina Santia (chair)
Hybrid: Advances in Corporate Social Responsibility Research (“Jumping on the Bandwagon: Exploring the Effects of Virality Metrics on Brand Trust and Customer Engagement in CSR Messaging on TikTok”)
Yu Tian and Erika Schneider
Media, Identity, Ethnicity / Race, Stereotyping
Charisse Corsbie-Massay (chair)
Advances in Crisis Comm Research (“The Effect of Social Engagement Incivility During Corporate Social Irresponsibility Crises”)
Erika Schneider and Yu Tian
Ethnicity and Race in Comm – Research Escalator Session
Srivi Ramasubramanian
Sunday, May 28
Hybrid: Misinformation Solutions
Jason Davis (chair)
Hybrid: Unique National Approaches to Public Diplomacy
Steven Pike (chair)
High-Density: InfoSys-CSaB Co-Sponsored Session in Neuroscience and Psychophysiology (“Concept Explication: News Engagement from A Brain Processing Perspective”)
Hybrid: Player Meaning and Choice (“Gaming on the Go? Translation and Validation of the Video Game Demand Scale to Korean”)
Heejae Lee, Yoon Lee, Nick Bowman, Shengjie Yao and Siyang Chen
Hybrid High-Density Session BEST I: Critical Research in Organizational Comm (“Action-Based Anti-Racism Dialogues: A Trauma-Informed Approach for Organizational Change-Making”)
Srivi Ramasubramanian, Raiana Soriaia De Carvalho and Chelsea Brown
Journalism Studies Poster Session (“Who Covers What: Analyzing Gender Differences in News Beats Coverage”)
Martina Santia, Lars Willnat and Stan Jastrzebski
Hybrid: News Reporting and Consumption: Perceptions and Practice
Martina Santia (moderator)
Feel It: Authenticity of Emotions in Entertainment (“Fun Boxes to Empathy Machines: The Authenticity of Emotions of Digital Games and Virtual Worlds”)
Nick Bowman
Hybrid High-Density: Experiences, Challenges and Learnings of Culture-Based Health Practices and Comm (“Deconstructing COVID-19 PSA through the Lens of Culture: Comparing Taiwan and the USA”)
Chia-Ho Ryan Wen
Game Studies Business Meeting
Nick Bowman (participant)
Monday, May 29
Hybrid High-Density: Extended Abstracts in Game Studies- Effects, Surveys and Experiments (“A Theoretical Framework of the Formation of Eudaimonic Video Game Experiences”)
Nick Bowman
ICA Manipal India Session: “Reclaiming Data: Authenticity, Agency and Advocacy in Data-Driven Communication Theorizing”
Srivi Ramasubramanian
Media Effects in the Context of COVID-19 (“COVID-19 is Politicians’ Lie: Approaching COVID-19 Health Behaviors from Political Ideology, Science Denialism, Misinformation andThird-Person Effects”)
Chia-Ho Ryan Wen
Media Effects in the Context of COVID-19 (“Asian American Mental Health, Ethnic Blame and Media Anxiety During the COVID-19 Pandemic”)
Srivi Ramasubramanian, Shumaila Bhatti and Martina Santia
High-Density: Risky Environmental Issues: The Role of Affective and Cognitive Risk Perceptions (“Perceived Health Risks of Fine Particulate Matter Air Pollution and South Koreans’ Risk Info Seeking and Processing”)
High-Density Session: Top 20 in Feminist Scholarship: Day 4 (“Exploring Feminist Pedagogy: Cultivating Authentic Comm Curricula in Project-Based Courses”)
Adrienne Wallace and Gina Luttrell
Misinformation Potpourri (“Authenticity in Synthetic Media: A Validation of the Theory of Content Consistency”)
Jason Davis, Gina Luttrell and Phoebe Smith
Livestream: Closing Plenary: Authentic Indigenous Scholarship and Its Relevance to the Comm Discipline
Srivi Ramasubramanian (chair)
Photo Gallery: Newhouse Convocation Ceremony
The Newhouse School celebrated the Class of 2023 at the Convocation Ceremony on a sun-splashed Saturday at Syracuse University. Inside the JMA Wireless Dome, graduates were saluted by keynote speaker Erin Westerman ’04, president of production for the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group.
Among other speakers, Timothy Cato delivered the graduate student address, while Jordan Pierre gave the undergraduate student address. Olivia Stomski, professor of practice of television, radio and film, and director of the Newhouse Sports Media Center, was presented the Newhouse Faculty Award.
(Photo by Genaro C. Armas)
Photos by Genaro C. Armas
Photos by Genaro C. Armas
Popularity of K-Pop Boy Band BTS is Topic of New Book by Yerin Kim ’18
To help understand the worldwide popularity of BTS, author Yerin Kim ’18 first had to understand their legions of fans.
After months of research that included late-night hours of combing through social media, Kim hopes her new book hits a high note with the supporters of the K-pop superstars.
Though on hiatus right now, BTS has had six chart-topping Billboard albums and six number one hits since their formation in 2010. The boy band is massively popular, with the Guinness Book of World Records reporting they are the most streamed male group on Spotify, played 31.9 billion times.
Kim’s aptly named “I Love BTS” is a guided journal for fans to muse about their love and obsession for the South Korean pop group, covering everything from trivia questions to a scrapbook of collages. It goes on sale May 16.
“The most important research came from really diving into the minds of fans,” she said. “I spent a lot of time on BTS fan Reddit threads and getting into the mind of what a BTS fan might be interested in, what they might want to write about, and what they would think about when it comes to BTS.”
Becoming an author and a fan
This is quite a big stage for the first-time author.
Kim said she never planned on writing a book about K-pop, until a representative from Adams Media, an imprint of publishing company Simon & Schuster, contacted her in May 2022 with the opportunity.
“I had never written a book before, but a novel was definitely something I wanted to pursue further down the line in my career,” said Kim, a native of Seoul, South Korea. “This isn’t a traditional book in the sense that it’s a memoir or a fiction novel. It’s a fan journal. So just everything was new to me, and it was a learning process.”
An editor at online media company PopSugar, Kim said she was interested in Korean entertainment but wasn’t necessarily a fan of BTS, who are also known as the Bangtan Boys. That changed after writing the book.
“After doing all this research and getting into the minds of BTS fans all the time, I do think I can call myself a fan now because I became so immersed in the fandom,” said Kim, who did the bulk of the writing and research during a five-month process filled with lots of time working late hours and weekends. Research also included watching interviews on YouTube, music videos and performances.
Newhouse’s impact
Kim graduated from Newhouse in 2018 after majoring in magazine, news and digital journalism. She said she wouldn’t have had “the current career and opportunities I have without my Newhouse education and the connections that I developed while I was there.”
Her journalism portfolio at Newhouse included serving as editor-in-chief at Zipped magazine, working at The Daily Orange and producing a podcast for her capstone project. The variety set her up for success in her career.
“Attending Newhouse and just having access to those publications and classes really just taught me to write for different audiences and different mediums and it really just helped me develop a voice, which I’ve parlayed into this book,” she said.
Understanding her audience
The opportunities to write for various audiences helped her start the process of writing “I Love BTS.” The book’s target audience is students ages 11 to 18, “which is an audience that I didn’t have prior experience writing for, so I think that I was just really able to learn,” Kim said.
“Knowing how to write for different audiences and types of people stems from my Newhouse education.”
She’s excited as the book’s May 16 launch draws closer. “I hope to be able to reach the fans of BTS. When I was younger, [guided, interactive journals] were some of my favorite types of books to buy at the Scholastic book fair.”
Kim doesn’t know if she’ll write another book, but realizes this journal has opened doors for her to write in the future.
“It was an opportunity that I didn’t want to pass up,” she said.
Nico Horning is a first-year student in the broadcast and digital journalism program at the Newhouse School.
Gameday
My favorite experience in Los Angeles thus far was when I went to the Angel City FC opening home game at the BMO Stadium. My sister and I were able to take advantage of the Metro to get to the game, so we thankfully avoided parking (notoriously the most difficult part of LA life). The energy in the stadium was electric and it was a gorgeous day with typical sunny Southern California weather. Even better, the roof of the stadium was open so we got to witness a beautiful sunset as the game went on.
I’m a big fan of women’s soccer and the game was so much fun and very fast-paced. To make the whole thing even more special, one of the team’s founders, actress Natalie Portman, was there and it was super cool to see her. The fan section was completely packed and you could really feel that the fans as a community were pouring out their hearts in support of their team. Even though Angel City lost, the whole game was such a great time and one of my favorite sports games I’ve ever been to.
Olivia Duet is a senior in the television, radio and film program at the Newhouse School.
Newhouse School Hosts First HBCU Open House
The Newhouse School is seeking to strengthen connections with historically black colleges and universities through a new open house event for students from those institutions seeking to learn about graduate programs at the Syracuse University campus.
The HBCU Open House event, held March 30-31, built on Newhouse’s commitment to prepare the next generation of leaders in communications fields serving an increasingly diverse nation and world, said Rockell Brown Burton, associate dean of inclusivity, diversity, equity and accessibility. Plans call for the open house to be held each year.
HBCU students usually receive a strong theoretical foundation in education but sometimes lack access to resources and facilities like Newhouse, Brown Burton said. She is a two-time HBCU graduate, with a bachelor’s degree from Xavier University of Louisiana and a master’s degree from Howard University.
By establishing meaningful relationships with HBCUs, Brown Burton said Newhouse can expose students to the academic and research opportunities at one of the top communications schools in the country, send a message of inclusivity and understanding and showcase Newhouse’s deep network of alumni connections.
“Diversity is more than just having people from different backgrounds,” Brown Burton said. “It’s about making sure that people from different backgrounds and levels of experience feel welcome, included and valued as human beings.”
The first open house event drew 30 students and four faculty members from eight colleges and universities around the country to learn about graduate programs and entrepreneurship opportunities, study away and study abroad opportunities and meet faculty members who could become potential mentors. The event offered a way to build strong connections with fellow HBCU students in communications, she said.
It can be “a little scary for a person of color or just people in general, to go from a space that they were comfortable with and that they’re used to, and step into something brand new,” said Dillard University senior Kalaya Sibley. She plans to attend Newhouse in the fall to pursue a master’s degree in public diplomacy and global communications.
“This [event] kind of gives me that security, like I’ll be free to conquer,” she added. “Surviving not only in the program, but just in the world in general.”
At the open house, visiting students participated in events like a panel discussion about entrepreneurship and TikTok with Sean Branagan, director of the Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, and broadcast and digital journalism alumna Carmella Boykin ‘21. They met with advisors from the Career Development Center, learned about opportunities to study abroad and networked with other HBCU students and alums.
Brown Burton said her goal is for the open house to lead to a partnership with HBCUs in collaborative exchange programs, travel experiences and increased engagement with Newhouse’s extensive alumni network, which “shapes and inspires the stories that new students will go on to tell.”
Kailan Dixon, a North Carolina A&T State University senior who also attended the event, recognized similarities between the alumni networks of the institutions.
“HBCUs have really strong alumni connections … I want to go to grad school that also has that same sort of connection,” Dixon said.
While Sibley hasn’t started her Newhouse program yet, she’s already thinking about her future after she earns her master’s degree. “I know Newhouse often has alumni come back and talk at panels,” she said. “I actually want to be one of those people to not only return as a successful alum to Syracuse, but also to my HBCU. … It would mean a lot.”
Analise Piemonte is a first-year student in the broadcast and digital journalism program at the Newhouse School.
Eli Saslow ’04 Wins Pulitzer Prize for Work with The Washington Post
Eli Saslow, a 2004 graduate of the Newhouse School, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for a series of stories in The Washington Post that chronicled struggles across the country with the pandemic, homelessness, addiction and inequality.
Winners were announced Monday. The Pulitzer Prize Board described Saslow as having woven “evocative individual narratives … that collectively form a sharply-observed portrait of contemporary America.”
It was the second career Pulitzer for Saslow, who also won in 2014 for explanatory reporting. Saslow graduated from Newhouse with a bachelor’s degree in newspaper journalism.
In talking about his latest work, Saslow, in a video posted on The Washington Post website, said “We ask a ton of people to go spend time with them in the kind of stories that I do to immerse into their lives at really fragile moments, and it takes a lot of courage to say ‘yes’ to that.”
He added that the “great gift of this work is we get to go see it. We get to be there, we get to report, we get to watch. We get to pay attention with the great hope that it will force other people to do the same.”
Saslow recently moved from the Post to The New York Times.
Awarded annually, the century-old Pulitzer Prizes honor outstanding work in journalism and the arts. They were endowed by the late Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the old New York World newspaper. The Pulitzers are awarded by the trustees of Columbia University on recommendation of an advisory board.
‘Infodemic’ Reporting Project Investigates Impact of Scams, Disinformation
The rise of scams and disinformation and its impact on society and daily life are the focus of a comprehensive reporting project produced by Newhouse School students.
“Infodemic” includes more than 30 stories packaged with photos, videos, illustrations, audio, data visualizations and other interactive media. The wide-ranging report was released May 1 on TheNewsHouse.com, a multimedia news site for Syracuse University to teach practical and digital skills needed for the media industry, in conjunction with WAER-88.3 and The Stand South Side newspaper.
The project, which involved more than 100 student journalists, investigated the sources and effects of disinformation that have undermined trust in communities and democracy overall, and explored ways to combat disinformation. About a dozen Newhouse faculty and staff members advised the student editors and contributors who worked on stories during the 2022-23 academic year.
“The truth about so many aspects of life seems rather elusive these days,” said Jon Glass, professor of practice of magazine, news and digital journalism and executive producer of TheNewsHouse.com. “This project gave our students a chance to dive in and explore the prevalence of scams, disinformation and propaganda.”
“Infodemic” drew inspiration from work connected to a Knight Foundation grant project led by Greg Munno, an assistant professor of magazine, news and digital journalism, and Shelvia Dancy, a former Newhouse professor of practice now teaching broadcast and digital journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
That project, “Combatting Disinformation in Communities of Color,” has been developing and testing community-based disinformation interventions on Syracuse’s South Side, according to the Knight Foundation.