Research Update: 9/11, Muslim Americans, Crime Novels, Adaptation, Racism and Social Media

Currently I'm working on four research projects.  I do have others in the works, but these four are the ones getting my attention right at this time.

1) Social Media Use

Over the summer I researched and wrote a paper on the use of social media by U.S. universities and, specifically, by mass communications and journalism departments in the U.S.  Next week I'll be presenting this research at a conference and shortly after I'll submit this for possible publication in an academic journal.

The paper is titled ""Social Media Use within Mass Communication and Journalism" and will be presented on September 29th, at 2:15 p.m. at the the Rochester Institute of Technology's Social Media and Communication Symposium (@SMACSRIT).




2) Kiss the Girls and In the Heat of the Night

Also, I recently finished a paper on these two novels and their film adaptations. Both novels, Kiss the Girls and In the Heat of the Night, are about African-American detectives traveling into North Carolina and attempting to solve crimes while there. Both of these crime novels were adapted to film.  Both novels clearly addressed issues of race and racism.  However, only the In the Heat of the Night film kept the issues in.  The Kiss the Girls film did not.  My paper explores the differences between the two adaptations.  The paper was submitted to North Carolina Literary Review for possible publication.

I also submitted some of my photography to this journal.  I am a photographer and teach digital photography. I recently posted some of the photos.

The paper is titled "The Case of the Missing Voice: A Critique of the 1997 Film Kiss the Girls" and was submitted at the end of August. Hope to hear back in a couple of months.


3) Portrayal of Muslim-Americans in Post-9/11 Television Dramas

My co-author and I continue to advance this line of research. Now that we've presented papers on this topic during the summer and have received some feedback, we are reworking this research into one paper for possible publication.  We've also noticed that we can extend this line of research and "spin-off" two other related papers.  So, with these three 9/11 papers in mind, we are currently, carefully mapping out where we'd send each of these papers for publication. We've identified a few journals, but are looking for more possibilities.

The paper is tentatively titled "Portrayal of Muslim-Americans in Post-9/11 Television Dramas" and we'll begin submitting our papers to journals in mid-October.


4) What Do Mass Comm Students Learn?

I teach a grad level introduction to mass media course.  As part of this course we are studying 10 current, undergrad intro to mass comm textbooks.  We are looking at what is covered and not covered in such textbooks.  This line of research will, at least, result in a conference paper.  One or two graduate students will co-author.

This paper is tentatively titled "What Do Mass Comm Students Learn?" and we plan to have a final draft during winter break (Dec. '11/Jan. '12).  We plan to submit it to a national or international conference in early Spring '12.

If you'd like to know more about these and my other research projects, please let me know.  Send email or comment below.


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