BYU School of Communications Graduate Program

2018 Fall admitted students!

In a late-night text chain, a cohort of BYU communications master’s students, entrenched in a selfie-saturated social media culture, asked the question: what motivates me and you — and people of all ages, cultures, genders and religions — to take and share selfies?

The answer, at least per common perception, seems simple: narcissism. But in their study, recently published in Visual Communication Quarterly, the five student researchers showed that individuals’ motives often extend beyond self-obsession and showing off.

https://news.byu.edu/news/what-kind-selfie-taker-are-you

What kind of selfie taker are you? BYU grad-student research says taking and posting pictures of yourself doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a narcissist.

Congratulations to two of our students who plan to pursue futher education!

Casey McDonald was accepted to University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications PhD Program. Janice Cho will be going to Texas Tech University for their Media and Communications Ph. D program. Both students plan to start their new journey from Fall 2016.

Besides Casey and Janice who will be continuing their educations, our other awesome students are also wrapping up their theses to march into different chapter of their lives! We wish best luck in all of our graduate students.

We sure picked bunch of bright scholars.

Last but never the least, Erica Rivera's study on "Gendered Food: A Survey of Contempory Food Blogging and Gender Roles" was presented by "Lotica" (Lottie + Erica) because Erica was busy tending her baby who joined the Rivera family couple weeks ago. The session was titled Gender and Media studies.

Following right after BYU's third presentation, Janice Cho was fourth up to present. She presented "Ethinic Majority's Love for Minority Culture: Q sort Analysis on Why Caucasians Fall for Foreign Music" as panalist at the Asian Popular Culture session.

Third up was Casey McDonald presenting her "The power of Love and Justice: Gloablization of Sailor Moon" at the Fandom Goes Global session.

Second up was our Professor, the Q Master, Dr. Tom Robinson. He presented in the Q methodology and the Study of Popular Culure session today morning.

If you are a fan of The Walking Dead / Fear the Walking Dead, and/or if you want to know why in the world people watch horror genre movies, his researches will explain the reasonings behind their popularity!

Our very own, Lottie (Peterson) Johnson successfully presented her paper "You may say I'm a streamer, but I'm not the only one" at ACA/PCA conference at Seattle, Washington today. We'll have three more graduate students (Casey McDonald, Erica Rivera, Janice Cho) and Dr. Tom Robinson do their presentations on Friday. We're excited to show off BYU power here!

As students and faculties focusing heavy in research, particularly from the internet, we should always keep this quote in mind.

Graduate students, are you clocking in & out when you work as research assistants? Don't forget to log when you work. We don't want our students to starve and hang out near the dumpsters (Robinson & Boyle, 2016).