News

SyFy Founder Shares Entrepreneurial Insights with MMA Members

By Micaela Wenger In October, Laurie Silvers, who earned her B.A. and J.D. degrees at the University of Miami, shared her expertise about her career as a serial media entrepreneur from Boca Raton, Florida. As a UM student, she had big dreams and always knew she wanted to achieve great things. Every time she was told “you won’t,” she responded with a positive “I will.” In 1989, Silvers and her husband created Syfy (originally called the Sci-Fi Channel) before selling it four years later to USA Network, which was owned [...]

2021-10-18T10:58:48-04:00October 18, 2021|Media Management|

Facebook Faces Challenges in Developing Instagram Kids

By Barbara Gutierrez Regina Ahn, an assistant professor who studies media literacy and education, parental mediation, and social media, notes that creating a social media site specifically for children is a tough task. Facebook recently announced that it will pause its development of Instagram Kids after heated criticism by parents and children advocates who claim that such a platform could be dangerous to kids’ mental health. The announcement comes amid media reports that Facebook knew from its own research that social media platforms such as Instagram—the photo and video sharing [...]

2021-10-08T11:44:02-04:00October 8, 2021|Advertising, Public Relations|

NewsVision is Honored at Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards

By Esther Animalu Each year the Society of Professional Journalists hosts the Mark of Excellence Awards (MOE), a national award ceremony that celebrates notable work within college journalism during the calendar cycle. Throughout all of the SPJ’s 12 regions, national winners are selected from each category. Student journalists are assessed by distinguished professionals within the journalism industry who have at least three years of experience. NewsVision, UMTV’s half-hour live campus news show, won Best All-Around Television News Magazine within the television category at the MOE awards. The award-winning show covers [...]

The PIEoneer Awards Recognizes the Ocean Health Voyage Project

By Esther Animalu The PIEoneer Awards acknowledges success and novelty across the education industry worldwide. Every year, they hold a highly prestigious award ceremony at the historical London Guildhall, to celebrate individuals and organizations who are reshaping academic pillars and transforming learning pathways for students globally. Ali Habashi, an award-winning filmmaker and assistant professor of professional practice at the University of Miami School of Communication, attended the 2021 PIEoneer Awards in London, and submitted a project,  a few months earlier, that won the equivalent of second place. Habashi’s project is known as Ocean Health Voyage, a global online [...]

2021-10-12T10:09:43-04:00October 5, 2021|Motion Pictures|

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|

UM Professor Accepted into Year-long Public Voices Fellowship

By: Esther Animalu Christina Lane, professor and associate dean of graduate studies at the School of Communication, has been selected to participate in the University of Miami Public Voices Fellow for The OpEd Project. This year-long initiative strives to help shape contemporary conversations on campus. Through a joint effort between the Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Scholarship and the Miami Clinical and Translational Science Institute, the Public Voice Fellowship will foster a dynamic platform where key leaders can collaborate and engage in diverse discourse. “I'm humbled by [...]

2021-09-16T10:52:58-04:00September 16, 2021|Motion Pictures, School of Communication|

Resurrected ‘Ebony’ Magazine Reaches for its Niche

By: Barbara Gutierrez Can the magazine that once highlighted Black success attract readers today? Members of the University community weigh in on the periodical’s past and its return to publication. For more than seven decades, Ebony magazine and its sister publication, Jet, were the chroniclers of Black life in the United States. Entertainers, athletes, politicians, civil rights activists, and prominent businesspeople graced its glossy covers. The magazine ceased its print edition in 2019 when it fell into bankruptcy. Earlier this year, an online version of the magazine was revived thanks to millionaire and [...]

2021-09-15T11:58:48-04:00September 15, 2021|School of Communication|

SoC Launches Graduate Certificate in Media Management

In September 2021, the School of Communication launched its first graduate certificate and began to welcome applications for the 2022 spring semester. The Graduate Certificate in Media Management (GCMM) will allow professionals to supplement their education with specialized media courses and to enhance their skills. Professor Sam Terilli, Chair of the Department of Journalism and Media Management, noted that "in a short period of time, the certificate can provide students with essential knowledge and the ability to analyze key issues affecting the media." This 12-credit non-degree certificate can be completed [...]

2021-09-10T09:37:26-04:00September 9, 2021|School of Communication|

Peafowl Proliferation in the Grove: Is it Paradise or a Problem?

By: Barbara Gutierrez A film by University of Miami faculty members documents the controversy and the efforts of the City of Miami to curtail the problem of a growing pheasant population in Coconut Grove. Some call it the "peafowl predicament." It is the increasing presence of peafowls, or wandering peacocks and peahens, in the Coconut Grove neighborhood. For years, the colorful birds have strutted the streets of the neighborhood as if they owned them. No one knows how they arrived there, since they are not indigenous to the area. Some [...]

2021-09-07T13:01:57-04:00September 7, 2021|Broadcast Journalism, School of Communication|

Veterans Reflect on the US Withdrawal from Afghanistan

By: Jenny Hudak In the wake of the United States’ final departure from Afghanistan after two decades of war, Jack Miller—a faculty member in the School of Communication, Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan, and advisor to the Veteran Students Organization (VSO)—reflects on the crisis. Zachary Danney, president of the VSO, says that watching events unfold has been very difficult for veteran students. As Jack Miller watched the rapid collapse of Afghanistan unfold recently—including the striking video of Afghans clasping onto a departing American military transport jet—his phone began [...]

2021-09-07T12:34:52-04:00September 7, 2021|School of Communication|