CMS News Archives
The CMS Class of 2008 will be giving their thesis presentations today, Friday, March 21, 2008, from 11AM to 6PM in room 35-225. The event is open to the public; CMS students, faculty, associates and friends of the program are all warmly welcomed to attend.
10:30-11:00 AM
Coffee and Pastries
11:00-11:45 AM
Information Visualization for the People
Michael Danziger
An analysis of the field of information visualization focusing on the theoretical and methodological challenges associated with conceptualizing and designing visualization as a mass medium.
11:45 AM - 12:30 PM
New Potentials for 'DIY' Music Making: Social Networks, Old and New, and the Ongoing Struggles to Reshape the Music Industry
Evan Wendel
An historical and comparative exploration of "independent" music scenes and their associated social networks during both the post-punk period of the late-1970s and early
1980s, as well as the current music climate which is increasingly defined by online networks. The larger contention is that the
potentials for "independent" musicians to maintain viability, and even achieve success, outside of a terrain traditionally structured by the mainstream recording industry are greater today than ever before, especially when informed by an understanding of the successes and shortcomings of past practices.
12:30-1:15 PM
Targeting Digital Youth in Web 2.0 China
Liwen Jin
A recent Netpop survey reports that Chinese
Internet users are much more likely to use
user-generated content to make purchasing
decisions than Americans (58% to 19%).
They also are much more likely to participate
in forum discussions and blogs. Web
2.0 technologies originate in the United
States. But why does this East Asian society
embrace more of the web 2.0 activities than
its Western counterpart? This thesis will
examine this question from societal, cultural
and psychological perspectives in order to
discuss new marketing strategies to target the
young and dynamic population in China's
cyber communities.
1:15-2:00 PM
Lunch
2:00-2:45 PM
Underground Tunnels, Neon
Signs, and Asian-American
Identity: The Many Dimensions of
Visual Chinatown
Debora Lui
What is Chinatown? Is it an imaginary
construct, a real location, or a community?
Is it an ethnic enclave only available to
insiders, or a fabricated environment
designed specifically for tourists? This thesis
attempts to reconcile the multiple ways in
which Chinatowns in the U.S. are conceived,
understood, and used by both insiders and
outsiders of the community.
2:45-3:30 PM
Public Interest in the
Broadband Age: Media Policy
for the Network Society
Stephen Schultze
What does "public interest" media policy
mean in the broadband age? Using a
three-pronged set of methods consisting of
historical survey, contemporary case study,
and immediate policy recommendations, this
thesis seeks to distill a unified theory of the
public interest in media policy.
3:30-3:45 PM
Coffee Break
3:45-4:30 PM
The Modular, Mechanical and
Wacky World of Slapstick:
Sound/Image Relationships in
the Looney Tunes
Andres Lombana
A comparative and multimedia analysis of
the sound/image relationships developed by
the Warner Brothers animation studio in its
Looney Tunes series. This thesis focuses on
two theatrical animated cartoons: "Porky
in Wackyland" (1938) and "Dough for the
Do-Do" (1948).
4:30-5:15 PM
Tactical Cities: Negotiating
Violence in Karachi
Huma Yusuf
This thesis uses the theories of Henri
Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau to examine
how everyday practices help the residents of
Karachi, Pakistan, negotiate the violence that
is endemic to their city. In this construction,
remembering, blogging, and navigating
heavily trafficked roads become 'tactics' that
create 'representational spaces' symbolically
free of violence.
5:15-6:00 PM
Reception
