Undergraduate Research
Students in associate professor Joe Bob Hester’s “Advertising and Public Relations Research” course analyzed a variety of social media content (Twitter, Facebook, sports blogs, etc.) to gain insight into sports fans' perceptions of the Charlotte Bobcats. They presented their findings in December to representatives of the Bobcats and Fox Sports Carolinas. During the spring 2010 semester, students in an “Advertising Campaigns” course will use the results to help develop a marketing communications campaign for the Bobcats.
- Associate professor Sri Kalyanaraman encourages undergraduate students in his "Process & Effects of Mass Communication" course (JOMC 445) to present their research at national and international academic conferences. Kalyanaraman’s students conduct original research projects examining media effects of a wide range of socially meaningful issues, such as online dating strategies, television consumption and the perception of social reality, user perceptions of social media, and the effects of anti-smoking PSAs. The students’ work has been accepted to prestigious academic conferences held by organizations such as the International Communication Association and the National Communication Association.
- Each year, senior undergraduate honors students design and conduct an original research project. Recent students have conducted content analyses, experiments, surveys, historical and legal analysis, and an online focus group with adolescent girls. They studied a wide variety of topics including whether green magazine issues attract newsstand sales; whether war reporters should be treated for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome; if Chinese newspapers covered the Beijing Olympics more positively than The New York Times; and if blogs are the future of political news. Each student works with three faculty members who are experts on the topic throughout the fall and spring semesters. The students then “defend” the completed project to this faculty committee in April and present their findings at the Celebration for Undergraduate Research at the end of the spring semester.
