Kaitlin Phillips Receives Presidential Graduate Fellowship

UNL’s Department of Communication Studies is delighted to congratulate Doctoral Candidate Kaitlin Phillips on receiving one of the select University of Nebraska system-wide Presidential Graduate Fellowships for 2016-17. Dr. Dawn O. Braithwaite, Communication Studies Department Chair observed, “Kaitlin is incredibly deserving of this honor and we are delighted that her work has been recognized with this award. The fellowship will allow Kaitlin to pursue her dissertation work full-time this academic year.”  http://comm.unl.edu/phillips-receives-graduate-fellowship

Aleah Peters: Miss Nebraska

UNL Department of Communication Studies congratulates our recent graduate, Aleah Peters who has been named Miss Nebraska. As part of her duties, Aleah will travel across the state to share her platform entitled, “Cyberbullying Prevention: Make Kindness Viral.”  She will speak at many schools throughout the state.  As Aleah expressed to us, “I really enjoyed majoring in Communication Studies and learning how to communicate, advocate, negotiate, and educate. Public speaking is a major component of my job and I look forward to using all of the skills I've learned at UNL!” Congratulations Aleah!

Miss Nebraska 2016

Communication Studies students selected to Phi Beta Kappa

The Department of Communication Studies congratulates Reagan Jones and Geoffrey Ledbetter, who were initiated into the select Phi Beta Kappa honor society. Phi Beta Kappa chapters appear in only about 10% is universities and selection is very competitive. PBK includes 17 U.S. Presidents, 37 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and 136 Nobel Laureates.  Congrats to Regan and Geoff!

Phi Beta Kappa Society

UNL News source

Change the Talk

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Communication Studies is proud of the research in action by Dr. Amanda Holman, Assistant Professor of Communication at Creighton University. She is creating public service announcements entitled, “Change the Talk” with local high school students on having "the talk" with their parents. The project is based on her doctoral dissertation earned in 2014.

Creighton professor, high school students team up to "change the talk"

Make Yourself Meme

Richard Dawkins (2006) created the term “meme” as a way of describing how culture is transmitted. Memes are key to this transmission through sharing and longevity. The concept of meme grew in an online presence (Shifman, 2009).

When the word meme began gaining popularity, I (embarrassingly) thought it was “Me – Me” because the memes were all about me. There were “25 Things about Me” and “Four Questions about Me” notes in Facebook (remember those?). Then there was “Gratuitous Picture of Yourself Wednesday” (Thanks, Tumblr!).  Famous bloggers posted their first memes. A coloring book was made. 

Recently, Colin McGinn discusses the role of memes in his New York Times article, Memes, Dreams & Themes. McGinn argues that memes spread like a virus through each other’s minds. When we have a commercial jingle or pop song stuck in our head, it’s a meme. Memes are not always silly – they are closely related to culture. Memes spread culture and ideas. They can spread art, ideologies, and unwritten rules.

McGinn asks us to consider the difference between memes (those that are “mentally manipulated”) and those that are themes (those that are “genuinely good,” like, say, the oxford comma). Intermixed within the question, is another question to consider: if a meme spreads, who is to say it’s not good?  Perhaps Gratuitous Picture of Yourself Wednesday (GPOYW) isn’t actually gratuitous, but these photos may be empowering or expressive. Is determining the value of a meme similar to determining the value of art?

I think the bigger question to the value of a meme lies at an exterior level: How are memes spreading? What makes a meme circulate? Memetic and cultural circulation seem closely linked to engagement, emotion, and creativity of the audience.

Likewise, literature about memorable messages tell us the ideas that stick are closely related to individual emotion and relatability (or recognition) in addition to an audience and value. These characteristics are linked to storytelling as a way of generating meaning. When your idea or product sits within a narrative or you can place it in your own narrative, ideas and memes can stick and spread.

And this is important, because marketing your selfie means people have to notice it.

--Janell Walther 

Check out research from the Fall 2015 Capstone poster session!

Final Project for COMM 354

Students in Dr. Angela Palmer-Wackerly's COMM 354, Health Communication, course produced this video as part of a final project that asked them to produce a health campaign.

Look familiar?

Congratulations to NCA Top Papers by UNL Graduate Students

Congratulations to Communication Studies doctoral candidate Jamie Downing who has two Top Papers at the upcoming NCA conference in Las Vegas in November 2015.  Her paper “Escaping Entelechy: Exploring Intersections of Piety and Style” is one of the Top Papers in the Kenneth Burke Society. Her paper, “Keeping the Feast: Digitality, Counterpublics, and Conversations Surrounding Christian Seders” is a Top Student Paper in the Religious Communication Division.

Congratulations to Communication Studies doctoral candidate Jon Carter who has a Top Paper at the upcoming NCA conference in Las Vegas in November 2015. His paper, “Good Metonyms Make Great Metaphors: Embracing the Opportunities for Scientific Forms in Non-Scientific Contexts” is one of the Top Papers in the Kenneth Burke Society.

Congratulations to Communication Studies doctoral candidate Julia Moore who has been awarded a Top Paper award and the Top Student Paper award by the Western States Communication Association’s Interpersonal Communication Interest Group for her paper, “Where is the critical empirical interpersonal communication research? A roadmap for future inquiry.”  The paper will be presented in at the annual meeting of the Western States Communication Association in San Diego CA in February 2016.

Congratulations to Communication Studies doctoral candidates Jordan Allen and Nicole Allen who have been awarded a Top Paper award by the Western States Communication Association’s Interpersonal Communication Interest Group for their paper, “Complicating and Critiquing the Classical Twin Methodology: Decentring Biogenetic Approaches to Twin Studies." The paper will be presented in at the annual meeting of the Western States Communication Association in San Diego CA in February 2016.

Top 10 Ways My Years in the US Army Prepared Me for Grad School in Communication Studies

For Veteran’s Day Nov. 11, 2015

10.  Sleep?!  You don’t need sleep!  You can sleep when you’re dead!  You’ve got a research paper due!

9.  Just like the military, the professors arm you…but with research studies, texts, and their years of knowledge!

8.  It’s not just a job…it’s an adventure! (You get to eat, breath, and live Communication Studies 24/7!)

7. Drill sergeants don’t yell, they simply talk loud enough so that everyone can hear them! (I never knew this whole time they were teaching me about Berger and diBattista’s (1993) study, Communication failure and plan adaptation: If at first you don’t succeed, say it louder and slower!) 

6.  On those super long class days when you don’t have time to stop for lunch, you realize that the vending machines in Oldfather Hall serve gourmet meals comparable to an MRE packet (meals-ready-to-eat)! 

5.  The army exercises your body – the Comm Studies’ profs exercise your mind!

4.  Forget the camouflage.  It won’t help you hide if you’re not prepared for class!

3. The Comm Studies' professors are like drill sergeants – they constantly push you to a higher level 

of achievement you never knew you could reach!

2.  The road march is long and hard and all uphill!  But the view from the mountaintop on graduation day will be well worth the journey!

1.  Now you’re ready to: “Be!  All that you can be…in Communication Studies!” HOOAH! J

by Carol Tschampl-Diesing, a first year PhD student and US Army veteran

Dawn O. Braithwaite wins the Ferris Award

Dawn O. Braithwaite, Willa Cather Professor and Chair of Communication Studies, will receive the James Ferris Award for Contributions to Communication and Disability Studies from the National Communication Association Disability Issues Caucus (2015).  Dawn and co-honoree Teresa Thompson (University of Dayton) are two of the earliest disability communication researchers in the communication discipline and published the Handbook of Communication and People with Disabilities: Research and Application (2000, Erlbaum). 

The selection committee “recognized their important contributions to the field.” The award will be presented at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association in Las Vegas in November.

National Communication Association Disability Issues Caucus supports NCA’s commitment to inclusiveness and diversity by promoting accessibility to all NCA activities for all interested parties, especially through coordinating efforts with NCA leadership to meet both the letter and spirit of ADA laws. The caucus also provides a forum for scholarship on disability and communication that includes the critical area of Disability Studies.