Professor Betsy Leebron Tutelman and Acting President Richard Englert.

Professor Betsy Leebron Tutelman was selected as the School of Media and Communication’s recipient for the 2012 Outstanding Faculty Service Award. She was one of 18 Temple University faculty members honored by the Office of the Provost and the Faculty Senate Steering committee for their many service contributions to the university during the second annual brunch Nov. 8.

Honorees were presented with a certificate recognizing their outstanding service efforts.

“This distinguished group of faculty members has made tremendous contributions to their departments, schools and colleges and the university,” said Provost Ha-Lung Dai. “Their work strengthens Temple as a vibrant institution of higher learning.”

Tutelman joined the school in 1983, was tenured in 1986 and became chair of the Department of Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media in 1995. She held the chair position until 2008, with a two-year hiatus. The department grew from 200 to 850 undergraduate and graduate students under her watch.

SMC Interim Dean Thomas Jacobson says her dedication to service is exemplified by many contributions to the school, including her efforts behind the annual Lew Klein Alumni in the Media Awards.

“She feels the event is important for both the school and the university. Betsy produces a very substantial video program for the event, conducting awardee interviews, supervising video editing and overseeing event production in a variety of ways,” he says. “Betsy’s energy and her loyalty to the institution made her an ideal candidate for the award.”

With the alleged “Mayan apocalypse” looming on Dec. 21, Barry Vacker, associate professor of media studies and production at Temple University’s School of Media and Communication decided to find out why.

His research has culminated in a special class, “Media, Culture and the End of the World,” as well as a new book, The End of the World—Again: Why the Apocalypse Meme Replicates in Media, Science and Culture, which should be published just in time for our current “doomsday.”

“These films are not merely giving us warnings about what we might be doing wrong on the planet, but they’re also giving us a sense of what it means to be a human in the vast universe,” he says.

Vacker has noted several themes that permeate apocalyptic stories, such as humanity’s struggle to find cosmic significance to the yearning for a “clean slate” on which we could reboot our society and learn from our mistakes. Other stories will showcase some humans’ desire for cosmic murder or suicide (they’re the characters rooting for the meteor to hit Earth) or our fear of the future.

“As the films unfold, you realize there are people wishing the world was over because they can’t find any meaning in life,” he says.

Vacker’s interest in these tales of doom go back to his childhood. “I had a little portable TV in my bedroom and there was a TV station that showed these apocalyptic movies late at night on a Friday or Saturday night, like Dr. Strangelove or Planet of the Apes or Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” he says. “Every time a new Hollywood movie about the end of the world would come out, I’d always go.”

He has found the films strike a deep chord within our consciousness.

Barry Vacker

“Humans want warnings about what’s possible,” Vacker says. “Also, I think that humans want the idea that things could be better, we could be transformed, we could get a new beginning. Everybody in their life at some point in time has gone ‘Man, if I could do it all over again, I’d do something different.’”

For Genevieve Gillespie, a senior media studies and production major and an undergraduate teaching assistant in Vacker’s class, says the topic has hit home for the students.

“This course extrapolates and explores the histories and meanings behind the most basic, yet terrifying philosophical question for humanity in a post-modern society,” she says. “It forces students to question their assumptions regarding their own place in society, our planet, and space and time. It’s personal for everyone in that room.”

While he agrees the apocalypse makes for great Hollywood fodder, Vacker is continuously astounded by the number of people who actually believe the world will either end or transform on Dec. 21. A recent National Geographic survey shows that 27 percent of Americans believe the Mayan calendar prediction is “somewhat true.”

He says fictional portrayals of the apocalypse make it more plausible for some people. “The media perpetuate an anti-scientific outlook on the world. For every science show, there are 10 paranormal shows somewhere else.”

But he doesn’t see humanity’s longing for doomsday scenarios in fiction or real life diminishing any time soon.

“Once 2012 goes by, once Dec. 21 goes by, there will be another one,” he says.

End of the World Symposium
Vacker, through his think tank, The Center for Media and Destiny, has organized a three-day celebratory symposium on the Mayan apocalypse Dec. 19-21 at the Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art.

It will include at art exhibit, film screenings, panel discussions and more. It ends with a countdown to midnight and a farewell toast.

For more information, visit www.philamoca.org or http://www.mediaanddestiny.org/its-the-end-of-the-world-again/.

Media contact
Jeff Cronin
215-204-3324
jcronin@temple.edu

Temple University was the site of Presence Live 2012, an annual conference hosted by the International Society for Presence Research (ISPR).

“Presence, short for telepresence, happens when people use technology and overlook at least part of its role in the experience, as when a telepresence conferencing system makes us feel as if we’re face-to-face,” explains Temple School of Media and Communication Associate Professor Matthew Lombard, president of ISPR.

Lombard was one of the first to identify presence through his graduate work at Stanford University. He wrote “At the heart of it all: The concept of presence” with Theresa Ditton, MMC ’97, in 1997, a work that has been cited by many scholars.

Researchers have identified two types of presence—spatial and social.

Through spatial presence, people experience the illusion that they are actually in a virtual environment. However, more and more attention is now being focused on social presence, “the illusion that the people and avatars and characters you see, hear and interact with via technology are real and really there with you,” Lombard says. “And that’s arguably the more important kind of presence for us to understand, as SMS, social media, Skype, tablets and high-end telepresence products like Cisco’s increasingly offer people almost any way of interacting with people that they want. We need to understand what characteristics of these technologies, and their users and uses, drive those choices.”

A panel on social presence was awarded the conference’s top paper award: “Considerations for Social Presence Theory, Research and Application in the 21st Century,” with Paul Skalaki, David Westerman and Stephanie Kelly of Cleveland State University.

As part of the conference, attendees toured several presence sites around Philadelphia, including Temple University’s Virtual Environment and Postural Orientation Laboratory, where they experienced “The Cave.”

Watch this video to learn more about the conference and one of the ways presence plays a role at Temple.

video by Ryan Geffert

The panel discussion, moderated by Media Studies and Production Assistant Professor Murali Balaji, included: Angela Cirucci, MMC doctoral candidate; Gordon Coonfield, associate professor, Villanova University; Patrick Hamilton, associate professor, Misericordia University; and Barry Vacker, associate professor, MSP.

“The panel’s success demonstrates our student’s willingness to engage zombie culture from a number of intellectual perspectives,” Balaji said. “I think that many fans of the zombie genre, especially The Walking Dead, actually do interpret subtexts (I-Other, race, capitalism) when watching or reading.”

He expects the popularity of zombies, among both fans and researchers, to grow. “Many scholars are interested in how we view the apocalypse. And not surprisingly, a lot of academics I know love The Walking Dead.”

Assistant Professor Murali Balaji, Author, Defining a Political Economy of Masculinity in the Era of Globalization; Presenter, Communicating Marginalized Masculinities: Identity Politics in TV, Film and Media

Associate Dean Deborah A. Cai, Author, Cognitive and Cultural Effects on Decision Making: Propositions Regarding Chinese and Americans; Presenter, Honoring Linda Putnam: Celebrating Service, Scholarship and Leadership; Respondent, Suasory Stories: Narrative Influence on Attitudes and Beliefs (Swan, Room: Parrot 2 – First Level); Presenter, Scholars’ Office Hours; Chair, Acculturation and the Problematic of Ethnic Identification; Chair, Communication Strategies for the Elicitation and Mitigation of Cognitive Biases

Assistant Professor John Edward Campbell, Author, Digital Hush Harbors: Dedicated Community Sites as Online Spheres of Emancipatory Politics

David Crider, Author, For Those (Men) About to Rock: Rock Radio and the Crisis of Masculinity

Maxine Gesualdi, Presenter, Super (Scholar) Mom: Investigating Community Perspectives of  Work, Study, Voluntarism and Life balance with Four Communication PhD Students; Author, Man Tears and Masculinities: News Coverage of John Boehner’s Tearful Episodes

Jennifer Midberry, Author, Photography of the Middle East: American and European Representations of Arabs, Muslims and Middle Easterners (A top paper in Visual Communication division.)

David Moore, Author, Making Meaning in Elementary School: A Preliminary Examination of the Development of Children’s Media Literacy Competencies  

Tina L. Peterson, Author, Food-media Literacy and the Critical Evaluative Capacities of Adult Women

Associate Profesor Donnalyn Pompper, Presenter, Planning to Succeed: Role Models of Women Working in Mediated Message Industries

Michael Robb Grieco, Co-Author, Learning Language and Critical Thinking About Advertising: Adolescent Immigrant Students Encounter Media Literacy

Sam Srauy, Author, Emancipation Through ICTs?

Chiaoning Su, Author, Journalism in Disasters: The Intersection of Journalism, Natural Disasters and Media Ecology in Taiwan

Yuan Xin Wang, Chair, Top Four Papers in Communication and Community in the Sunshine State

Professor Deborah Cai has been appointed as Senior Associate Dean. Formerly the chair of the Department of Strategic Communication, Cai has been at Temple University since 2009.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2013, Associate Professor Patrick Murphy will become Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies. He will complete the fall semester as chair of the Department of Media Studies and Production, and until then, Professor Cai will function as the point of contact on research and graduate program matters. Murphy joined Temple University in 2009.

“The school is fortunate to have such dedicated and capable administrators taking these positions,” Jacobson says. “I look forward to working with both of them.”

The news brief, produced Monday through Thursday, was launched this semester to support the long-running Temple Update, a full weekly newscast created in the Kal and Lucille Rudman Media Production Center in Annenberg Hall.

“When the Temple Update staff discussed the idea of a daily cut-in, I hoped it would accomplish a couple of goals: getting the Temple Update brand on the air at least four days week on TUTV, and providing an outlet for more students to become actively involved with Update’s on-air product,” said Executive Producer and Assistant Professor Peter Jaroff.

Each edition is just 90 seconds, a format that Jaroff says, “helps producers and writers focus on the essentials — telling a story in a concise and compelling way.”

Produced by media studies and production majors Matt Repino and Seth Wozniak, it airs several times a day on TUTV and can be viewed at facebook.com/templeupdate, on Twitter @templeupdate and at youtube.com/templeupdate.

“There is a strong focus on stories affecting the Temple community and Philadelphia,” Repino says. “Update Now also airs a five day weather forecast.”

The Update Now staff includes students who are veterans of Temple Update, but it also serves “as a training ground for dozens of talented students new to Temple Update, giving us a pool of talent to draw from as the upperclassmen now on the half-hour Thursday show move on,” Jaroff says.

Students involved with Update Now work on all aspects of the broadcast and will get to experience what it’s like to be an anchor; run the studio camera or teleprompter; or serve as technical director, floor manager and tape operator.

The weekly Temple Update airs live each Thursday at 10 a.m. on TUTV (Comcast channel 50 or Verizon channel 45 within the city and online at www.templetv.net).

Assistant Professor Murali Balaji pauses from his research.

Murali Balaji smirks at the thought of a real-life zombie apocalypse.

But the assistant professor of Media Studies and Production at Temple University’s School of Media and Communication is fascinated by how zombies have lurched into the pop culture spotlight and the people for whom “World War Z” is not out of the realm of possibility.

“There are more and more scholars who are interested to find out why so many of us buy into the idea of a zombie apocalypse,” says the expert on media studies and pop culture and a huge zombie fan. “It goes back to our fears… could something happen where we’re all turned into zombies, like bioterrorism or a nuclear accident?”

For many, zombies are the most realistic characters in the horror genre.

“It’s easier to convince someone that you can’t turn into a vampire, because that’s fantasy. It’s harder to convince someone, at least on a layman’s level, that a zombie outbreak could never happen,” he says.

The messages behind zombie lore
Even for fans who realize the zombie scenario is pure fiction, it’s one that really hits home and speaks to our own mortality.

“What really happens to us after we go? Is there a way to maintain ourselves physically? In the goriest way, being undead is an interpretation of immortality. It’s clearly not a desirable immortality, but for a lot of people, they view a zombie outbreak sadly in very realistic terms. That scenario resonates with their own conceptions of reality and some of their deepest fears,” Balaji says.

That is coupled with the raw emotional engagement that the zombies were once our family and friends, which creates a certain sympathy for the zombies.

“It’s not that easy to say that an alien is a sympathetic creature,” he says. “It’s definitely more to the fact that these people were once human.”

Scholars also have examined the messages behind the new generation of zombie stories compared to George Romero’s themes in the 1960s and 1970s.

Movies like Dawn of the Dead, set in a shopping mall, tried to show that “in many ways, we’ve become zombies by our daily consumption. That was Romero’s subtle critique of American society.”

However, in more current iterations of the zombie apocalypse, such as The Walking Dead, cable’s top-rated show, viewers will see materialism surviving.

“What the difference is with this generation of zombie movies is that they actually have no problem with consumerism and capitalism. In fact, one of the things they try to do is bring materialism in as a way for these folks to cope,” Balaji says. “Despite the apocalypse that has fallen on them, they still attach a certain value to material goods.”

Expert panel filled with juicy brains
These topics and many others will be explored in depth on Halloween Night, Wednesday, Oct. 31, at “Thinking Dead: What the Zombie Apocalypse Means.” The panel discussion, moderated by Balaji, will be held in Gladfelter Hall,  Room L24, at 6:30 p.m. The panel will include PhD student Angela Cirucci, MMC; Gordon Coonfield, director of graduate studies and associate professor, communication, Villanova University; Patrick Hamilton, associate professor, English, Misericordia University; and Barry Vacker, associate professor, media studies and production.

The research was exhaustive, if not exhausting.

Pennsylvania was built on the coal, steel and other blue-collar industries. Though the grasp of these former industrial giants has weakened, many areas of the state are allowing them to live on through museums, monuments and festivals. Kitch visited 224 such tributes to these industries as she compiled information for her latest book, Pennsylvania in Public Memory: Reclaiming the Industrial Past.

“During tough economic times and national political divisions, we are drawn to public storytelling about a lost and better America, the time and place where our parents and grandparents worked hard to build the country, prospered and made a better life for their children,” Kitch says. “Some of this notion is pure nostalgia, but much of it is tied to the very real industries–coal mining, steel-making, railroading, and other major manufacturing jobs–for which Pennsylvania was once famous.”

She details the stops along Lancaster County’s “Sweet ‘n Salty Trail,” a driving tour of food and candy companies and the joy of Hershey’s “Chocolate World” tour.

In Pittsburgh and Johnstown, areas that once relied on the steel industry, cultural heritage and tourism has played a major part in the revival process.

“This book explores our present-day ideas about those past communities of factory towns and patch towns, offering a rhetorical as well as literal journey through museums, tourism, memorials and media depictions of working-class life throughout the Commonwealth,” Kitch says.

“In our program, the emphasis is on three things: technical skills, such as writing, theoretical foundations and strategic thinking,” he said.

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