Interactive Media

SoC Student and Faculty Member Take Part in the Ninth Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change

Seventy-six students from 20 countries on five continents came together with three major global partners in Salzburg, Austria this month with one shared goal: to discover how digital media can tackle issues of both local and global concern.  The international cohort of the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change, together with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and Global Voices, and led by academic, development and media experts, sought to develop innovative media tools to better understand media literacy and address challenges [...]

NERDLab Game is Unsavory

Almost 90 percent of restaurant workers in the United States do not have access to paid sick days. Unsavory, a new mobile game available for iOS and Android devices, lets players take the role of these workers preparing food to see if they can survive a month on the job while sick. Developed by NERDLab at the University of Miami in collaboration with Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United, the game creators hope to raise awareness about the lack of paid sick days and the potential for a public health crisis. During the [...]

New Visiting Knight Chair Announced

Data analyst and visualization design specialist Lynn Cherny will be the next Visiting Knight Chair for the Center for Communication, Culture and Change. Beginning in August, Cherny will teach data visualization and data analysis and will help support Knight Chair in Visual Journalism Alberto Cairo launch the Data Visualization and Journalism track in the School of Communication's Interactive Media department. Before joining the University of Miami, Cherny worked as a user interface designer and consultant, spent 20 years as a corporate designer and manager at companies including TiVo and Adobe, and has had two books published, "Wired [...]

2019-12-16T18:44:05-05:00May 13, 2015|Interactive Media, Journalism|

One Water, UNDP and SIWI Partnering for a Documentary on Water and Sustainable Development

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) have partnered with One Water to develop a film on water and sustainable development. As UN's Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson says, "Water is a precondition for human existence." This documentary is a collaboration with Professors Sanjeev Chatterjee, Ed Talavera and Ali Habashi from the School of Communication's Cinema and Interactive Media Department. The full version will be completed for World Water Week taking place in Stockholm, Aug. 23-28, 2015. Click here to learn more about One Water.

2019-12-16T18:45:15-05:00April 9, 2015|Interactive Media|

Cops and Rubbers

Professor Lien Tran makes games for social change, a fun and interactive way to raise awareness for global issues. On March 24, Tran invited students and professors to play a game called “Cops and Rubbers,” which teaches about condoms being used as contraband in countries like South Africa, Russia, and the U.S. In these countries, police use condoms as evidence that those carrying them are sex workers. This is a problem because it makes sex workers scared to carry around condoms, putting both them and their clients’ health at risk. [...]

2019-12-16T18:46:01-05:00April 8, 2015|Interactive Media|

Prevention, Intervention, and Action: The Colombian National Police and the Security of Children

Brigadier General William Salamanca, Director of Protection and Special Services (DIPRO) for the Colombian National Police (CNP), will visit the University of Miami School of Communication’s Shoma Hall on April 2 at 1 p.m. to present on the issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). His presentation, titled Prevention, Intervention, and Action: The Colombian National Police and the Security of Children will highlight CNP’s existing effort and the organization’s introduction of creative methods to tackle critical societal issues that affect the country’s most vulnerable – its children.  The presentation [...]

2019-12-16T18:48:21-05:00March 25, 2015|Doctoral, Interactive Media|

Game to Reduce Indoor Tanning Use

School of Communication professors Soyoon Kim and Clay Ewing are recipients of the Center for Communication, Culture and Change's 2015 Research Award. Their project, which will focus on using an innovative digital game to reduce the use of indoor tanning among young adults, will assess the game's effectiveness on psychological and behavioral determinants of indoor tanning behavior. According to Professor Kim, “The period of young adulthood is a vulnerable one, and using indoor tanning facilities without realizing or downplaying its risk is one of many other consequential unhealthy choices that our target audience can [...]

2019-12-17T19:40:48-05:00March 13, 2015|Communication Studies, Interactive Media|

Professor Ed Talavera’s Work Screening at MIFF

By Barbara Gutierrez The camera work of University of Miami Professor Ed Talavera, chair of the Cinema and Interactive Media department, will be on display during this year’s Miami International Film Festival’s Culinary Cinema along with the marvelous cuisine of Peruvian chef extraordinaire Gaston Acurio. Finding Gaston, a film Talavera co-produced and filmed with director Patricia Perez, will be shown on Monday, March 9 at the Miami Dade College’s Tower Cinema as part of this year’s festival. The documentary is a gastronomical gem that follows Peruvian chef and world-renown restauranteur [...]

UM School of Communication to Create Open Educational Resource on Ocean Health

The University of Miami's Department of Cinema and Interactive Media at the School of Communication has received a two-year grant of more than $405,000 from the Friends of Stark Parks in conjunction with the Herbert W. Hoover Foundation. The funding will go towards the creation of a unique Open Educational Resource (OER) that will not only explain the science underlying ocean health management, but also help bring the specific work of top researchers from their worldwide field locations to university curricula. In an effort to develop "Media Building-Blocks of Ocean [...]

Producer Stresses Media Experience

Flourish Klink is a writer, producer and self-proclaimed fangirl who is now working as a transmedia producer and writer for the Hulu original series “East Los High.” On Thursday, she spoke with students at the School of Communication about her work in the transmedia field, which she described as storytelling “across multiple delivery channels” where, ideally, “each medium makes its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story.” “East Los High” was created with the motive of exploring the range of possible Latino characters stepping away from the traditional [...]