Graduate students present research and films during Common Ground conference
The Media School Graduate Association hosted its eighth annual Common Ground conference last weekend in Franklin Hall. The theme for the 2024 conference was “Perspectives.”
The theme encouraged submissions exploring the perspectives that have shaped ways of thinking, challenged prior knowledge, and transformed certain disciplines. For the first time, the conference also welcomed short film submissions from both graduate and undergraduate students.
Assistant professor Ryan Comfort and IU Cinema director Alicia Kozma delivered keynote speeches at the beginning of the conference on April 12. Afterwards, conference attendees gathered in Franklin Hall 312 for food and film submission screenings.
Below is a list of students and their films:
- Abi Yates, “The Opening Scene”
- Ruby Berin, “Faded Memories”
- Brian Johnson, “Inner Voice”
- Xavier DeVany, “F*ck”
- Jack Bassett, “Soured Success”
- Bruno Dariva, “Flies”
- Caleb Allison, “Rough Cut”
- Ahmed Tahsin Shams, “The Story of Akin Adeṣọkan”
- Ayturk Tashpolat, “The Face of Grief”
The conference’s second day was dedicated to hosting panels for graduate students to present and discuss their research. The day began with opening remarks by doctoral student Shobha S V. Below is a list of students and their presentations:
- Di Cui, “The Shift from News Production to News Reproduction”
- Raquel S. Arias Labrador, “LGBTQ+ Representation in Children’s Cartoons: Explicitness, Homonormativity and Meaning”
- Gillian Paxton, “The State of Media Literacy Education in Indiana Schools”
- Kristin Wells, “The University of Wyoming’s Black 14 and Mizzou’s Concerned Student 1950: Sport Documentary, Historiography, and the Collegiate Athletic Protest”
- Trizah Ombewa, “Examining Public Perceptions of Investigative Journalism and its Influence: BBC Documentary on Child Trafficking in Kenya”
- Vlada Lodesk, “This Is Home” and “‘Cinematic’ Functions of Natural Language in Accented Nonfiction Cinema”
- Molly Radecki, “Work In Progress”
- Sam Smucker, “Expatriate Cinema and Anti-Colonialism: Melvin Van Peebles in Algeria”
- Ahmed Tahsin Shams, “Neo-Baroque Visions and Dialogic Intermediality in Sorrentino’s Cinematic Universe”
- Cole Nelson, “Anticolonial Historiography in the Films of the Victor Jara Collective”
- Ines Yu, Neil Ni, and Dr. John Velez, “Diamonds are a Player’s Best Friend”
- Haley Pierce, Jennifer Hwang, and Dr. Betsi Grabe, “Partisan Cues as a Key Determinant for Misinformation Processing: Measuring Psychophysiological Responses to Misinformation”
Doctoral candidate Chih-Ju (Carol) Lin presents research on cultural politics surrounding the Silk Road International Film Festival in China. (Emma Ramirez | The Media School) - Arijit Paladhi, “Predicting News Deserts Using Supervised Machine Learning”
- I-Lin Liu, “Two Modernizations: Widescreen Cinema and the Authoritarian State in 1950’s Taiwan”
- Carol Chih-Ju Lin, “Dreaming the World Differently: The Cultural Politics of the Silk Road International Film Festival in China”
- Anna Stamm, “Tarzian’s Television: Broadcasting Geography and Industry in Bloomington, Indiana”
- Sohini Chakraborty, “Tangled Pleasures: A Look into the Shifting Artistic Trajectory of Shibari”
- Xan Smith, “Studying Genderqueer Avatars”
- Narmeen Ijaz, “Beyond the Veil: Muslin Women Filmmakers Using Documentary to Make Visible the Invisible”
- Jim Ochieng, Kevin Mudavadi, and Dr. Betsi Grabe, “Mitigating Information Insecurity: An African Perspective on Satisfaction with Democracy”
- Harriet Ayiku, “An Analysis of Social Media Discourse Regarding Bullying Dynamics on Big Brother Naija All-Stars Season”
- Caroline Obuya, “Media Representations and Framing of Single Use Plastic Bags Focusing on Kenya”
