Portfolio

This immersive virtual exhibit reimagines three murals honoring Overtown’s Black history through interactive storytelling and virtual reality. Created by graduate students in the Department of Interactive Media in partnership with Miami Museum of Contemporary Art of the African Diaspora(Miami MoCAAD), the project transforms site-specific public art into an accessible digital experience that preserves and amplifies community narratives. Through VR, users can explore each mural as a portal into Overtown’s cultural legacy, learning about the people, stories, and history behind the artwork. The project bridges art, technology, and education, supporting Miami MoCADD mission to engage audiences through innovative platforms while providing students with hands-on experience in collaborative, community-centered design.

When Humor Appeals Fail and When They Succeed: Using Latent Profile Analysis to Identify Audience Receptivity to Humorous Messages Faculty Lead: Nick Carcioppolo [...]

Dynamic Communication of Weather Risk: A User-Centered Design Approach Faculty Leads: Barbara Millet, Alberto Cairo, Scotney Evans, Sharanya Majumdar, and Brian McNoldy Read the [...]

This research explores the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI) in broadcast news, examining how it reshapes production, distribution, and audience engagement amid declining traditional [...]

This paper investigates the privacy risks social media users face, the responsibilities of the platforms, and the regulations surrounding these services. In addition, it discusses [...]

About Since 2016, the Media Management Association (MMA) Awards have recognized outstanding undergraduate and graduate student works (i.e., major student papers and projects, including creative [...]

Empowering Local Comadronas in Indigenous Guatemala: A Tool for Sexual and Reproductive Health Faculty Lead: Victoria Orrego Dunleavy Read the Article [...]

Correspondence Faculty Lead: Ali Habashi Watch the Trailer Project Description “Correspondence” is a feature-length narrative film co-produced [...]

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI): Two Experiments from Imposed Users’ Perspective Faculty Lead: Ching-Hua Chuan Read the Article [...]

The "School of Communication VR Tour" is an immersive and interactive virtual experience designed to give prospective and incoming students a dynamic introduction to the University of Miami’s School of Communication. This project addresses the challenge of limited access to physical campus visits, providing a 360-degree visual simulation that brings the school to life in a way traditional descriptions and photos cannot match.

This study focuses on the relationship between the mainstream press and right-wing protests in Brazil. Guided by the “protest paradigm” literature, my goal was to understand how reporters in the Global South cover conservative demonstrations. Protest paradigm scholarship found that news norms and routines lead to delegitimizing patterns of coverage, focusing on official viewpoints, spectacle, and violence. Here, I consider how the same practices can aid in the legitimization of right-wing movements. Through a mixed methodology combining content analysis and interviews with reporters from the analyzed outlets, findings revealed that when protesters’ grievances and demands aligned with the preferences of anti-leftist elites, right-wing politicians subsidized information to journalists. The lack of clashes with the police and cohesive leadership also allowed for coverage to become more thematic. As a result, I argue three conditions lead to news legitimization of protests. First, the movement fitting within a broader political conflict between elites. Second, the movement being sympathetic to the state's repressive apparatus. Third, the movement having cohesive leadership and unified identity. These conditions, which favor right-wing demands, drove legitimizing coverage even when reporters viewed the movement with skepticism.

After the 2020 presidential election, sustained efforts to overturn outcomes culminated in the invasion of the United States Capitol. While scholars have long investigated the impact of news on support for left-leaning protests, it is critical to understand how political predispositions and news consumption relate to support for anti-democratic movements. Through a survey fielded one week after the invasion, we analyzed how ideology, attitudes about protesting in general, authoritarianism, and media habits relate to people’s support for the movement, perceptions of its disruptiveness, and opinions about police response. Results show that conservative media have a strong unidirectional relationship, increasing support for the movement, while left-leaning or mainstream media impact is moderated by partisanship, which is related to increased support for liberals and decreased support for conservatives. We found authoritarianism related to support for Stop the Steal and perceptions of the police as too severe to suppress it. Evidence suggests elite cues and consumption of conservative media can legitimize insurrectionist movements, even among those who strongly oppose the right to protest overall.