Able to Engage in Communication Inquiry:
1. Media Conglomerate paper – COME 124 The purpose of this paper was to further understand media conglomerates and their role in the media industry. The media conglomerate I analyzed was National Amusements including their history, executives, and how the amount of power media conglomerates have on viewers isn’t realized by many who consume the content.
2. Dissemination Project – COME 352 In our Media Effects class taught by Professor Kretz our final project was to create a dissemination project, that is, a piece of communication designed to distribute scientific knowledge about media effects to an audience. My partner and I decided to choose on writing a magazine targeted for parents of young girls. The topic was centered around the effects that Disney Princess films have on young girls perceptions of relationships and gender roles as they age.
3. Tetrad Paper – COME 384 This is one of the essays I wrote in my Communication Technology and Social Change class taught by Professor Mark Glantz. For this essay, we used Marshall McLuhan’s ideas about media and technology to analyze a new communication medium. I decided on analyzing the Amazon Echo Dot looking at the four questions connected to the tetrad including: What does it enhance or intensify, render obsolete or displace, retrieve that was previously obsolesced, and produce or become when pressed to an extreme?
Create Messages Appropriate to the Audience, Purpose, and Context:
1. Poster Project – COME 124 I selected a Media Professional Exploration as my topic for the final project. In this project I selected PR as my media-related job and provided a job description, the income projected, normal work activities, skills and personality that best fits the role, steps to get into PR, and the career outlook. After doing my research I got to present my project to the class in the form of my final poster.
2. Digital Storytelling Report – COME 384 For this project we were required to create a project using “new media” in a form that broadly falls under the classification of digital storytelling. Our project, SNC Building Wars, gave St. Norbert College community members the chance to vote for their favorite on-campus buildings through a fun, bracket-style competition. Using Twitter as our chosen platform, we created a March Madness inspired bracket that pitted 32 buildings from around St. Norbert’s campus against each other. To mimic March Madness’ format, we split the competition up into five distinct rounds, all of which featured multiple 24-hour, two-item Twitter Polls that audience members used to vote for their preferred buildings. Because polls can become redundant over time, we decided to give each building a different personality/”opening statement” as a way to add humor and interest to our digital story. This project made our group need to become more familiar with our media platform and how to interact with our target market.
3. Blog Assignment – COME 384 The purpose of this project was to create a blog that was completely original in order to get used to managing a media platform and using creativity to deliver a message. My project was a Blog that showed what celebrities would be if they were objects. This is established based on using their first or last name to create an image that combines the literal meaning of their names into an object.
4. Event Planning Final Paper – B6MK107 (Ireland) The entire class was centered around putting on a large event that would be accomplished through various groups in the class. We got to work in multi-cultural teams to create this event and I was in charge of the Creative and Innovation team who was in charge of designing advertising materials, decorating the space, and creating the materials needed to have a successful event.
5. Marketing Communications Final – B6MK102 (Ireland) For our final we were to pick a brand that had a negative brand identity and create an IMC campaign that would correct the image and create a larger market for the company. We picked Uber as our brand and decided to make an app element that would allow users to rate safety of their driver as well as the driver rating their passenger.
Critically Analyze Messages:
1.Final: Analysis of an Artifact – COME 324 For this project, we decided to analyze a Barbie ad campaign. The original artifact we analyzed was a commercial that has five young girls taking on professional roles. We decided to take the slogan that this campaign used, “Imagine the Possibilities” and put our own unique spin on it. When creating the new artifact, we wanted to maintain the inspirational tone geared towards females that was established by the original artifact. Therefore, we kept the slogan but instead of using young girls, we incorporated influential women who can serve as role models. The overall message has remained the same, girls can be anything they want if they have the ability to “imagine the possibilities”.
2.Freedom for the Thought We Hate Essay – COME 364 The purpose of this assignment was to prepare a reflection of the First Amendment combining what we have learned during class and in the book Freedom for the Thought That We Hate, by Anthony Lewis. Our paper discussed issues, arguments, and implications involving the First Amendment in particular when the President ordered wiretapping of Americans’ international telephone calls and analyzing if the terrorists succeeded in the process of destroying a fundamental right upon which our democracy is based?
3. Black Mirror Essay – COME 384 In our Communication Technology and Social Change class we focused on how new media technologies have unintended consequences. Our focus of this paper was to view a Black Mirror episode and analyze what the episode is trying to warn it’s viewers about and how that is connected to existing technologies and the problems that they contribute to society.
