Internal support from Media School initiatives help faculty pursue external research opportunities
Two new internal Media School grants will support six faculty research projects this summer.
The idea for the Summer Faculty Fellowships was formulated in the spring of 2023 when former interim dean Walter Gantz and Associate Dean and Herman B Wells Endowed Professor Radhika Parameswaran recognized the need to incentivize faculty to submit grant proposals to external agencies.
These initiatives aim to encourage faculty to apply for external grants and provide an opportunity for them to refine their projects and actively pursue funding support. Faculty receive salary support over the summer months to develop and write grant proposals that will be submitted to appropriate external agencies.
“If your research can have a very good fit for an agency, and you can dream big and take a project from this (small) scale to this (large) scale, then we want to encourage our faculty to develop funding proposals,” said Parameswaran. “We’re hoping that with these external grants, our faculty can do bold projects, they can do ambitious projects, larger scale projects, and innovative projects that involve some risk taking.”
The Grant-in-Aid Program was a collaborative effort between Director of Research and Creative Activity Nicole Martins and the Research and Creative Activity Committee, with Martins serving as the committee’s chair. Martins and the committee saw an opportunity to allocate surplus funds from their budget toward supporting faculty projects.
Members of the committee include Julien Mailland, Rachel Plotnick, Harmeet Sawhney, Susanne Schwibs, and Sung-Un Yang.
“External grants typically come with specific project scopes and eligibility criteria, leaving some research needs unmet,” Martins said. “Internal funding initiatives can fill these gaps by supporting smaller-scale projects, pilot studies, or interdisciplinary collaborations that may not fit within the parameters of larger grants.”
These initiatives can also be the first crucial step towards conceptualizing new projects.
“It’s a good avenue to first explore the evolving boundaries of research and creative activity projects within the internal environment of the school, to say, ‘let me start giving shape to my project, let me use this as a springboard to craft a project, and then to keep in mind that even if I get rejected from this, maybe I can use what I’ve written up to apply to other places,’” Parameswaran said.
Media School Dean David Tolchinsky echoes the sentiments of Parameswaran and Martins adding, “Applying for research grants puts you in conversation with your colleagues within the university and around the world, sharpens your thinking about your research and creative projects, and gets The Media School’s name out there, which is good for us all. I am very excited to support these programs and our faculty who pursue grants.”
Research and Creativity Grant-in-Aid Program
The Research and Creativity Grant-in-Aid Program was first awarded to Media School faculty this year.
The program offers funding for both individual and collaborative projects to aid in various pursuits including access to materials, large-scale survey panels, and travel expenses and equipment related to research or creative work. Individuals are awarded up to $3,000, and collaborations are awarded up to $7,000.
2024 Winner
Associate professors Jason Peifer and Mike Gruszczynski will use the grant to conduct a collaborative survey project in Germany and the United States in 2025. They seek to build upon their collaboration with scholars at Freie Universität Berlin and the IU Europe Gateway office that resulted in an online symposium in January focused on emerging threats to media and democracy worldwide.
Their project includes programming an in-person workshop in Berlin with IU Europe Gateway and developing a research agenda that explores how conspiracy theories intersect with governmental and societal structures.
Summer Faculty Fellowship
The Summer Faculty Fellowship enables faculty to devote themselves to writing and eventually submitting an application for external funding over the summer. All full-time faculty within The Media School engaging in research or creative activity who have specifically identified an external opportunity/agency are eligible to receive $8,000 for the fellowship.
Recipients must share their experiences and/or research projects at a future M-600 colloquium, which introduces current media research through the work of school members and visiting scholars.
2024 winners
- Associate professor Cara Caddoo’s book-length study, “Captive and Captivated Audiences: Native American Film Exhibition 1903-1929,” examines Native American film exhibition and filmgoing during the silent era (1896-1929).
- Associate professor Mike Gruszczynski’s research, “Politics, Information, and Gender on Indian Election Wikipedia Pages” studies gender politics and how this impacts the information created on Wikipedia pages about Indian elections and politicians.
- Director of Cinema and Media Studies and professor Raiford Guins explores the ecology, growth, and impact of game collections in museums in his book-length study, “Museum Games: Observations on the Transformations of Cultural Institutions by Playable Technologies.”
- Associate professor Minjeong Kang examines change communication process models within an organization and its employees in her research, “Change Communication Process Model for Employee Readiness and Well-being: Communication Audit Case Study.”
- Assistant professor Esi E. Thompson’s project is titled, “Communicating and addressing care for cognitive decline in Ghana, Estimating the need and developing home-based care intervention.”
2023 winners
- Associate professor Jason Peifer aimed to extend his studies of media systems and his concept of Perceived News Media Importance to an international context in Germany with his project, “A Cross-National Study of Public Engagement Forums & Perceptions of Importance.”
- Associate professor Rachel Plotnick explores the technological development of glass and its impact on culture, marketing, and health while considering themes of fragility and mess in a book project titled, “Testing Toughness: A History of Glass Made Durable.”
- Associate professor Ryan Powell’s project analyzes the relationship between popular music, cassette technologies, and cinema.
- Associate professor Andrew Weaver aimed to conduct three studies examining race in player characters and key non-player characters in games, considering how race influences a potential player’s interest in playing.
“Congrats to all the recipients and wow, what an intriguing list of projects,” Tolchinsky said. “I’m so excited to learn more about the important projects that our amazing Media School faculty are pursuing.