Interactive Media

Can You Spot a Deepfake?

By Barbara Gutierrez University of Miami researchers familiar with artificial intelligence technology offer their opinions about a phenomenon—the posting of images or videos that have been manipulated—that is becoming more prevalent online. If you surf the internet—and who doesn’t—you have seen a video that has caught your attention. Tom Cruise performing magic tricks and eating a lollipop. Former President Barack Obama spouting offensive words. Kim Kardashian rapping. These videos were not real. They were deepfakes. A deepfake is an image or video of someone’s likeness that looks realistic; when in [...]

2023-02-09T14:57:14-05:00February 9, 2023|Interactive Media|

Instructor Uses Video Games to Promote Social Change

By Barbara Gutierrez School of Communication associate professor Lindsay Grace creates video games that will challenge people’s perceptions and biases, one player at a time. Students enrolled in School of Communication associate professor Lindsay Grace’s classes spend a great deal of time playing video games. Also the Knight Chair in Interactive Media, Grace is a kind of celebrity in the video game world. He creates games to promote social change, and that is what he teaches in his classes. Through his work, both at the University of Miami and outside [...]

2023-02-07T12:08:53-05:00February 2, 2023|Interactive Media|

Interactive Media Offers New M.F.A. Scholarship for STEAM Educators

By Karina Valdes With the rising need for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) educators, the University of Miami School of Communication is tackling this need head-on. Prospective students interested in earning a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Interactive Media now have the opportunity to apply for a new scholarship. The South Florida Educator Opportunity Award is presented to an M.F.A. student who commits to remaining in South Florida and teaching in a community college or public school (K-12) for a minimum of three years after graduation. "Our [...]

2022-11-17T10:13:45-05:00November 16, 2022|Interactive Media|

Lindsay Grace to Share Insights at Games for Change Summit

By Karina Valdes World leaders in gaming are converging in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, in Oct. for the Games for Change Summit to share their insights on games for social impact. The summit will connect experts in gaming for two days of discussions, workshops, and networking opportunities to globally expand the games for social change arena. Through various programs and non-profits, Lindsay Grace, Knight Chair and director of the MFA in Interactive Media, has been assisting the U.S. Department of State with its initiatives in [...]

2022-10-07T15:49:17-04:00October 7, 2022|Interactive Media|

Can Artificial Intelligence Help Journalists?

By Barbara Gutierrez Lindsay Grace, an associate professor at the School of Communication, and a team of fellow academics have developed an AI-generated tip sheet that can help news organizations by scouring information and providing leads to pursue. For many journalists, the idea of sharing space with artificial intelligence  is threatening. As it is, the news business is in a steep decline, with U.S. newsroom employment down 26 percent since 2008, according to the Pew Research Center. A combination of factors has contributed to this decline but new technologies are also [...]

2022-07-06T11:16:38-04:00July 6, 2022|Interactive Media|

Student-Produced Shows Nominated for College Television Awards

By Barbara Gutierrez UMTV’s SportsDesk and NewsVision—along with the 15 students who worked on the shows—have been nominated for Television Academy Foundation awards.Two University of Miami television shows have received nominations for the Television Academy Foundation’s 41st College Television Awards, which recognize excellence in student-produced programs from colleges and universities nationwide. The competition, considered the Emmys of college productions, will announce winners at the awards ceremony on March 26. The University’s nominations are in the “News and Sports” category for NewsVision and SportsDesk, two student-produced shows on UMTV. NewsVision is a [...]

‘Black Game Studies’ Examines Contributions of Black Game Makers to the Industry

By Karina Valdes Realizing a need for a reference of African American and African diaspora game makers, Lindsay Grace, associate professor and Knight Chair in Interactive Media, recently released Black Game Studies, an academic and historical book on the contributions of Black game makers to the field of analog and digital games. “There was a shortage of information about people of the African American and African diaspora and the kinds of games they make. What I did at the start of last year was to solicit stories and aggregate all [...]

2022-02-11T14:00:05-05:00February 11, 2022|Interactive Media, School of Communication|

University Community Leaps into the ‘Metaverse’

By Janette Neuwahl Tannen Four years into the XR Initiative, University of Miami students and faculty and staff members conceive new ways to solve problems and improve education by using immersive technology to connect in a network of virtual worlds. Léa Dorne still vividly remembers visiting a Syrian refugee camp and standing inside a family’s United Nations trailer in Jordan. But she wasn’t actually in the Middle East. Dorne observed the family’s reality through an Oculus Quest headset while watching a film shot in virtual reality (VR). “It’s very different [...]

2022-01-21T15:01:35-05:00January 21, 2022|Interactive Media|

Interactive Media Graduate Student Lands Co-Op at Motorola Solutions

By Bianca De Paz Allie Packard, a School of Communication Interactive Media M.F.A. graduate, recently accepted a User Experience Design Co-Op with Motorola Solutions, where she will be applying her skills on how to use video in multiple facets of public safety. Through her graduate UX courses and as a UX research assistant in the University of Miami’s Interactive Media User Experience Lab (UX), Packard cultivated a passion for the process of design. There, she benefited from working alongside Barbara Millet, director of the UX Lab and assistant professor, who [...]

2021-09-29T10:52:37-04:00September 23, 2021|Interactive Media|

Graduate Student Shares Her Unique Experiences in the IMFA Program

By: Karina Valdes A first-year Interactive Media MFA (IMFA) student recently had a unique experience sharing the virtual main stage with her professor during this year’s Games for Change Festival. Katy Huang, IMFA student and graduate assistant at the University of Miami School of Communication, and Lindsay Grace, associate professor, presented their in-depth analysis of social impact games at the festival. “As a first-year graduate student, I feel my skillset expanded greatly within the first year of being a student. My knowledge on games previously is just on games for [...]

2020-08-26T14:18:11-04:00August 25, 2020|Interactive Media|