by Hannah Hanson
Over the course of any Communication Studies student’s college career, a pivotal moment happens when they begin the process of their senior research project. All seniors, from both concentrations, start the fall semester in Communications Research Methods and Prospectus class to brainstorm their year-long research project.
Students are given the freedom to choose their own topic that is related to communication studies, and they are highly encouraged to choose topics that interest them. Over the course of the semester, students spend hours researching and developing their topic. Once the spring semester starts all students are separated into their Senior Seminar course based on the type of research method they have chosen to pursue: qualitative or quantitative.
Olivia Robinson and Victoria Belviso have been planning out their project since their freshman year when they first joined the #COMMunity. Olivia and Victoria
spent several sleepless nights watching horror films together. From this they decided to turn their love for horror films into a research project. They are questioning how horror films affect the everyday lives of millennials by showing the movie “Lights Out” and performing focus groups with a group of men and a group of women.
Deanna Carwile wants to understand how millennials perceive Facebook statuses that are “too much information.” Over the course of her time on social media, Deanna said, “I have read a lot of statuses that made me think, why is that a good idea to post and share with the online community?” Deanna wants to perform a focus group on millennial Facebook users in order to have an open conversation about the process of oversharing.
Students Meghan Enzinna and Richie Kamtchoum chose their topic based off of their love for music. They are trying to discover whether or not there is a political presence within popular songs from two separate eras. Their research is going to consist of a content analysis of top charting song lyrics from songs during the Anti-Vietnam war protests and #blacklivesmatter movement. Meghan and Richie will code several different variables to help identify whether or not the songs are politically charged, as well as determining which era has more of a presence.
Another quantitative project by Drew Pelkey and Michael Castanon focuses on the differences in communication on dating
apps between gay and straight people. They chose their topic because of how prevalent technology is within millennial’s love life. They began to notice the differences in the dating apps when it came to communicating with other gays versus straight people and depending on which app was being used. In order to do this Drew and Michael will be giving out surveys and collecting data to see which differences occur most often.
Over the next few months all of the Communication Studies seniors will be performing their research and presenting their findings during a poster session to the Longwood community on April 26th, 2017.