The Spring 2024 Semester in Review
By: Michelle Amazeen
With the end of another semester, I have been reflecting upon the many activities in the CRC and among our fellows in 2024, thus far. This spring, we launched the inaugural call for Faculty Research Seed Grant proposals with the aim of fostering inter-departmental, cross-disciplinary collaborations on communication-related issues to help society engage with modern challenges. The CRC is pleased to announce three teams of awardees:
- Dr. Katy Coduto, Assistant Professor, Media Science, and Prof. Margaret Wallace, Associate Professor of the Practice, Media Innovation for their project, “Mapping Relational Trajectories with Generative Artificial Intelligence: Insights for Theory and Practice.”
- Dr. Yi Grace Ji, Assistant Professor, Mass Communication, Advertising, and Public Relations; Dr. James J. Cummings, Associate Professor, Emerging Media Studies; Dr. Chris Chao Su, Assistant Professor, Emerging Media Studies, and Prof. Anne Danehy, Associate Professor of the Practice, Mass Communication, Advertising, and Public Relations for their project, “Learning Information with Generative AI: Implications for Elaborative Processing.”
- Dr. AnneMarie McClain, Assistant Professor, Media Science and Elly Kramer, former Senior Vice President of Animation at Imagine Entertainment & Television for their project, “Representing Gender Expansively: Media Uses and Hopes Among Gender Expansive Youth and Their Families.”
Look for more details about these projects in the future on our website and as part of the CRC’s Colloquium Lecture Series.
Now in its 15th year of programming, our Colloquium Series consists of monthly research presentations that highlight the original research of our CRC fellows. I would like to thank our 2024 spring Colloquium speakers which included Dr. James E. Katz, Feld Professor of Emerging Media Studies (February), Dr. AnneMarie McClain, Assistant Professor of Media Science (March), and Prof. Anne Danehy, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs (April). You can read about and see recordings of each of these presentations as well as those from all of our past Colloquium speakers on our website.
In addition to our Colloquium Series, every semester our fellows nominate a distinguished scholar from outside the university to share their outstanding scholarship, expertise, and experience with the BU community. Our distinguished lecture series is a tribute to Dr. Melvin L. DeFleur, a past colleague, to honor his contributions to the fields of communication and media research. This spring, we were honored to host Dr. Lee H. Humphreys (Cornell University) as our DeFleur Distinguished Lecturer who spoke about “Sensor Mediated Communication and the Internet of Things.” A recording of her talk is accessible on our website, as well.
In promoting a culture of research and collaboration, our fellows had opportunities throughout the semester to gather together in person. Our Work-In-Progress meetings enabled fellows to discuss their ongoing research, conference submission plans as well as Institutional Review Board and grant-seeking questions. Moreover, our PhD fellow Briana Trifiro continued the Lunch & Learn series enabling doctoral students the opportunity to talk with faculty and Emerging Media Studies PhD alumni about their academic research and careers. While we will continue these activities in the future, please let me know if you have ideas for other ways to foster opportunities for intellectual inquiry.
Since its inception in January 2022, the COM/CRC Media & Technology Public Opinion Poll has enabled faculty fellows to advance their thought leadership on a variety of information integrity topics. This past semester, our polls involved media literacy (January), dating apps (February), and text generated by artificial intelligence (March) leading to media coverage from The Boston Globe and NPR. Faculty members with ideas for a future poll can get involved by completing this Google Form.
Given the University’s commitment to engaging students in research, the CRC continued to facilitate fellows’ efforts to recruit students as research participants via our SONA research participant management system. The SONA system gives both graduate and undergraduate students an opportunity to become involved with various research activities across COM while earning course credit for doing so. This semester, 25 research studies were available to over 600 students from 22 different COM courses. I hope you will consider registering your courses for the fall semester. For more information about how our SONA program works, please visit our website or email comsona@bu.edu.
Last but not least, I am incredibly grateful for the commitment and hard work of our staff this spring. Many thanks to our Lab and Research Manager, Amanda King, who has made our facilities a welcoming place for scholarly activities and has skillfully trained both experienced and emerging researchers on the technologies offered by the CRC. I would also like to thank our wonderful graduate assistants who helped to keep the Center running. Alyssa Hance (EMS) was our SONA administrator assisting with the behind-the-scenes work on our research participant management system and also assisted with research projects in the Center. YiFang “Violet” Li (MCR) was our Communications Assistant writing about and promoting our activities and our fellows. And Abby Bonner (FTV) was our Podcast Assistant developing the protocols and processes for our planned podcasting efforts. Thanks to you all!
To our CRC community of fellows, I wish you a wonderful summer with time to relax and recharge. I look forward to seeing you in the fall.