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Shedding light on traffic tragedies: Tribune reporter wins Feldman Award

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 16:24:32 +0000

Shedding light on traffic tragedies: Tribune reporter wins Feldman Award Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/23/2024 - 10:24

By Hannah Stewart (Comm’19)

Business reporter Sarah Freishtat is no stranger to the challenges of covering transportation in a bustling city like Chicago. So when a fellow Tribune reporter forwarded her an email about a journalism award centered on transportation, submitting one of her stories was a no-brainer.

“I saw what the backstory of the award was, with Casey’s story and what her family was trying to do, and I was really inspired by that,” Freishtat said. “I really appreciated the award’s focus on transportation because it really affects people’s day-to-day lives.”

Her story, “Serious Crashes With Pedestrians and Cyclists Often Fail To Lead to Tickets or Charges: ‘We Can’t Be OK With This,’” explores the issue of vehicular accidents in which victims are injured and no one is charged. It also is the 2024 recipient of the Casey Feldman Award for Transportation Safety Reporting.

The reporting award honors Casey Feldman, a Fordham University journalism student who was killed by a distracted driver in 2009. It is sponsored by EndDD.org, which was created by the Casey Feldman Memorial Foundation to end distracted driving, and by the journalism department at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information.

Two judges evaluated the submissions: Justin George, an editor at the Cowboy State Daily, and Chuck Plunkett, who directs the capstone journalism program ��Ƶ News Corps at ��Ƶ Boulder. George was formerly a transportation writer at The Washington Post, and Plunkett was formerly the editorial page editor for The Denver Post.

“Sarah Freishtat’s impactful story was an example of a transportation beat reporter showing unparalleled expertise, uncovering a clearly ignored failure of justice and public safety sitting right under everyone’s noses,” George said.

Vehicular crashes involving pedestrians had been on her radar for some time when she heard about two separate pedestrian accidents where a youth was struck while crossing the street. One involved then-17-year-old Nakari Campbell, who spent so many weeks recovering that she celebrated her 18th birthday in a rehabilitation center. Ja’lon James, 11, was crossing the street with his brother one morning when he was hit and did not survive. Neither family has discovered who was behind the wheel of the cars that changed their lives.

“I give a lot of credit to the families I spoke with, because it’s not easy to sit down and relive what is often the worst day of their lives—and I’m deeply appreciative of them letting me into their homes and into their lives,” Freishtat said. “Sitting in Ja’lon’s family’s living room talking to his mother and grandmother really drives home why this issue is important to talk about and why we do this.”

Reporters Jennifer Gollan and Susie Neilson, of the San Francisco Chronicle, were recognized with an honorable mention for their project, which explored police chases. Their multimedia series looks into the statistics and methodology of police chases through storytelling, infographics and video footage.

Freishtat received a first-place prize of $3,000.

A Chicago Tribune reporter investigated how traffic accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists rarely lead to charges, despite the deep impact on families.

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Public defenders: Is the PBS, NPR model better than commercial media amid polarization?

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 21:08:50 +0000

Public defenders: Is the PBS, NPR model better than commercial media amid polarization? Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/22/2024 - 15:08

By Joe Arney

If you get your headlines from NewsHour or stream Fresh Air on your ride to work, you have a little-known Colorado experiment to thank.

In the 1930s, the Rocky Mountain Radio Council wanted to reach every student working in mountain mines, to ensure they received the same public education opportunities as in Denver. The group hit on program transcriptions that could be relayed over the air—basically, pressing shellac records—so that a student working in remote Golconda Mine, in Hinsdale County, benefited from the same curriculum as his peers in Denver.

That local consortium eventually became the Public Broadcasting Service. And the focus on public education that gave it its start continues to differentiate the mission of public news networks.

“It was just by chance that I moved out here, and so I loved finding out that the inception moment for all noncommercial media was actually the mining communities,” said Josh Shepperd, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information.

Last year, Shepperd published Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting. It’s notable as the first academic attempt to present communication studies and public broadcasting as historically connected enterprises, and it comes at a time when criticism of the media—especially related to politics—is running especially hot. Shadow has since won the Book Award from the Broadcast Education Association and has been a finalist or runner up for prizes from four other organizations, including the American Journalism Historians Association and Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Not necessarily better—but different

“This book isn’t about saying one mode of media is automatically better, or that public media is perfect or a corrective to commercial media,” he said. “But I do think public media is different because of its mission to provide a forum for every kind of voice.”

“Everyone keeps saying public media is too state based, but commercial media seems to be much more of a mouthpiece for politicians right now.”
Josh Shepperd, associate professor, media studies

That’s different from most commercial media, “where the ethics are really tertiary to how the industry works. If there’s an audience for it, it’s good,” he said. “The idea that there is a necessity for every voice to be placed equally within a community is very important, even if I’m not sure that public media is always successful.”

In some countries, “public media” raises the specter of propaganda, like TASS or Xinhua. In the United States, PBS is insulated from such a threat, since affiliate stations don’t receive direct funding from the government.

“That doesn’t mean they aren’t political, because they are,” Shepperd said. But, he said, an endless news cycle revolving around politics and partisanship has warped the relationship between government and independent media: “Everyone keeps saying public media is too state based, but commercial media seems to be much more of a mouthpiece for politicians right now.”

Spend a few minutes watching Fox News or MSNBC and you won’t disagree. For Shepperd, it’s another effect of a polarized media market “where people think through the abstractions of their gatekeepers’ framing, instead of just looking at what’s in front of them in their own lives,” he said. “We allow issues of public interest to become obscured by demographic affiliations as we increasingly become categories and brands instead of people.”

How we got to that point is part of Shepperd’s next project, which will examine the history of decision-making at media industries to better understand the mechanisms radio, television and digital players use to make tough calls about programming and advertising.

It’s a different thrust, but one that still hearkens back to his interest in uncovering and preserving the history of communication studies, which Shepperd called the only discipline that hasn’t completely traced its own history.

An accidental pathway

“You can’t have a discipline that doesn’t know why it exists,” he said. “Understanding that history gives us a sense of why we ask and answer the questions the way that we do, and helps us answer questions about the ethics of the discipline.”

Shepperd got into this work almost by accident. He was studying theories around public life and civil society when a professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, where he earned his PhD, inspired him to pursue his nascent interest in public broadcasting.

“She told me it was good to think about these ideas, but that you could actually have evidence, too,” he said. “In other words, the idea that how it works is just as fair of a question as how it should work.”

He was able to put Wisconsin’s extensive archives to work for his thesis, which paved the way for the book project. Shepperd is now co-writing the official history of NPR and PBS for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

It’s fitting work, as before Shepperd dove into this subject in earnest, “no one in the history of film and media studies or communication studies had ever asked where public media came from in scholarship,” he said. Commercial media, by contrast, has been widely examined by experts and thought leaders, “and the idea that we wouldn't apply the same kind of investigation to the public system, I think, is an ideological issue that we need to face within communications research.”

A CMCI thought leader has documented the history of public media—an important lesson in understanding how broadcasting works and could be improved amid partisanship.

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Recycle, reuse—rethink? How a fresh approach to storytelling could put plastics in their place

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 13:43:37 +0000

Recycle, reuse—rethink? How a fresh approach to storytelling could put plastics in their place Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/17/2024 - 07:43

By Joe Arney

We’re going about environmental storytelling all wrong.

When Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, it became a rallying point for the nascent environmental movement—not because it was a scientific book (though it is), but because of its haunting opening pages that described a town where the birds and bees had vanished, fish were gone, fruit wouldn’t blossom, and disease ran rampant.

That scene moved people to ban pesticides and rethink humanity’s role in the larger environment. But, Phaedra C. Pezzullo said, until we figure out how to tell stories about today’s environmental crises—like plastic pollution and climate change—all we have are data that, alone, fail to move people to action.

“What many people are arguing is that the climate crisis is a crisis of imagination and of communication,” said Pezzullo, a professor of communication and media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information. “The idea is, we struggle to grapple with what is the climate—I can’t touch it, I can’t see it—so how do we tell stories that empower people, instead of only getting caught up in the data?”

Interdisciplinary insights

Pezzullo’s interdisciplinary approach to the problem of plastics—the science of microplastics permeating the human body and the way of explaining that crisis in a way that inspires people to demand action—has helped her see a need for a fresh approach to how we talk about such complex problems.

It’s partly what moved her to start a podcast series, Communicating Care, and her most recent book, Beyond Straw Men: Plastic Pollution and Networked Cultures of Care, which was published last year. The book has generated significant attention as the media struggles to cover the plastics problem; since the summer, it has won three significant prizes from the National Communication Association: a Diamond Anniversary Book Award, the James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address and, significantly, the Tarla Rai Peterson Book Award in Environmental Communication, named for a prolific scholar who Pezzullo met years ago at a conference.

“It’s an honor to have this book recognized and affirmed by my colleagues with expertise in environmental studies, rhetoric, and across the entire field of communication,” Pezzullo said.

In some ways, Beyond Straw Men and Pezzullo’s search for impactful storytelling is the kind of scholarly work that’s uniquely possible at a place like CMCI. The college was created to address the complex challenges of today’s interconnected world, which require interdisciplinary perspectives to effectively engage.

It’s an approach that resonates with partners outside the university. In her role as director of ��Ƶ Boulder’s graduate certificate in environmental justice, Pezzullo has been working with Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment to help update its quantitative database of communities most affected by environmental damage. Undergraduates in a new class she’s teaching, Advanced Topics in Storytelling, Culture and Climate Justice, are updating story maps to help the state assess how the message it’s spreading about climate impacts local communities.

At CMCI, expertise in ‘how to move people’

“These stories need to be assessed so they can figure out if they are empowering residents,” she said. “Are they rich enough, compelling enough, moving enough? Or did we lean too hard on data that maybe is too dense for this audience?

“And that’s why the state would love more partnerships with people in CMCI who can help them build capacity for the storytelling component, because they spend so much of their own time in the weeds. There’s a thirst for research that understands the climate science, but also brings to the conversation an appreciation for how to think about audiences, context and how to move people.”

Part of that is finding ways to avoid confining stories about topics like pollution and climate to negative headlines, disaster movies, dystopian fiction and the like.

“We’re getting to the point with climate justice where you have to change attitudes, beliefs and the culture, and that means you need a range of stories—including comedies, as my colleagues I work with across campus have shown. We have to use a whole range of human emotions to change a culture.”

It also means those stories need broad appeal, so they aren’t just preaching to the converted.

“There’s a thirst for research that understands the climate science, but also brings to the conversation an appreciation for how to think about audiences, context and how to move people.”
Phaedra C. Pezzullo, professor, communication and media studies

“The argument of folks who are working on climate storytelling in the industry is any film or media content created for the present or the future that does not have climate change as part of its backdrop should be considered fiction, because it is a part of life,” she said.

The desperation to find the right storytelling techniques for plastics is easy to see in the endless drumbeat of bad news about plastics clogging rivers, causing floods; being burned, destroying air quality; and invading our drinking water, food supply and bodies. But like all good stories featuring hardship, this one has a protagonist we can easily root for.

“What I’m interested in right now is the idea of repair,” Pezzullo said. By that, she means material repair—in May, Colorado passed its third right to repair law, empowering consumers to fix, not flush, things like broken phones—but also repairing relationships, especially in the case of well-meaning partnerships where, say, an NGO promised a solution to a plastic problem in the global south that failed.

“How do we have accountability, but also find a way to forgive people for mistakes?” she said. “It’s very challenging right now to admit that people have made mistakes, and then—if they’re willing to do the work or willing to do the repair work, forgive them.

“And, of course, how do we repair the earth? That’s the most important question to me.”

A CMCI expert’s book has won a trio of awards for its attempt to change how we think about, and tell the story of, plastics pollution.

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The best way to get involved at CMCI? Just follow your nose

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 15:32:21 +0000

The best way to get involved at CMCI? Just follow your nose Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/16/2024 - 09:32

By Iris Serrano
Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm’18)

If you somehow missed the announcements about the College of Media, Communication and Information’s second annual Involvement Fair, there were two things you couldn’t miss coming from the CASE patio—the smell of fresh popcorn and the sight of bubbles floating around.

��Ƶ 200 students attended last month’s fair, which showcases many of the college’s clubs, organizations and academic opportunities, including study abroad options unique to CMCI.

Many students were crowding around the Adobe Creative Club table, asking questions, snacking on some popcorn and signing up for the group’s next meeting. The fairly new student-led club offers an open space where students of all experience levels learn to improve their skills in Adobe applications, such as Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator.

“We just want to create a space to make Adobe less overwhelming and give some creative inspiration,” said sophomore Paige Michael, a strategic communication major and co-president of the club.

Michael was eager to recruit new members to her club and be a part of an event that helps others find their place on campus.

“Coming to the fair allows new students to be aware of opportunities that this college brings us,” she said. “Even if you don't have time to join every single thing, it gives you a bigger sense of belonging, knowing all the communities you can be a part of.”

The event gave students opportunities to both follow their passions and discover new ones.

“Before coming to Boulder, I knew I’d be involved in student media—but I just found out from the tables that they do a lot of things I'm interested in,” said Colby Wyatt, a first-year student majoring in media production. “I won't be just writing articles, I'll get to work with cameras. And I get to commentate on sports and, of course, meet new people and learn new skills.”

“Coming to the fair allows new students to be aware of ... all the communities you can be a part of.”
Paige Michael

As a college, CMCI teaches a diverse range of skills that can be applied across different fields, such as computer science, the arts, marketing and political science. As such, the fair got visitors from different colleges at ��Ƶ Boulder. Lesley Vazquez, a sophomore majoring in creative technology design with a minor in media production, was among the crowd at the Adobe table.

“I’m in a design foundations class where we had to buy Adobe—and since I have it for the year, and I want to go into a creative field where Photoshop may be used, I want to get more experience in it,” Vazquez said.

Students said they appreciated CMCI’s commitment to hosting events that help them feel at home in the college.

“All you have to do is walk up to the table, write your name and email on a sheet of paper, and, boom, you're in a new club,” Wyatt said. “It's nice to just have these tables out like this—it’s hard to miss and it’s an easy way to get involved.”

The college’s annual involvement fair is a showcase of clubs and extracurricular opportunities—and fresh popcorn.

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If it ain’t ‘woke,’ does it need fixing?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 15:15:54 +0000

If it ain’t ‘woke,’ does it need fixing? Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/14/2024 - 09:15

By Joe Arney

Does “woke” make you broke? A new book from Tim Kuhn serves as a reminder that, while we might think of corporations as single-minded entities, they are in fact messy and complex—and that messiness often is where innovation takes place.

“Corporations often deploy purpose to create order, to fight complexity, because we typically think of a good organization as being orderly,” said Kuhn, a professor of communication at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information.

“Purpose tends to be seen as this device that produces similarity, produces unity, produces a setting or a culture where everybody is on the same page. And that is a fantasy.”

So, when you see companies posting about pride or gun control, it doesn’t mean they’ve suddenly been taken over by “woke” warriors. Rather, it’s evidence of different perspectives and new avenues of thought being pursued within a larger organization. Those can produce more humane workplaces and foster innovation—which, together, can be healthy for the bottom line, Kuhn said in the book, What Do Corporations Want?: Communicative Capitalism, Corporate Purpose and a New Theory of the Firm.

Corporate purpose, Kuhn said, has often been framed as either producing profits or following principles. “Some versions of purpose can be a claim for morality, for your business to stand for more than shareholder maximization,” he said.

But believing corporations are only a single thing means “we’re missing an opportunity to understand their complexity and how they effectively serve a wide variety of purposes,” he said. “Saying that corporations just want profits, full stop, is perhaps way too simple, and does an injustice to both businesses and the good people who work in them.”

‘Dysfunction’ as a business driver

For businesses to pursue both purpose and profit—to walk and chew gum at once—is a good thing, because being open to multiple outcomes can help companies develop new lines of business. Chasing the idea that an organization must choose a single form of value often creates the dysfunctions managers think they need to neutralize.

“Purpose tends to be seen as this device that produces similarity, produces unity, produces a setting or a culture where everybody is on the same page. And that is a fantasy.”
Tim Kuhn, professor, communication

By way of example, Kuhn’s book mentions Coinbase, which operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. In 2020, as social tensions heated up from the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement and a charged pre-election climate, CEO Brian Armstrong said there would be no political conversations permitted on workplace channels.

“And, as you can imagine, employees revolted,” Kuhn said. “Employees said, ‘This company is about shaking up the way the world works. Politics is core to who we are.’”

Coinbase offered severance to employees who left over the policy, and while the business was private at the time, making it hard to evaluate impact, Kuhn said this was an opportunity lost.

“What if you thought of strategy not as an attempt to create unity and a simple trajectory for your firm?” he said. “What if you thought of strategy as developing from the many possibilities for our future—the many voices that made up the organization? What new practices, what appeals to new audiences, might have emerged from that?”

Leaders, Kuhn said, “should be less fearful of conversations that stray from our predetermined purpose or strategy, and instead foster conversations that develop emergent, perhaps unanticipated, practices that could be considered part of our complex organization.”

Exit strategies

That sort of adaptability is crucial for corporations charged with innovating amid change and competition. Unfortunately, they don’t always get there. As part of his research, Kuhn observed a high-tech incubator in action. While the entrepreneurs housed there had big ideas about disruption, the accelerator’s model was laser-focused on exit strategies for the startups, as that’s where their money came from.

“That makes sense, in that we often think that’s the only way corporations think about value,” Kuhn said. “But as I spoke with many of these startups, they were interested in a variety of other forms of value. Many wanted to fight the corporate machine, were really interested in civic values or just wanted to do something technologically cool, whether it paid off or not.”

Instead, he said, they were pushed to sell out in ways that didn’t always make sense for the long-term viability of their companies, “and it was telling for me that there was a corporation—the accelerator— that was doing the pushing—a form of communicative capitalism that was making these nascent firms into something they didn’t want or need to be.”

The book is a collection of theoretical deep dives into how communication, purpose and authority intersect, but there are plenty of practical takeaways for leaders looking for an edge in innovation.

“Organizations are these conglomerations of humans, practices, places, things, passions, times, histories and so on,” Kuhn said. “If managers think their proclamations will directly produce the outcomes they want, they are probably not long for their positions. Because nothing is that simple.”

New research suggests communications outside of a business’ core purpose can stimulate innovation and new lines of activity.

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Journalism Day makes triumphant return to Boulder

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 15:15:05 +0000

Journalism Day makes triumphant return to Boulder Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/08/2024 - 09:15

By Iris Serrano
Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm’18) and Jack Moody

The last time the Colorado Student Media Association held its tentpole celebration of high school journalism in Boulder, most Americans got their news in print or on TV. Facebook didn’t yet exist. And the most advanced thing you could do on a mobile phone was place a call.

J-Day, too, has changed as young people increasingly ask thoughtful questions about the future of the industry and its need to innovate.

But pessimism was nowhere in sight last week at the University of Colorado Boulder, which welcomed more than 1,400 high school students and advisors for a day of learning about journalism, the media and more.

Shelby Javernick, director of student recruitment and outreach at the College of Media, Communication and Information, has regularly attended J-Day in the past, when it was held at Colorado State University, “so I had an idea of what to expect, in terms of energy and enthusiasm,” she said. “But my expectations were completely blown away, in terms of the number of students, their passion and curiosity for learning about the media, and how they engaged with speakers, our campus and each other.”

Students had the opportunity to hear from industry and academic experts who discussed topics like social media, generative artificial intelligence and career readiness. Some of the most popular sessions included a panel featuring representatives of ��Ƶ Boulder student media organizations, a career prep session with 9News personalities, and multiple talks about sports journalism. Hundreds of students also attended tours of the campus, CMCI studios and academic spaces, and the campuses’ sports media operations.

For students like Colton Kominski, who’s active with Longmont High School’s yearbook, the event gave a new perspective on how to do his work effectively.

“The photography and videography session highlighted the importance of capturing people and their stories—and whether that’s through emotion, action or being spontaneous, it showed me the power that you can have in your photography,” said Kominski, a senior. “When you’re done with the yearbook, it’s like a time capsule—it will be held in the hands of your classmates for years to come.”

In her opening remarks, Lori Bergen, CMCI’s founding dean and a former reporter, spoke to the need for students to lead the charge as the news industry changes.

“I hope you leave here inspired about the craft of journalism and the importance of the media in today’s world, even as the industry adapts and innovates in the face of new challenges,” Bergen said.

Bigger than the news

While it’s called J-Day, the event isn’t just about journalism and the news—which is why it’s such a natural fit for CMCI. In addition to its journalism department, CMCI incorporates communication, information science, media studies and other related fields, challenging both students and faculty to explore the areas where these changing disciplines intersect—fertile ground for the careers of tomorrow.

“Journalism includes telling stories in a more interesting, intriguing and immersive way to get people to care about something,” Javernick said. “Within our college, there's a lot of overlap with journalism—everything connects because we're always going to need good storytellers.”

High school students who attended the workshops said the sessions reflected the balance CMCI aims to offer in its academic programs, including an emphasis on leadership and communication skills useful in any career—not just journalism.

Marley Rich, a junior from Aspen High School, said she enjoyed a session on how to be an editor for student media.

“I’m definitely going to try and connect with the other members of the staff more, and not isolate myself just because I’m editing their work,” said Rich, adding that the chance to see journalism “not as a concept, but actually as a career, has been really enlightening.”

Career insights

CMCI welcomed back Savannah Sellers (Jour’13), anchor for NBC News’ Morning News Now, as the keynote speaker. From the network’s New York headquarters, she offered words of encouragement from the perspective of someone who had once been in the shoes of the students in the room.

“Exploring journalism as a career opportunity can lead you to so many fantastic things in your life, and incredible opportunities,” she said. “It is a fun, rewarding, fulfilling path that is only getting more interesting, no matter if it’s changing. Also, I will say that ��Ƶ Boulder was a fabulous place to study it.”

Sellers knows a thing or two about those changes: She is a co-host on Stay Tuned, a daily NBC news program aimed at younger viewers and delivered via Snapchat. She encouraged the audience to continue to make strides as journalism evolves.

“We need young people who are interested and invested in getting the true and correct information—getting real journalism onto any and all platforms that consumers are migrating to—and you are best positioned to be able to do that,” Sellers said.

Having the opportunity to learn from an alumna like Sellers inspired many students, including Kominski, of Longmont.

“Hearing from Savannah Sellers was so amazing, because now I know it’s possible to get into this career and make it my own,” he said.

That’s a perspective Iris Berkeley (Jour’01), operations manager for the student-run Radio 1190 station, recalled from her own time as a ��Ƶ Boulder student.

“As an undergrad, I was heavily involved in student media, including not only Radio 1190 but also ��Ƶ’s campus press,” said Berkeley, who attended J-Day along with student representatives for the station. “Both of those activities were hugely important when it came to establishing a career, and just helping me figure out what I loved most about the media field.”

From those opportunities as a campus journalist, Berkeley has enjoyed a varied career in media and communication that has included radio production, hosting and DJing.

That sense of possibility is what Patrick Moring, executive board president for the Colorado Student Media Association, wants for the students who bring such enthusiasm to J-Day.

“J-Day fires students up, it gets students excited,” said Moring, also the advisor for Rampart High School’s television broadcast program. “It gives them ideas about the tools that they need to work on if they want to have a career in this field and be a better journalist.”

More than 1,400 Colorado high school students and advisors visited CMCI to sharpen storytelling skills and learn about careers in media and communication.

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The biggest and best yet: CMCI’s Class of 2028 poised to impress

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 23:23:57 +0000

The biggest and best yet: CMCI’s Class of 2028 poised to impress Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/03/2024 - 17:23

By Hannah Stewart (Comm'19)
Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm'18) and Jack Moody

First-generation college student Alexa Tovar grew up hearing about how her mother dreamed of attending ��Ƶ Boulder. Now, the first-year student is carrying on that dream for her at the College of Media, Communication and Information.

“She couldn’t come because she had two young kids,” she said. “Now, my cousins and I are all close in age, and are now going to college for our moms. It’s really special for me.”

CMCI’s Class of 2028 is really special in its own right. With 437 new first-year students, this fall’s new cohort is the college’s largest yet—smashing last year’s record-setting class by 12%. The size of the classes continue to grow, which helps maintain its commitments to diversity.

The growth trends are especially notable, as the university’s incoming class of first-year students dipped slightly from the year before, even though the overall size of the student body grew from fall 2023.

Some notes on the college’s growth:

Like last year, nearly 24% of incoming students are from diverse backgrounds.
Female students make up 64.7% of the CMCI Class of 2028. Notably, they represent slightly less than half of the campus population.
The college enjoyed a 10% bump in the number of out-of-state students.
They’re high achievers, with almost 20% of the class graduated with a high school GPA of 4.0 or greater.
Among majors, media production (15.1%) and communication (12%) saw the biggest growth in new students.

CMCI also added 78 transfer students—a 32% increase over the previous year. With 58 new graduate students, the number of incoming students is 573.

Tovar, a strategic communication major, learned about CMCI while on a campus tour. After meeting a college ambassador, she knew she had found the perfect fit.

“I really love public relations and talking to people,” Tovar said. “In high school, I got the opportunity to do an internship with Make-A-Wish, and I would write stories and do literally everything that a stratcomm major does.”

Finding community

In preparation for coming to college, Tovar participated in the Pathways to Excellence summer bridge program, which she said was essential to starting the semester with confidence. The experience was particularly impactful because it jump-started her campus community, especially with other first-year students, like Oscar Leon.

“Pathways is the best thing I’ve ever done,” Leon said. “It helped me come out of my bubble, and I was able to manage campus life a lot quicker.”

Leon, who is from Commerce City, applied to ��Ƶ Boulder as an education major, but quickly determined he wanted a program with more flexibility.

“I don’t want to only be a teacher—I want to be a communicator who can do a lot of different things and a lot of different jobs,” he said.

So far, that’s what he’s found within the communication department, especially among his collaborative and approachable professors.

But he’s also been appreciative of finding time to use his newfound independence. When he isn’t in class or meeting up with friends, he’s been enjoying exploring Boulder; finishing up his internship with Out Front Magazine, where he writes stories and helps with their social media; and checking out student groups.

“Welcoming new students is always special because of the diversity of passions and experiences they bring to our community,” said Lori Bergen, founding dean of the college. “Our students constantly impress me with their enthusiasm for learning and exploring new opportunities, and we’re thrilled to be part of their journey.”

Another communication major, Isabel Malik, said she was looking forward to learning more about CMCI in D.C., an immersive study-internship experience in the nation’s capital.

“I’m thinking about student government, and eventually want to look into lobbying, because I’d like to do something in politics,” said Malik, who’s also interested in minoring in political science and business. “I chose communication because it seems like a really good way to make an impact on the ever-changing world.”

“I love that we’re all in this huge class and learning the same thing, but we all have different paths. Finding someone on the same path, with a different background, is awesome.”
Isabel Malik, first year, communication

Growing up in Golden, Malik attended a tiny high school and is excited most about all the opportunities ��Ƶ Boulder has to offer. So far, meeting with professors and her peers has been her favorite part because of the variety of experiences.

“I love that we’re all in this huge class and learning the same thing, but we all have different paths. Finding someone on the same path, with a different background, is awesome.”

Finding opportunity

Information science major and Boston native Evan Bardinelli is, like Malik, eager to get involved, particularly with study abroad programs. He came to Boulder in part because of his love for the outdoors; some of his favorite hobbies include skiing and fishing.

“Going to school, living on my own and becoming more independent—all in Colorado—has been really exciting,” Bardinelli said. “I like my classes and I like my professors. Boulder has really good people, and it’s a good place to go to school and to learn. I go to class and I feel like I’m surrounded by people with similar interests.”

Through the residence halls, student groups and classes, the first-year class is diving headfirst into all that campus and the college has to offer.

“I’m so excited to get my hands on everything I can. College is such a big opportunity,” said Tovar, who is now a CMCI ambassador herself. “I’m really looking forward to seeing how I’m going to spend my time and fill my cup.”

The incoming class at CMCI is impressive—they’re the biggest class yet, with 573 new undergraduate and graduate students. From carrying on their parents’ dreams to finding their own, four students talked about why they’re excited to call ��Ƶ Boulder their new home.

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Demonstrative democracy: At forum, students show energy, curiosity about engaging with politics

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 21:32:25 +0000

Demonstrative democracy: At forum, students show energy, curiosity about engaging with politics Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/02/2024 - 15:32

By Joe Arney
Photos by Arielle Wiedenbeck

In sports, it’s often said, offense wins games, but defense wins championships.

For Cody Walizer, when it comes to politics, that’s inverted—good defense can win a debate, but it’s offense that wins elections. And that’s unusual because of how little time candidates spend on offense when they are sparring onstage.

“When someone has an opportunity to build, to go on the offense, but choose to play defense, that’s a bad sign for their position,” Walizer, an assistant teaching professor of communication in the College of Media, Communication and Information, said. “It’s also a sign maybe they’re trying to play these political games, as opposed to being a good debater.”

Walizer was one of nearly a dozen panelists speaking at a voter engagement fair put on by CMCI, ��Ƶ Student Government and the Office of the Chancellor, in association with ��Ƶ Boulder’s Conference on World Affairs. ��Ƶ 150 students attended on Tuesday night to ask questions about politics and elections, register to vote, and learn how to become involved in local elections.

Walizer was invited to participate because of his expertise in debate. He captained his high school debate team and has extensive experience coaching debaters, and said, “I can very firmly state that I have never seen a presidential or vice presidential debate that was a good debate.”

That’s because politicians rarely play offense, which Walizer described as constructing arguments and showing why your side is right. Instead, they play defense—deconstructing arguments and saying why the other side is wrong.

Three panels answered questions submitted by students ahead of time, which covered issues such as the role social media plays in political messaging, how ideology plays out with voters, and how students can involve themselves and help ensure electoral integrity.

Not taking sides

Leah Sprain, an associate professor of communication and director of the university’s Center for Communication and Democratic Engagement, co-moderated the event and frequently praised the quality of questions that students contributed.

Sprain studies democratic engagement, particularly how to support the ways people come together to make decisions on public issues—enabling participation, designing better meetings or rethinking civic norms. When she has worked to help other groups structure their meetings more effectively, she found participants may assume more knowledge about a particular issue than they actually possess.

“They wanted to hear more about how this election would have consequences throughout their lives,” Sprain said. “They were asking about how to make sense of politics, versus just taking sides on issues. That surprised me.”

Of nearly 200 student registrants, dozens submitted questions, “which is a proportion of interest you don’t typically see, especially when some people are registering for things like extra course credit.”

Some of the liveliest discussion concerned social media’s capacity for good and harm, through generative artificial intelligence, advertising and the like. Sandra Ristovska, associate professor of media studies, and Alex Siegel, associate professor of political science, said elections have always been shaped by new technologies. Siegel said the railroad and telegraph helped create a national audience for Abraham Lincoln by offering more timely coverage of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

“They were asking about how to make sense of politics, versus just taking sides on issues. That surprised me.”
Leah Sprain, associate professor, communication

Bogus content isn’t new, Ristovska said, and recent research suggests we’re good at not letting it influence how we vote, but in India’s elections earlier this year, “deepfakes did contribute to sexual harassment of women, the intimidation of journalists and the intimidation of human rights activists in the country,” she said. “We need to be paying more attention to those things.”

Michaele Ferguson, an associate professor of political science, talked about an essay she has students write at the start of her undergraduate course on modern ideologies. Each student describes his or her ideology; she consistently finds students support a mix of free-market economics and social justice issues, like reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights.

That’s not a coalition you typically see in the United States, she said, as those issues are claimed, respectively, by the right and left of the spectrum. Ferguson said she’s intrigued by Vice President Kamala Harris’ attempt to signal support for both camps “as a way to peel away voters who would otherwise sit out elections or vote Republican.”

“It’s really exciting to me to see her doing the very thing that my class exercise would tell you is the strategy to win an election in the United States.”

Other presenters included Chuck Plunkett, director of ��Ƶ News Corps; Toby Hopp, associate professor of advertising; Patrick Deneen, a visiting scholar at the university’s Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization; Molly Fitzpatrick (PolSci’11), Boulder County clerk; and junior Grace Covney, a tri-executive with ��Ƶ Student Government.

Learning to lead through government

Tyler Rowan, another ��ƵSG tri-executive and a junior studying international affairs, said he hoped the energy of the room translated into active participants in the election.

He got into student government not for partisan reasons, he said, but because “I wanted to make the most out of school and learn how to lead. Student government has taught me that—it’s taken a majority of my time, but I’m very passionate about it and it’s the best decision I ever made.”

That youthful energy was exciting for Walizer to see, as well.

“The emotional intelligence students need to have to be asking things about how do I engage in politics in a way that’s healthy, how do I have conversations with my roommates in a way that’s respectful—those are not things I’ve seen asked in a situation like this before,” he said.

In addition to being open to all ��Ƶ Boulder students, the discussion was livestreamed to audiences at Colorado Mesa University, in Grand Junction, and Fort Lewis College, in Durango. It was followed by a live viewing of the vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz.

Lori Bergen, founding dean of CMCI, kicked off the event by encouraging students to seek out difficult conversations as a way to learn and grow.

“On our campus, we really are in a place where difficult conversations can and should occur,” Bergen said. “When we approach those with courage and curiosity and care and consistency, that’s when learning and growth and progress really happen.”

CMCI faculty panelists praised students for raising thoughtful, serious, nonpartisan questions about how to be active citizens.

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Make it STOP: Does replying to spam texts from politicians really block them?

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 20:21:47 +0000

Make it STOP: Does replying to spam texts from politicians really block them? Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/26/2024 - 14:21

By Joe Arney
Illustration by Dana Heimes

Think your phone’s blowing up with spam text messages from candidates and campaigns?

Buckle up—you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Federal Election Commission’s final pre-election filing deadline for campaigns is Oct. 24. Expect a ton of texts as that date approaches, said Bridget Barrett, an assistant professor of advertising at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information.

What can you do to dodge the digital deluge? Not much, she said.

“This has been an extremely contentious election season,” said Barrett, who studies digital marketing and political communication. “Campaigns are chasing every advantage right now, and as long as texting continues to work, they’ll keep doing it.”

There’s no single way most people wind up on a list to receive campaign texts. Usually, she said, you gave money at some point, or you signed up for something without realizing that you were giving your number to a political organization. It might also be through a merchandise sale, or if you fill out an online poll.

“There are different national rules and state laws around list swapping among different companies and fundraising organizations, and many different data privacy laws at different levels—but once you’re on a list, you’re likely to get texts from people you did not directly opt in with,” she said. “It’s hard because there are so many ways for your data to be collected and then shared.”

“Campaigns are chasing every advantage right now, and as long as texting continues to work, they’ll keep doing it.”
Bridget Barrett, assistant professor, advertising

There are a few steps consumers can take to silence the annoying alerts. Replying STOP every time you get one of these messages will, eventually, cut down on the number of texts you get, “though it probably won’t stop them altogether,” she said.

Another step is to be discerning about giving out your information. “Consider using services where you can create burner email addresses, and think twice before handing over your phone number,” she said.

Barrett also advised consumers to register their phones through the Federal Trade Commission’s Do Not Call registry, though candidates and campaigns are exempt from the protections it offers. Voters can also update their registrations to remove their phone numbers; however, she said, that is unlikely to be a source for texts like these.

Longer term, Barrett is watching the arms race between phones and campaigns—especially how political camps will respond as mobile service providers and handset manufacturers introduce better spam filters to protect user data.

She’s also interested to see whether campaigns start limiting this kind of outreach, especially if they see it’s turning people off.

“No one is concerned about that right now, because they’re still seeing a return on their investment,” she said. “There might be a postmortem in the future to look at whether this is sustainable—on the right, we did see some burnout and a decrease in donations after the 2016 election—but right now, the only concern is getting people elected.”

A CMCI expert offers advice on taking back your phone this election season.

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We’re not going to agree. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 15:22:24 +0000

We’re not going to agree. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/19/2024 - 09:22

By Joe Arney

How do you get that neighbor, relative or coworker to change their mind about abortion, gun control or immigration?

You won’t. And Matthew Koschmann wishes you’d stop trying.

The associate professor of communication at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information said our personal experiences should have taught us by now that those who don’t agree with us won’t be swayed by us correcting the information that’s led them to their beliefs.

“If anything, it’s the opposite,” Koschmann said. “We live in a very information rich—if not gluttonous—environment, and more information does not necessarily make us change our minds. … Most of us don’t say, ‘Oh, thank you for correcting me on my assumptions about the world.’”

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk to each other, a theme Koschmann returned to during Monday’s Difficult Dialogues series hosted by the university’s Center for Humanities & the Arts. He was part of a panel examining political polarization and how to stay good neighbors at a time of deep division in the United States.

“If you can’t talk about something, you can’t fix it,” said Jennifer Ho, director of the center, in opening the discussion. “So, how do we find a way forward—how do we stay good neighbors, no matter what results happen in November or in January?”

Polarization and the press

“If we bring it back to experience, it can be a moment of sharing, rather than a moment of debating positions of things that are very personal to us—which is very difficult.”
Angie Chuang, associate professor, journalism

The panel also featured Angie Chuang, an associate professor of journalism at CMCI and a former journalist whose research looks at race and identity, especially as presented by the media.

“The news media is part of the problem,” she said. “It informs people, and creates this rich source of information, but it oftentimes polarizes people.”

It’s a problem that’s arguably gotten worse in the digital age, as the number of publications and platforms has mushroomed. Instead of the mid-19th century penny presses, clickbait proliferates through alternative news sites.

“The news media is not there to improve our national dialog or improve our nuanced understanding,” Chuang said. “There are individual journalists who are trying really hard, and there are organizations trying to fight this—but as a marketplace, it is trying to get advertising money. Understand that, and you become a savvier media consumer.”

Chuang and Koschmann were joined on the panel by Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett, as well as moderator Michaele Ferguson, an associate professor in the university’s department of political science.

If you’ve tried to have conversations with people who don’t share your views, you know how difficult the proposition can be. Chuang said our social identities—race, gender, sexuality, religion and others—are seen as essential to who we are, so when that becomes the topic, discussion quickly veers off course.

“If I were to say, ‘Michelle, your views on the economy and foreign trade are just totally ignorant, and I can’t even understand why you think the way you do,’” Chuang said to Ferguson, “it comes off differently than if I say, ‘Michelle your views on race are completely ignorant.’

“If I say, tell me your experience based on your identities, that is a different conversation than, ‘Why is your position on policing or affirmative action the way it is?’ If we bring it back to experience, it can be a moment of sharing, rather than a moment of debating positions of things that are very personal to us—which is very difficult.”

Defusing disagreements

As the mayor of a city with a well-publicized progressive bent, you might expect Brockett’s days are spent on friendly territory, but spoke about the difficult conversations he’s had with residents on any number of issues. He defuses such situations by offering to learn about how the other person formed their viewpoint, and sharing materials that demonstrate where he’s coming from.

It doesn’t always work, he said. Once, he sent a peer-reviewed paper to a resident to shine light on an issue, which she countered by sending a thesis proposal from a master’s student that she found online.

“On almost any topic, you can find something to support a position, any position, somewhere on the internet,” Brockett said. Online, he said, “many of us are accustomed to getting feedback loop, hearing the same viewpoints over and over again—and then it becomes inconceivable to you how other people might think something different.”

The panelists agreed that those difficult conversations are worth having because when you find a moment of connection, it’s authentic and validating. Just don’t go in expecting to bring people around to your ideological corner.

“If you are interested in being influential and persuasive in implementing change in your community, the most effective thing you can do is not explicitly try to change people’s minds,” Koschmann said. “Try to live a beautiful life of human flourishing, that is attractive and winsome, that draws people to you—and then people say, ‘What’s going on, tell me more about your interests and why you’re happy.’”

Two CMCI professors took part in a community roundtable to explore how we can stay good neighbors amid intense polarization.

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