CMS Graduate Thesis Presentations – 2018

This event is free and open to the public. You are welcome to attend as many or as few presentations as you wish. Livestream available at https://www.youtube.com/MITComparativeMediaStudiesWriting.

10:30 Coffee and Conversation

11:00 Presentations by:

Claudia Lo When All You Have Is A Banhammer

The popular wisdom about internet moderation is, simply: moderators remove stuff. But there is plenty that they do that doesn’t fit in such a simple definition. Through research with large-scale Twitch esports moderators, we can see that there are social and communicative aspects to their work. From making their own moderation tools, creating new policies and developing ethical standards for moderation, what else do moderators do when all we give them is a banhammer?

Aashka Dave When to Start Freaking Out: Audience Engagement on Social Media During Disease Outbreaks

How do perceptions of risk contribute to sensationalized social media spectacles, and how might social media practices further such a practice? This thesis will explore sensationalism and gatekeeping through an examination of how news and public health organizations used social media during the most recent Ebola and Zika outbreaks.

12:30 Lunch Break

1:00 Presentations by:

Vicky Zeamer Internet Killed the Michelin Star: The Motives of Narrative and Style in Food Text Creation on Social Media

Food porn has become mainstream content on social media sites and digital streaming sites. With this comes a change in status—from expert to everyone. As a result, the role of authority figures, in particular chefs, has changed. This thesis illustrates the convergences and divergences in the creation and consumption of food texts today.

Kaelan Doyle-Myerscough Intimate Worlds: Reading for Intimate Affects in Contemporary Video Games

Leveraging affect theory and video game studies, I examine Overwatch, The Last Guardian and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for intimate affects. I read for intimacy as a way to understand how sensations of vulnerability, the loss of control and precarity can become pleasurable in contemporary video games.

Sara Rafsky The Print that Binds: Local Media, Civic Life and the Public Sphere

Aziria Rodriguez Arce Seizing the Memes of Production: Political Memes in Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican Diaspora.

Mariel Garcia Montes Youth and Privacy in the Americas

How do youth allies promote young people’s critical thinking on privacy, in informal learning contexts in the Americas? This thesis look at ways that educators and allies work to think about, critique, engage with, and circulate ideas about youth online privacy.