CMS Class of 2008 Thesis Presentations

The CMS Class of 2008 will be giving their thesis presentations on 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 ÒindependentÓ 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

Please visit http://cms.mit.edu/people for individual profiles of the Class of 2008. PDF copies of the theses will eventually be available at http://cms.mit.edu/research/theses.php.