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Student Research

PODCASTING RESEARCH PROJECTS

In several of our RHMS courses we offer students the opportunity to learn the arts of podcasting as a medium for mobilizing their research interests as well as their skills of storytelling and advocacy. As a department, we are fortunate to have many alumni who have become professionals in the world of podcasting. These alums often serve as mentors to our current students in their podcasting efforts (see our “review board” below). The result is that RHMS students not only gain valuable knowledge about podcasting production; they also make connections with professionals that can lead to internships and careers in a fast-growing industry. In our RHMS 321 course “Argument and Social Justice,” for example, we have a large board of professional mentors who help students develop podcasts around issues of race and social justice, which is a passion project for many of our students at Lewis & Clark College.

RHMS Podcast Panel RHMS Podcast Panel

VIDEO ESSAYS

Curious about video essays made by RHMS students? Visit the department’s Vimeo channel to see work from Media Theory, Media Design and Criticism, Television and American Culture and more!

CAPSTONE THESIS PROJECTS

Students engage in many different forms of original research and creative work in the department. Many courses require a research paper or creative project and our students have gone on to present some of this work at regional and national conferences, festivals, and workshops. Faculty involve students in their own research and creative work and several of these collaborations have resulted in publications or films.

All majors and minors complete a capstone project, typically in their senior year. Students produce their capstone project as part of a 400-level course, in which they learn the relevant theory, research, and method they need to conduct original work. Each semester, capstone students present their work to the department. The gallery of title slides below provides a feel for the diversity of projects students have completed in recent years.

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Title slide. “Starting Young: The Effect of Watching Sports as a Child on Later Physical Activity”
Title slide, “Constructing a Wormhold: The Function of Science Consultancy in Interstellar”
Title slide, “Gender and Comedy”
Title slide, “Problematizing ‘Strong’: Why the ‘Strong Female Character’ Trope is no Longer Enough”
Title slide, “Big Data as Episteme: Knowledge Production and Diffusion”
Title slide, “What is the Relationship Between Social media and Face-to-Face Communication?”
Title slide, “The Erasure of Individual Voices and Racial Disparity: Government Plans to End Homelessness”
Title slide, “Nationalities vs. Latinidad: Problematizing Latin Representation in Popular Films”
Title slide, “The Politics of Death: How Euthanasia Became Death with Dignity”
Title slide, “Kindergarteners and the Media: A Focus Group Study Examining Uses, Gratifications, and Gender”
Title slide, “Defining Femininity in a Hyper-Masculine Environment: A Study of Media Coverage of the 2014 Sochi Olympic Women’s Hockey Tournament”
Title slide, “The Green Screen: Early Television Consumption and Environmental Consciousness”
TItle slide, “Postcolonial Feminist Identity: A Study on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Speaking Practice Using Narrative Feminist Discourse Analysis”
Title slide, “Television’s Dead Lesbian Syndrome”
Title slide, “‘Just When I Thought I Was Out’: The Sopranos’ Postmodern Influence on Contemporary Gangster Film”
Title slide, “Film Rating Comparisons Between the College Student and the Critic”
Title slide, “Translating Between Spheres of Communication: Science, Rhetoric, and CRISPR”
Title slide, “Representing Boston: A Star Study”
Title slide, “A Moral Judgment Comparison on Racial Passing: Villiany or Heroism?”
Title slide, “The American Flag and its Relationship to the Body”
Title slide, “The Contemporary War Film: Perpetuating American Exceptionalism”
Title slide, “Wild Words: Space, Place, and Gender in Tamil Feminist Poetry”
Title slide, “Tokenization and Constituted Ideology: The Construction of ‘Lebron James’”
Title slide, “Challenging the Status Quo: Popular Music in Protest Films”
Title slide, “A Counter to Counter-Publics: How Osa Atoe’s Shotgun Seamstress Provides an Alternative Punk History”
Title slide, “An Invitation to a Queer Reading: The Case of Gary Walsh in HBO’s VEEP”
Title slide, “You’re Either In or You’re Out: The Queering of Tim Gunn on Project Runway”
Title slide, “Indigenous Stories in Popular Scientific Discourse: An Analysis of Rhetorical Coloniality”
Title slide, “Violets are Red: Queering Film, Tropes, and the Academic Essay”
Title slide, “‘I’m not interested in any labels unless it’s on something I shoplift’: Understanding the Stereotypes in Glee”