URCA, also known as Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Symposium, will be held at Ashland University on Wednesday April 8th. This University-wide conference gives students the opportunity to present their research and concepts that they have worked on leading up to this point. These categories can range from the fine arts, the humanites, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. Three students in our Department of Communication Studies (DOCS) program will be scheduled to present this day.
Sophomores Haley Pittman and Courtney Troyer have worked together to prepare and present "Then and Now: The Kardiac Kids," while Senior Lauren Miller will be presenting "Obama and Isis." Their abstracts are available to be read below.
Then and Now: The Kardiac Kids
Courtney Troyer and Haley Pittman
Students’ Majors: Sport Communication and Public Relations (CT); Sport Communication, Public Relations, and Health and Risk Communication (HP)
Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Dariela Rodriguez, Communication
"The 1980 Cleveland Browns, commonly known as the Kardiac Kids, was a team to remember for the dedicated fans of Cleveland. Giving fans a last minute victory was a reason enough to go into “kardiac” arrest, quickly to earn the respectable name. This nerve-wracking but victorious team directly connects to the concept of a sports hero in mythology and how people treat this concept as if it is their religion. The concept of mythology dates back to the age of the ancient Greeks. In Greek mythology, heroes were seen to be bigger than the average man, achieving historic accomplishments, victories. In the world of sport, the sport heroes were created in the same manner. Although many sports heroes may not be victorious with every move they make, they will always be looked back upon and be remembered as legendary because of their accomplishments. Without the product of the media in today’s society, these sport legends would not be as recognizable and made to be who they are today. As we move forward from 1980 away from the Kardiac Kids, statistics show that the “Kardiac Kids 2.0” are on the rise in the Brown’s 2014 NFL season. In preparation for our analysis of this topic, we researched old articles and stories that were written about the 1980 Browns team. We then continued to search for articles that were written during the 2014 season about this years’ Cleveland Browns to show the comparisons that were being made between the two teams."
Obama and ISIS
Lauren Miller
Student’s Major: Health and Risk Communication
Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Dariela Rodriguez, Communication
"Through great events in time, the media has adopted the techniques of media framing and agenda setting to effectively report the news. These techniques allow the media to emphasize topics and frame specific parts of a story. However, such framing often results in a bias towards one party over the other. For example, news affiliates such as NBC use agenda setting to downplay the actions of one political party by highlighting specific quotes or phrases. Media framing has also been used as effective tool drawing attention to specific parts of a story. In recent months, an organization known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has made its presence known to the world through wartime acts and plots intended to bring harm to westerners. Agenda setting and media framing have been the key components to how the media has portrayed and reported news about ISIS. A content analysis of news stories garnered from news websites (e.a., Fox News, CNN) indicated that Americans are at risk for being swayed in the direction of the news source political affiliation. Regardless of the media outlet, viewers only have a short segment to which they can create their own opinion on the matter."
