Focused Discussions
Renewing Free-Speech Values Through Educational Practice
Focused Discussion Frank Lo Monte
For the past thirty years, the American legal system has recognized a greatly diminished level of free-speech protection in public schools and colleges. Diminishing regard for, and observance of, First Amendment values in school has lasting consequences for the development of inquisitive, participatory citizens. Research by Profs. Bobkowski and Belmas (2016) documents the systematic institutional censorship of student voices addressing issues of social and political consequence in the school setting, with particular impact on the willingness of female students to engage on issues of public concern. This discussion will take stock of the free-expression landscape in American K-12 schools and examine best educational practices for modeling participatory citizenship. We will examine and evaluate the "New Voices" reform movement that has led to the enactment of statutory protection for student expression in fourteen U.S. states, and how those statutes affect the civic culture of educational institutions.
Fake Polls Make Fake News: How Media Opinion Polls Obscure Public Opinion and Distort Democracy
Focused Discussion Mark Civitella
Campaigning for US Presidency, Donald Trump dismissed media reports on opinion polls predicting his defeat as "Fake News". Trump was proven right. What has gone wrong? When media opinion polls overwhelmingly miss Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, their value as taking the 'pulse of the nation' is questioned. Once seen as an objective reflection of public attitudes, the media polls are now being seen as flawed and distorting of political debate. If polls also focus media discussion through the purported status of having a scientific measure of public attitudes - the failure of polls impact the media's ability to engage in informed and relevant political debate. The irony of more polls, through digital affordability and access, does not equal more information and informed debate. Rather, the digital platforms used to generate polls, exacerbate media error and further skew debate. At one extreme, research shows opinion polls suppress public opinion. If a healthy public debate is good for democracy - we need to do better with the measurement of public opinion.
Understanding Millennials: What Does Social Media Have to Say?
Focused Discussion Afshana Parveen Hoque
Millennials or Generation Y have been typecasted with several terms, some good and some not so good. Tech savvy, lazy, entitled are just some of the ways society views this generation. With a mindset that is socially and globally connected, Millennials have grown up with hi-tech devices on the palm of their hands. Most existing studies on millennials are products of scholarly research with traditional data collection methods. Considering Social Media as a natural environment for Millennials, this paper seeks to derive data about Millennials from social media platforms. Meltwater, an online analytical tool was used to collect data associated with Millennials (Generation Y). Findings confirm stereotypical assumptions associated with Millennials. Assuming, Millennials and Generation Z are the highest users of social media, findings of the paper include Millennials' self-reports about their generation and Generation Z’s descriptions of Millennials.
From Big Data to Qualitative Inquiry – Prolific Affordances or Paradigmatic Impasse?
Focused Discussion Victoria Holec
The persistent buzz of “big data” in reference to vast amounts of unstructured data that can be scraped from the internet (Chaulagain et al., 2017; Cooley et al., 1997; Landers et al., 2016) has presented new options for data analysis in media studies, some of which draw on the quantitative and computational work. Microblog research is an exploding field stemming from computational fields and using big data for complex modelling (De Maoi et al., 2016; Feng et al., 2018; Hasanain & Elsayed, 2017; Yan et al., 2012). A microblog can be defined as a collection of short, character-constrained posts (“microposts”) to the internet (Zappavigna, 2014). The microblogging platform Twitter is known for its radical constraint on message length. Since its arrival in 2007, newer microblogging platforms have shifted priorities towards imagery, while allowing for written texts of extended lengths. Thus, the microblog has expanded to provide even more data for big data scraping. Yet, this added richness affords researchers to analyze microblogs using qualitative methods (Wargo, 2017; Zappavigna, 2016; 2018a; Zhao & Zappavigna, 2018). Following Zappavigna (2018b) and Baker (2006; 2012) in conceptualizing social-media analysis under convergence of corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis, I discuss my decisions in analyzing a corpus of 1.5 million social media micro-/nanoposts both quantitatively and qualitatively. In navigating barriers to and affordances of mixed-method designs and their practical implications, I encourage debate as to whether broadening the reach of data collection—often praised as technologically and geographically democratized—comes at the expense of fundamental paradigmatic incommensurability.
Narrativism, Ludonarrativity, and Finding a Use for Dead Media
Focused Discussion Stephen Williams Ortega
Role-playing games conjure one of two images to mind. A collection of teenagers, sitting around a table, doing calculus to see whether or not they've slain a dragon, or the modern genre of video game inspired from that tabletop tradition. In either case, the involved engagement in statistics and calculation-and more importantly, hard and fast win/loss states-can seem like a steep hurdle to the more narratively-inclined among us. However, the past few decades have seen the development of a trend of games that attempt to eschew the purely mechanical aspects of these games to take advantage of their potential as storytelling media. In 2003, Ron Edwards coined the term "narrativism" to describe this school of thought, to delineate a razor-focused brand of ludonarrativity: storytelling games. The more the body of the player has been actively involved in the ludic narrative, the more it begins to approach a sort of organized theater--and as in theater, the storytelling process is facilitated by the use of props, diegetic and non. From dice, to paper maps, to .mp3 files, game creators and players have used props to lend their stories physicality. This session explores the possibilities opened up when a player physically actualizes a ludic narrative, specifically through repurposed cassette tapes as a supposedly obsolete technology to lend flavor and tone, and ultimately augment the storytelling and role-playing experience for further narrative impact.
Teens on Screen: Decoding the Secret Life of the American Teenager
Focused Discussion Allison McClain Merrill
The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008-2013) explores family, relationships, spirituality, and sexuality through the lens of teenage pregnancies and sexual encounters. Protagonist Amy Juergens is fifteen years old at the beginning of the series, distraught that she has become pregnant after her “one night at band camp” with Ricky Underwood. Freeform (originally ABC Family) aired this five-year saga. The representation of pregnant and sexually active teenagers is a framework for a host of other emotional and interpersonal considerations; the merit of viewing The Secret Life is the discovery of what surrounds these teenagers, how or if they ever learn to support one another. Teenage childbearing and parenthood are lifestyles equally dramatized, criticized, and normalized by the cast involved in these lifestyles. I measure development and regression of teenage and adult characters throughout the series, postulating that their abilities to thrive in society depend on the gaze of society itself. “The visual emphasis remains on the bodies of women, and white young mothers still appear to be key in covering the issue” (Vinson 157). Vinson’s writing on teen pregnancy, Ruiz’s attention to the Latina body in the character of Adrian Lee, and Dow’s text on feminism in prime-time television each enhance the discourse of a racial, gendered society in The Secret Life. Identity formations exist within the boundaries of a complicated, corrupted community. I am immersed in this fictional community, analyzing family dynamics, friendships, romantic relationships, religious beliefs, and moral authority on The Secret Life as guideposts for decision-making.
Crossing Discourses: The Portuguese Newspaper Público’s Perspective on the Latest Brazilian Presidential Election
Focused Discussion Silvia Frota
The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, began on January 1st, 2019 after a turmoiled and stressful political process that led to his election. International media coverage on his victory stressed more than once the radical position of Bolsonaro, introduced as a representative of the far-right with all the related implications. Público, a Portuguese mainstream newspaper, wasn’t an exception. In the paper, different representations of Bolsonaro – constructed throughout the news on his first official day in the presidency – are identified and analysed. Bolsonaro’s difficult relationship with the media, swinging from strong criticism to censorship attempts, is also highlighted and counterweighted with the rise of populist discourses. The theoretical and methodological framework relies on critical discourse analysis fed by Culture and Identity Studies, Theories of Nationalism and Media Studies.
