Tags: communication studies

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Divisional Spotlight: Social & Behavioral Sciences

In his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas devised five arguments for the existence of God, known as the Five Ways, that subsequently proved highly influential. The Franklin College is comprised of five divisions that are also highly influential in the education of all students at the University of Georgia. We continue to welcome 2024 by highlighting the divisional nature of our organizational structure and the academic units contained in each…

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What a preprint is – and why that matters

New research from the University of Georgia suggests most people don’t understand the difference between a preprint and a published academic journal article. Preprints are research papers that haven’t undergone peer review, the process by which studies’ findings are validated by experts who weren’t involved with the research themselves. The study found the majority of readers have little to no understanding of what a preprint…

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Feminism may lead to better body image

Important new research from communication studies describing how mothers and daughters who follow feminist principles speak more positively about their bodies. Published in Body Image, the study found that feminist mothers and their daughters felt more positively about their bodies and less shame about how their bodies look than those who don’t ascribe to feminist ideals. Additionally, the paper showed that how mothers view and speak about…

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Relationships During the Pandemic

TIME Magazine recently featured research by communications studies faculty and doctoral alumni. “What We Learned About Relationships During the Pandemic,” conveys research findings from a special issue of Journal of Personality and Social Relationships organized by editor Pamela Lannutti (UGA, PhD, 2001) and co-editor Jennifer Bevan (UGA, PhD, 2003), and it reported on a research study in the issue by…

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Liu receives NIH Career Award

The National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health recently granted a Career Award to Jiaying Liu, assistant professor in the department of communication studies. Career Awards are given to researchers to allow time for intensive development and training in biomedical, behavioral and clinical sciences. The five-year, near $1 million grant will allow Liu to gain additional training in functional magnetic…

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Georgia Debate Union Begins 2020 at Georgetown Tournament

The Georgia Debate Union began the second half of its season with strong showings at the Georgetown College Debate Tournament held over the first weekend of 2020 in Washington, DC.   The JV team of Lauren Debranski (senior, Woodstock) and Eshaan Kalra (sophomore, Johns Creek) finished prelims as the only undefeated team with a 6-0 record. They finished the tournament in 3rd place. Their road to 3rd place included wins against George Mason…

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Tackling youth vaping with neuroscience

Jiaying Liu and Lawrence Sweet are working to produce scientific data to inform the public about vaping products and to guide efforts toward enacting bans on flavored products: Liu, assistant professor of communication studies, and Sweet, professor of psychology and director of the Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory, have teamed up to investigate vaping among young adults. Liu secured internal grant funding through the Office…

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Student champions disability awareness

Alongside her double-major coursework, Tyler Burrell raises awareness about “invisible illness”—that not all people who look normal are able-bodied and healthy. “That person needing the elevator for one floor, the person with a handicap pass who looks totally healthy, might not be,” she said. “You never know someone’s whole story.” Burrell, a University of Georgia senior international affairs and communication studies…

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Megan Reeves (AB ’18): communicating sustainability

Growing up in Stone Mountain sparked an interest in sustainability for Megan Reeves. The value of sustainable practices solidified for the communication studies major when she worked towards earning the Certificate in Sustainability at UGA: In Megan’s opinion, the uniqueness of the Sustainability Certificate program comes from the diverse coursework and the differing educational backgrounds of students united…

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Communication Studies senior dedicated to literacy

Maggie George grew up on the Harry Potter books and “The Little Princess.” Now, through her work with First Book UGA, she’s helping to raise the literacy rate in Athens-Clarke County: “I believe that every kid should have access to books. “It’s heartbreaking when you read about the summer slide that happens when kids don’t have access to books over the summer,” she said. “They come back to school, and they’re just so far behind other kids…

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Georgia Debate Union finishes 2019 as top varsity debate team in the nation

For the first time in the program's history the Georgia Debate Union finished the 2018-19 season as the top varsity college debate team in both the American Debate Association and the National Debate Tournament's end-of-the-season rankings. Each ranking is derived from points that two-person teams accumulate for each tournament over the course of the season, which runs from mid-September to the end of March.  UGA's top…

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Georgia Debate Union caps most successful year in its history

After winning the American Debate Association tournament earlier in March, Georgia Debate Union members Nathan Rice and Johnnie Stupek recently finished second at the 2019 National Debate Tournament (NDT), held at the University of Minnesota.   Rice and Stupek are the second team in the history of the Georgia Debate Union to make it to the final round of the National Debate Tournament and the first since 1997. In their run to the…

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Georgia Debate Union wins national championship

The Georgia Debate Union won the American Debate Association national championship tournament this past weekend in Athens. Nearly 100 teams from around the country attended the American Debate Association's end of the year championship tournament, hosted at the University of Georgia.   Seniors Advait Ramanan and Swapnil Agrawal won the American Debate Association's varsity division national championship and finished the tournament…

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Agrawal and Ramanan win Dartmouth Round Robin debate

One of the finest accomplishments a UGA debate team has ever achieved, the team of Swapnil Agrawal and Advait Ramanan won the 2019 Herbert L. James Debates at Dartmouth College, known as the Dartmouth Round Robin debate competition, this past weekend in Hanover, NH. The win bodes well for the Georgia Debate Union's chances of winning a national championship later this spring. The competition included the top 7 debate teams in…

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Georgia Debate Union preps for a stellar 2019

The Georgia Debate Union finished the fall semester ranked as the top ranked varsity debate team in the country according to both the American Debate Association and National Debate Tournament varsity rankings. The team is ranked third in the Cross Examination Debate Association Rankings.   The rankings are based on a points-based system whereby individual two-person teams from a university or college accumulate points based off…

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Georgia Debate Union ranked number 1

As of this week, UGA is ranked first in all three college debate organizational rankings - the American Debate Association, the Cross-Examination Debate Association, and the National Debate tournament - ahead of Harvard, Wake Forest, Emory, Michigan, Northwestern, among hundreds of other institutions. UGA's top six debaters [pictured] each earned awards at their most recent tournament at the University of Kentucky. …

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The power of rhetoric in the wake of 9/11

In Angry Public Rhetorics, Distinguished Research Professor in the department of Communication Studies Celeste Condit explores emotions as motivators and organizers of collective action—a theory that treats humans as “symbol-using animals” to understand the patterns of leadership in global affairs—to account for the way in which anger produced similar rhetorics in three ideologically diverse voices surrounding 9/11: Osama bin Laden,…

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History of 'Dirty Work' in the South

May 17-19. Registration, $90 for non-members and $65 for SLSA members, is available online at southernlaborstudies.org. Several events will be free and open to the public. Attendees from around the U.S., England, Northern Ireland and India will discuss the past and present of labor and working-class history in the U.S. South.  Panels, workshops, roundtables and keynotes will discuss many subjects including mining, farming, food…

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Noted and Quoted, February 2018

Faculty members authoring articles and being quoted by the popular media demonstrate the impact of public scholarship and expertise on current discourse surrounding many important issues. A sample of the recognition of and engagement by Franklin College faculty members during February: Four ways that black Catholic sisters rewrote the American story, article by associate professor of history and African-American studies Diane Batts Morrow…

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Georgia Debate Union wins University of Miami tournament

Additionally, the team of Alyssa Hoover (Alpharetta, Georgia) and Tripp Haskins (College Park, Georgia) finished tied for 5th place at the tournament.   The University of Miami Hurricane debates featured schools from around the country, including teams from Emory University, Boston College, the United States Naval Academy, and the University of Michigan.  The Bulldogs' victory at Miami represents the second tournament won by the…


May Day

May 1 is a world holiday, commemorating the execution of four anarchists executed in 1887 for struggling for an 8-hour workday: Originally a pagan holiday, the roots of the modern May Day bank holiday are in the fight for the eight-hour working day in Chicago in 1886, and the subsequent execution of innocent anarchist workers. In 1887, four Chicago anarchists were executed; a fifth cheated the hangman by killing himself in prison. Three more…
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