Category Archives: School News

Prof. Weatherston saves students money through alternate textbook project

Students in Assistant Professor Kristine Weatherston’s “Genres of Media Production: Documentary” class will be spending $60 less a semester thanks to her use of innovative teaching tools.

WeatherstonWeb Instead of using a traditional textbook, Weatherston will teach from the Internet, new media, hands-on training and open-source educational materials.

She was awarded $1,000 for her plan from Temple University Libraries as part of the Alternate Textbook Project. According to its web site, the program was started in 2011 in an effort to encourage faculty to find “better and less costly ways to deliver learning materials to their students.”

Twenty students are enrolled in the class this fall.

“I teach this course every semester, so this will impact students for years to come,” she said.

Including this round of awards, nearly 40 faculty members from throughout Temple have participated in the project.

For more information, visit sites.temple.edu/alttextbook.

Book showcases benefits diversity brings to the workplace

There exists a sentiment in corporate America that diversity in the workplace can negatively impact the bottom line because hiring people from different backgrounds could spark more internal conflict.

Not necessarily so, writes Donnalyn Pompper in her latest book.

A stack of Pompper's new book, Practical and Theoretical Implications of Successfully Doing Difference in Organizations. The associate professor of strategic communication, who has taught at Temple University’s School of Media and Communication since 2007, has published Practical and Theoretical Implications of Successfully Doing Difference in Organizations with Emerald Group Publishing. The book examines why a conscious and sustained commitment to diversity is needed in organizations.

It’s a hard case to argue, Pompper said, because the benefits, such as building respect among co-workers or enhanced creativity, may be less tangible than financial success or failure.

“Diversity management in organizations remains a highly controversial issue – and valuing all people by providing equal opportunities at work persists as one of the central challenges of the 21st century,” Pompper said.

As a result, she found that diversity programs in organizations “fail to explore root causes of enduring power relations, which perpetually stratify people negatively according to their social identity dimensions.”

Pompper said workplace diversity goes beyond ethnicity and race.

“My book is about how these social identity dimensions are important, but that diversity is much, much more than that one social identity dimension, because each intersects with so many others,” she said, noting that age, culture, gender, physical/psychological ability, faith, sexual orientation, social class and more should all be taken under consideration.

When there’s a solid “business case,” for diverse hiring, Pompper said a company is more likely to take that step. For example, a PR firm may hire a Latina to work on Hispanic business accounts or an ad agency might hire a gay man for its fashion accounts.

“There’s a lot of push-back from employees when they suspect a colleague is hired only because he or she is x,” Pompper said, “because everyone wants processes to be fair and equitable.”

It’s her hope that the findings in her book can help its readers become “future managers and researchers who embrace social identity difference.”

Media contact:
Jeff Cronin
jcronin@temple.edu
215-204-3324

Class analyzes how LGBT community is portrayed in media

Adrienne Shaw points to an item on the print version of the class’s digital timeline of LGBT history. (photo by Joseph V. Labolito/Temple University)

Alex Jaconski discovered grunge music in the summer of 2004.

Nirvana – one of the mainstays of music 10 years previously – appeared on a VH1 countdown. Their songs struck a chord for the 11-year-old.

“That’s a stage in your life when you’re trying to figure out who you are. [Grunge] is a little bit darker and a little bit sadder,” he said. “That music definitely hit a note that made sense — that I could connect to and have something to rely on when I didn’t really know who else to turn to.”

Themes of isolation and solitude can resonate with people in all walks of life, so Jaconski thought grunge music would be the perfect focal point of his final project in the School of Media and Communication’s “LGBT Media Representation” class, the first of its kind at Temple University.

Jaconski did what scholars call a “queer reading” of the lyrics of songs from Nirvana, Sound Garden and other bands of the genre. Even from his perspective outside of the LGBT community, the 21-year-old native of Philadelphia’s Roxborough neighborhood said this music showcases “the emotional disenfranchisement of [the LGBT community] being forced to deny who they are.”

Adrienne Shaw, an assistant professor of media studies and production (MSP), who created the class, said it’s an important time in history to discuss how LGBT people are portrayed in media.

“Especially given a lot of different political shifts that have happened over the past five years, there are more and more gay issues and queer issues in the news and in media, but I feel like a lot of students don’t necessarily understand the history of where those images came from,” Shaw said. “The class is providing the background of that history and theoretical tools for unpacking why images of homosexuality, of queerness or of transgender identity, exist they way they do now.”

Students listen to Adrienne Shaw as she lectures to the class.

The “LGBT Media Representation” class is the first of its kind at Temple. (photo by Joseph V. Labolito/Temple University)

She said the analysis of LGBT people in media is “almost never” a standard part of a communication school’s curriculum, which it is at Temple.

“One of the things I appreciate most about [the MSP] program is that is matches media studies and production together. In order to be a good media producer, especially in this day and age with the amount of critics online, you have to understand what those critiques might be and where they’re coming from,” Shaw said. “It’s not enough to just learn how to make a movie or how make a TV show. You have to understand the history of representation.”

Even when a movie or a song isn’t explicitly written for or about the LGBT community, Shaw said it’s important to take a look at popular media from that perspective, much like Jaconski is doing for his project, to understand how they might see themselves. Other students are examining works like Frozen and Mulan.

“A lot of meaning from media comes from what the audience brings to it,” she said. “Queer readings are a way for people to see themselves in this world… and see that something about themselves connects to this media that may not specifically be about them.”

When shows only represent LGBT characters in specific ways – for example showing gay men as white and affluent– Shaw said it is hard for people who are gay but not white and affluent to connect to those characters. She believes movies like Frozen or television shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers are much more about difference and accepting diversity.

“It’s not to say that explicit representation isn’t good. It’s important for people who aren’t queer to see that there are queer people who exist in the world,” she said. “Implicit representation can be really important for people who are a part of marginalized groups because it allows them to imagine possibility.”

For the most part, Shaw said many forms of media – especially television – are getting better at portraying the LGBT community because, “People going into those industries grew up taking classes in media studies programs that taught them to think about these things. You see more nuanced characters. You see more characters not included to be the ‘gay problem’ in the show, but to be another character.”

The true social impact of LGBT people being shown in a realistic way is hard to determine, but Shaw has heard stories of positive results.

“I know people who say their parents were homophobic and then, after watching Will and Grace for 10 years, don’t say things that are as homophobic. It doesn’t mean that their politics got better, but they began to recognize that gay people exist, which is always a step in the right direction,” Shaw said. “That is one of the kinds of social change that you see from media representation.”

Media Contact
Jeff Cronin
jcronin@temple.edu
215-204-3324

SMC professors earn Provost merit awards

Thirty-nine faculty members from the School of Media and Communication have received awards for meritorious activity from the Temple University Office of the Provost.

Each year, Temple University recognizes faculty for outstanding performance in teaching and instruction, research, scholarship, creative activity and/or service to the university or their individual professions or disciplines. The selection process began in fall 2013, through either nominations by the provost, deans, department chairs and colleagues or self-nominations.

“A merit award reflects our faculty’s continued dedication and commitment to scholarship and students, and highlights the exceptional drive for excellence in teaching, innovation and performance,” Provost Dai said. “Our deans, college and department committees, and department chairs were committed to ensuring that these deserving and distinguished individuals received recognition. I want to thank everyone for their time and diligence in this important process.”

SMC’s recipients are:

Advertising

Brooke Duffy
Jennifer Lovrinic Freeman
Joseph Glennon
Stacey Harpster
Sheryl Kantrowitz
Michael Maynard
Katherine Mueller
Dana Saewitz

Journalism

Fabienne Darling-Wolf
Christopher Harper
Carolyn Kitch
Andrew Mendelson
George Miller
Maida Odom
Larry Stains
Lori Tharps
Edward Trayes
Karen M. Turner
Linn Washington

Media Studies and Production

Amy Caples
Sherri Hope Culver
Jan Fernback
Matthew Fine
Paul Gluck
Peter Jaroff
Jack Klotz
Matthew Lombard
Nancy Morris
Adrienne Shaw
Barry Vacker
Kristine Trever Weatherston
Laura Zaylea

Strategic Communication

Gregg Feistman
Scott Gratson
Donnalyn Pompper
Cornelius Pratt
Tracey Weiss
Thomas Wright
Kaibin Xu

How Temple is helping ensure the future of data journalism

Assistant Professor Meredith Broussard works with junior journalism major Greg Pinto as other students look on. (Photo by Ryan S. Brandenberg/Temple University)

A data journalism class at the School of Media and Communication places Temple University at the forefront of a new wave of programs teaching aspiring reporters how to crunch numbers and find new ways to tell stories hidden in data.

Assistant Professor Meredith Broussard, a computer scientist-turned-reporter, said she created her class to teach “the practice of finding stories in numbers and using numbers to tell stories.”

David Herzog, RTF ’84, the academic adviser for the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR), sees a growing trend at the nation’s top universities of classes that target the needs of the changing journalism job market.

“A lot of the classes that had been in place for several years are traditional [computer-assisted reporting] classes” that focused on the number analysis, he said. “What’s happening how is we’re seeing more and more schools who are realizing the value of offering classes that go beyond that. Temple’s class … is in the first wave of those trying to do that.”

Throughout the semester, students have learned how to use databases, spreadsheets and visualization tools and are developing the ability to find and clean data for investigative stories. Students will end the semester by creating an interactive piece of data journalism.

Finding truth in numbers
Marcus McCarthy, 21, a junior journalism major from Charlestown, R.I., said data journalism is one of the best things to come out of the media’s shifting identity.

“Although I appreciate the place for anecdotal evidence, many times it isn’t enough to tell a story since the sample size is typically too small. However, accounting for the bias data can bring, statistical evidence can more accurately portray the larger issues facing our society,” he said. “This means that we can now take on the issues that we were previously unable to accurately report on. That prospect is very exciting to me and I see it making a big difference in bettering our society.”

It seems McCarthy has learned one of the key points of Broussard’s class: the existence of data doesn’t always equal truth.

“We tend to think of data as this immutable object that exists outside of any kind of human intervention – because there’s data, that means it’s true,” Broussard explained. “But the thing is, data are created by people. It’s socially constructed by people who ask certain types of questions and who have certain agendas. Understanding that dimension of data helps us understand the numbers and the social context of the numbers.”

Broussard, 39, brings to students her own history of practical experience in data journalism. As a journalist, she has worked on a variety of data-driven projects that provide insight on the reporting methods students will need to be successful in today’s competitive job market.

Professor Broussard lectures from the front of the class.

The spring 2014 semester marks the first time a data journalism class has been taught at Temple. (Photo by Ryan S. Brandenberg/Temple University)

Using her creative and technical skills, Broussard last year created stackedup.org, a site that showcases an algorithm that mines Philadelphia School District data to determine if schools have enough of the right books to equip students with the knowledge to succeed on standardized tests. The articles she wrote based on her analysis prompted the district to reallocate books to schools with the most need, as well as make some staff changes and financial reforms.

Data leads to a Pulitzer
Dylan Purcell, JOUR ’00, a data journalist at The Philadelphia Inquirer for the past eight years, knows the impact this type of work can have. He was part of the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning team that worked on a series of stories about violence in the city’s schools. Purcell dove deep into the school district’s crime statistics during the investigation.

“No one had ever looked at the district’s crime patterns,” he said. “They were touting a big drop in crime, but they weren’t accounting for the enrollment dropping drastically.”

Without hard numbers to support their reporting, “I don’t know if we would have been able to change as much as we did. The data can reinforce your traditional storytelling.”

Purcell has seen his work evolve over the past decade in the way he tells his part of a story. Much of his work includes interactive online graphics and maps – an encouraging welcome mat for the next generation of reporters now learning how to use this technology.

“There is a either a requirement or a strong recommendation to have at least some basic data skills,” Herzog said of the current job market. “Employers are seeing the value of having journalists who know how to do this kind of work, so there is a premium being placed on these skills. This class is very strong in that regard.”

Media Contact:
Jeff Cronin
jcronin@temple.edu
215-204-3324

Seven new faculty members join SMC’s ranks

You might see a few unfamiliar faces around the School of Media and Communication this year, as SMC welcomes seven new professors to the faculty. Here’s your chance to learn a little bit about them before the first day of class.

Murali Balaji, Assistant Professor (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Media Studies and Production

Specializing in critical media studies, namely political economy and the study of masculinity, Balaji spent the previous three years at Lincoln University, including two as the chair of the mass communications program. A former award-winning journalist, Balaji has written the critically acclaimed The Professor and The Pupil (Nation Books, 2011), which examines the lives of W.E.B Du Bois and Paul Robeson, and has co-edited two others, Desi Rap (Lexington/Rowman & Littlefield, 2008) and Global Masculinities and Manhood (University of Illinois, 2011). He is the co-founder and former executive director of The Voices of Philadelphia, a media education organization dedicated to citizen journalism and media fluency training among marginalized populations within the city.

Guillermo Caliendo, Assistant Professor (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Strategic Communication

Receiving an MA in communication studies from California State University, Los Angeles, and a PhD in rhetoric with a concentration in media studies from the University of Pittsburgh, Caliendo’s research focuses on discourse analysis dealing with race/ethnicity and gender/sexuality. Besides serving in various editorial boards, he has published numerous book reviews and chapter contributions. Most recently, his article “MLK Boulevard: Material Forms of Memory and the Social Contestation of Race Signification” appeared in the Journal of Black Studies. He is currently working on “Disciplining Sexuality: Milk, Cultural Amnesia, and the Rhetoric of Sexual Containment.” At Temple, he will teach Persuasion, Rhetorical Theory and Political Communication

Joseph Glennon, Assistant Professor (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Advertising

For the last 15 years, Glennon has been a highly sought after copywriter and creative consultant working with both advertising agencies and directly with clients. He has taught courses in a range of advertising topics, specializing in the art of copywriting. His professional writing career began as a screenwriter in Los Angeles, working with the producers of Cheers, Frasier, Home Improvement and other comedies. His work also included feature films. Glennon is a native of Boston and an unapologetic member of the Red Sox nation.

Stacey Harpster, Assistant Professor (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Advertising

Since receiving her MBA in marketing from the Temple University Fox School of Business and Management and her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, Public Relations and Advertising from the Temple University School of Media and Communication, Harpster has served a diverse list of clients in industries including: automotive, hospitality and tourism, consumer goods, homeopathy, fashion, higher education, finance and technology. She began her career at the Temple University Small Business Development Center (SBDC), where she founded and led the SBDC Creative Department. After the SBDC, she moved on to hold senior level account management positions in various Philadelphia firms, including Kanter International (now Finch Brands) and Brownstein Group.

Adrienne Shaw, Assistant Professor

Department of Media Studies and Production

Since receiving her PhD in communication from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Shaw has held postdoctoral posts at the Mudra Institute for Communication Ahmedabad, the University of Pittsburgh and Colorado State University. Her research focuses on popular culture, the politics of representation, cultural production and qualitative audience research. Her primary areas of interest are video games, gaming culture, representations of gender and sexuality and the construction of identity and communities in relation to media consumption.

Kristine Weatherston, Assistant Professor (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Media Studies and Production

Weatherston is a PhD candidate in the interdisciplinary Media, Art and Text program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her interests combine theory and practice in areas of video production including genre studies, screenwriting and literary adaptation, documentary and nonfiction, producing and directing for film and television, as well as editing and post-production design.

Laura Zaylea, Assistant Professor, (Teaching/Instructional)

Department of Media Studies and Production

Since receiving her MFA in film from the San Francisco Art Institute, Zaylea has served as a film lecturer in the Department of Communication at Georgia State University. Zaylea has written/directed a feature film, has created many short films and media art installations and is currently converting her award-winning screenplay into a multimedia digital novel. Her research and creative production interests include experimental film making and media production, LGBTQ media and the process of adapting traditional media into new media forms and formats. Her feature film Hold The Sun was awarded Best Avant-garde Film from the 2010 Amsterdam Film Festival and her screenplay Closer Than Rust was one of the winners of the 2012 Atlanta International Film Festival Screenplay Competition.

Professor Chiment creates dead body for crime scene at Fox event

Professor Marie Chiment and the gunshot victim she created for a Department of Legal Studies event.

With only a head and hands (and no budget) Chiment had to get creative when she built the body.

Wrapped in fiber fluff, the tubes and boxes make a pretty good torso.

The Theater Department is on the receiving end of a lot of strange requests.

One came early this summer that Professor Marie Chiment couldn’t ignore — the Fox School of Business’ Department of Legal Studies needed a dead body.

On Aug. 1, Professor Samuel Hodge will lead members of the Pennsylvania Bar Association through a crime scene investigation as part of its continuing education program.

“Dr. Hodge and I have created a based-on-real-life crime scene that we will be using as a springboard for a more general discussion of how a murder investigation is handled, from the homicide through to trial,” says Legal Studies Administrative Coordinator Nicole Saitta.

With Chiment’s dummy in the starring role, the attendees will be able to examine the crime scene at the event and view a video that recreates the scene as well.

A Playwright’s Clues

Chiment, a big fan of crime dramas, stepped up to the challenge. She uses crime scene investigation techniques in one of her design classes (which she’s dubbed “DSI: Design Scene Investigation”).

“A playwright, when they’re writing a play, they’re dropping clues,” she says. “So as a designer, I search for clues.”

As part of the design class, Chiment provides her students with the first couple of pages of a play and has them design a set and costumes using only the scripted dialogue.

For the crime scene project, Chiment put into practice the techniques she teaches. She was told that a young white male was found dead in an alley of a gunshot wound to the right temple – and that “the rats had gotten to him.”

Collecting Body Parts

Assistant Technical Director Marka Suber pulled a head and hands from Temple Theaters’ stock of props. Chiment built the body from items she found around her house – delivery boxes, paper towel rolls and plenty of fiber fluff to make it humanlike. What resulted is a six-foot male dressed in a hoodie, jeans and Converse sneakers, who ended up on the wrong end of a handgun.

She tapped into the knowledge of a make-up artist for advice on how to build a realistic gunshot wound, and studied the wounds she saw on TV crime shows.

Chiment says the biggest challenge was mimicking the nuances of a human skeleton – making sure the joints are bent at a realistic angle and that everything is proportional. She ensured everything was sewn together so the body will remain intact on its trip to the event.

“I do get to do some interesting things in my profession,” she says.

Two Journalism professors rank among journalismdegree.org’s Top 50

Professors Christopher Harper and Carolyn Kitch have been included on journalismdegree.org’s “Top 50 Professors in 2012.”

The website, it says, helps “current and prospective students find the right program to fit their needs.”

“The list was created using independent research with the sole purpose of being a resource for our readers,” the site says.

CLICK HERE to see the full list.

The Hunger Games symposium discusses the messages behind the cultural phenomenon

Osei Alleyne encouraged the devoted fans of The Hunger Games who gathered May 23 at Temple University Center City to “put your three-sign up.”

They all responded appropriately by mimicking the sign of defiance and unity that Katniss Everdeen, the main character in the hit book and film, uses to communicate with the people of Panem. The audience enjoyed taking its turn flashing the symbol they saw as a sign of their hero taking power from her oppressive government.

Leah Wilson, editor of The Girl Who Was On Fire.

Sherri Hope Culver brought an invitation to a Hunger Games-themed birthday party. She said it was an example of how children are sometimes immune to violence in the media.

Fans of The Hunger Games gathered at TUCC to learn more about its messages.

Angela Cirucci, MMC, compared Katniss to Kim Kardashian.

Guests throw up the "three-sign" made famous by Katniss Everdeen.

Osei Alleyne discusses some of the similarities in real-life riots, like after the Rodney King verdict in Los Angeles, and the District 11 riot in the film.

Barry Vacker: the professor who was on fire?

photos by Joseph V. Labolito/Temple University

Then Alleyne, an anthropology PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, showed the photo of Olympic athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their black-gloved fists during a medal ceremony in Mexico City in 1968. The similarity was immediately apparent.

“Put your three-sign up again,” said Alleyne. “It feels a bit different, doesn’t it?”

This moment of connection between the themes of The Hunger Games and the real world was one of many revealed at “Our the Odds in Our Favor?: The Hunger Games on Fame, Fashion and the Future of Humanity,” a symposium co-hosted by Center for Media and Information Literacy at Temple’s School of Communications and Theater and the Center for Media and Destiny.

“The Hunger Games is already true,” said Associate Professor Barry Vacker, BTMM.

Alleyne and Vacker were joined by Assistant Professor Sherri Hope Culver, BTMM, as well as Leah Wilson, editor of The Girl Who Was On Fire and Angela Cirucci, MMC, an adjunct professor at Lincoln University.

During her turn at the podium, Cirucci compared Katniss to Kim Kardashian. She said both have to appeal to the public for success, both need to keep their sponsors happy and both keep their relationships – whether real or staged – in the spotlight.

Culver said The Hunger Games is so popular because people sense something familiar in the story – “a comfortable, secure, paradigm-affirming familiarity” of the worst things we watch on the news and reality television.

As director of the Center for Media and Information Literacy, Culver is well-versed in the relationship children have with media. She takes pause when she hears that young girls aspire to be Katniss.

“They picture themselves as the teen hero; the savior of their towns,” she said, an ignore the horrors of her fight to the death. “As a mom, I’m simply concerned.”

But she admits that the element of danger is vital to the story’s success. “Danger is actually an attraction in itself. So we read and we watch.”

SCT announces 2012 faculty awards

The School of Communications and Theater honored four faculty members at its May 1 faculty assembly.

Associate Professor Gregg Feistman, Strategic Communication, Service Award

Associate Professor Christopher Harper, Journalism, Creative Award

Associate Professor Donnalyn Pompper, Strategic Communication, Research Award

Associate Professor Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, Theater, Service Award