Undergraduate Research in Communication Studies
Communication Studies has been active in getting undergraduate students involved in research, and in meaningful ways that contribute to new knowledge. Professor Keri Stephens with undergraduate student Sarah Rayburn and graduate student Jennifer Deering Davis earned a “top paper” designation for this research, which will be presented at the National Communication Association Conference in the fall: Stephens, K. K., Davis, J. D., & Rayburn, S. (2009, November). Mobile multitasking: Development of the electronic whispering scale.
Professor Jurgen Streeck sponsors a team of undergraduate and graduate students who are working on an undergraduate mentorship, entitled Micropolitics, studying the social interaction and embodied communication of the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns. Those students are undergraduates Ashirvad Parik, Natasha Shrikant, Mary Tuma, and graduate student Jiwon Han
Professor Dawna Ballard developed a new signature undergraduate course, "Time Matters" in which students collected field data and wrote about a range of contemporary issues relevant to the experience of time in our lives. This included research projects on multitasking, the role of technology in our pace of life, different cultural assumptions about punctuality, and the competing messages we receive in popular media about “living in the moment,” to name a few. The class also produced “The Times of Our Lives” class blog project in which students engaged in a series of weekly experiential exercises and then wrote blog entries where they reflected on various aspects of our personal experience of time and communication, including the experience of writing and snail-mailing a letter to a friend or family member and not multitasking for an entire day. Ballard also sponsored an undergraduate/graduate student team to explore the compression of time and space typified by the Smartphone (e.g., Blackberries, iPhones, etc.) in contemporary organizational culture. Her team (which included three undergraduates and a doctoral student) found that Smartphones and related technologies offer organizational members an opportunity to demonstrate competence through virtual everpresence—the new “open door” policy.
Professor Erin Donovan-Kicken worked with Oscar De Los Santos, Jr. who presented his paper, "The Stagnant Response to an Unparalleled Crisis: AIDS Pedagogy in the Maasai Culture," at the multidisciplinary conference of the International Journal of Arts and Sciences in Las Vegas, NV. He received a top paper award for this manuscript. The paper presented a review and analysis of current HIV/AIDS campaigns and education programs in Africa, articulating reasons for their lack of success among the Maasai. Oscar will also be presenting his work at the upcoming UT Bridging Disciplines Program poster session.
Professor Jorge Peña this academic year is sponsoring a team of undergraduate and graduate students in a study on how Facebook use subtly affects profile owners’ attitudes and behaviors. They have collected 400 surveys on Facebook use and expect to prepare their findings for publication after this semester.
