Communicating Amid COVID-19 |
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Welcome to comm·unity, the biannual newsletter reporting on new and exciting developments in our department! Although we're still adjusting to life amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we've come a long way since it first began. From hybrid classes and virtual club meetings to remote internships and more, read on for what our community has been up to this semester.
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As we all finish our fall courses remotely after the Thanksgiving break, I want to take a moment to thank everyone for working together during the pandemic. From hybrid and remote classes to masks, social distancing, daily symptom checking and random testing, we were able to prevent an outbreak and keep our campus open when other schools were forced to close. It is thanks to you, our students, that we were successful in this effort.
In our department, we study how new communication technologies change relationships of power, social organization, and conceptions of identity. We already had experienced shifts in communication with social media, but the pandemic has upended how we interact with one another. From the cancellation of sports, concerts, and other live action entertainment, to Zoom and Google Meet morphing from a niche business solution to a primary form of interaction, our communication increasingly is mediated through digital technologies. Through our screens, we all have become small-scale TV producers.
The industries many of you hope to work in after graduation are changing quickly, as well. Disney has laid off over 30,000 employees from its theme parks, ABC News, and ESPN, while Netflix plans to invest over $1 billion in new production facilities. Quibi’s bet that viewers would watch bite-sized mobile entertainment was quashed, along with nearly $2 billion of investors’ money. Warner Brothers just announced that it will release its entire 2021 slate of films on HBO Max on the same day they appear in theaters, and ViacomCBS plans to have about 70% of its employees work at least partially from home even after the pandemic is over.
Despite these challenges, our students and alumni are moving forward and making it work. Students this semester have secured remote internships at NBCUniversal, J Public Relations, The Dr. Oz Show, Radical Media, The Fresh Air Fund, and RSquare Media, among other sites. The Quadrangle continues to cover stories on campus, WRCM DJs continued their streamcasts from their street-level studio, and MCTV produced TV shows with COVID-19 protections from our 4K TV studio. PRSSA has hosted remote industry guests and alumni events, and our Sports Media Production broadcasts for ESPN+ are ready to produce a season of socially-distanced basketball.
I am particularly proud to read about the accomplishments of our students, including Sophia Sakellariou winning the top undergraduate student award at the New York State Communication Association, Gabriella DePinho having her Quad article picked up by the New York Times’ Schools Briefing newsletter, and Elyse Holmes and Gemma Perez being accepted to the NBC Sports Mentorship program. It has been a joy to read on our social media channels this semester about the successes of our alumni– if you don’t have those feeds, be sure to subscribe to @MCCOMMDEPT on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
These next six weeks will be difficult, but the promise of multiple vaccines and coordinated mitigation efforts leads me to be hopeful for improvements during the spring and a return to campus next fall. I know I can count on all of you to do your part, and please know that we will always be here for you.
Dr. Michael Grabowski
Chair, Communication Department
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Communication Professors Adjust to
Teaching Remotely
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by Jilleen Barrett
As anyone majoring in communication at Manhattan College has witnessed, the education that the communication department has to offer has been significantly affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With almost every professor working remotely, communication with students has definitely not been normal.
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Communication Clubs Adapt to Remote Format with a Commitment to
Serving Students
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by Christine Nappi
Just because there’s a pandemic, doesn’t mean news reporting stops. That’s something Gabriella DePinho, Editor-in-Chief of The Quadrangle, popularly known as The Quad, made clear to her editors and staff writers once the college went remote last March. Coming into this semester, DePinho felt confident about continuing news production and was determined to make sure staff writers would still be producing stories.
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New Concentration on the Block!
Integrated Marketing Communication's
First Official Semester
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by Calista Baker
This semester, the communication department officially
started integrated marketing communication (IMC) as a new concentration for communication majors. IMC focuses on promoting messages through multiple strategies that pull from both the public relations and advertising perspectives.
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Sports Media Production Adapts to Cover Games During COVID-19 |
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by Christine Nappi
The best way for sports media production students to learn is by getting thrown into the fire, something Joe Ruggiero, producer of MAAC sports coverage, instilled in the minds of his students as they began to learn how to cover the women’s and men’s basketball games last year. Students are going to have to learn all over again– but this time they’re developing a new skill: adjusting to COVID-19 restrictions while still producing engaging coverage.
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Strategic Planning in Public Relations
as Community Engaged Learning:
What are they up to this semester?
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by Scarlett Sperduto
The Strategic Planning in Public Relations course teaches students to develop an understanding of the process of strategic planning within the field of public relations. This includes writing public relations plans, furthering strategic relationships with management, and forming relationships with the media for mutual advantage.
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Sophia Sakellariou Receives Top Paper Award for Senior Thesis |
by Caroline McCarthy
Sophia Sakellariou had the honor of presenting her Senior Thesis, “Adopting Strategies for the Hyperreal Battlefront: Fake News vs The New York Times”
at the New York State Communication Association (NYSCA) after receiving the award for the top undergraduate paper. Sakellariou, a communication major concentrating in journalism, is set to graduate at the end of the Fall 2020 semester. She wanted her thesis to explore the news industry after facing criticism from family and friends about her desire to write ‘fake news.’
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Senior Internship Spotlights |
by Ally Mejia
As a senior at Manhattan College, Gabriella DePinho has definitely made a lasting impression in her past four years of attendance. Her roles as Editor-in-Chief of The Quadrangle, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Manhattan Magazine, and former Vice President of Players, MC’s theater group, are only a few of the involvements she has on campus.
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PRSSA Members Gain Knowledge at Public Relations Virtual Conference |
by Christine Nappi
Members of Manhattan College’s chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America were able to attend the international conference for the society, ‘ICON,’ like they do every year. Yet this time, the conference was held virtually.
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Communication Department Graduates vs. COVID-19: Students Find Opportunities
During the Pandemic
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by Jana Clark
Due to the global pandemic, 2020 has been a year unlike any other. Students all over the world were forced to cut their school years short and finish their semesters remotely from home. Unfortunately for graduating seniors, this meant they would not be able to walk the stage to receive their diplomas, but instead watch their commencement ceremonies from their computers, or defer them to some unknown time in the future. We caught up with recent Manhattan graduates to learn about what graduating and navigating the job market during the pandemic has been like.
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Erin Pricoli '20
by Scarlett Sperduto
Erin Pricoli graduated from Manhattan College in 2020 with a major in Public Relations and a minor in Marketing. Currently, Pricoli works as a communications coordinator at Braze, a customer engagement plat-
form.
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Madison Richards '20
by Scarlett Sperduto
Madison Richards graduated from Manhattan College in 2019 with a double major in art history and communication with a concentration in public relations.... All of this prepared her for her current job as an assistant account executive at the PR firm Resnicow and Associates.
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Follow the COMM Club Social Media! |
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Engage with Fellow COMM Students |
Be sure to follow the department's accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @mccommdept for updates and information on events and happenings within the department. Also follow the accounts of the student clubs listed below.
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Editors
Editor-in-Chief: Christine Nappi
Faculty Advisor: Arshia Anwer
Executive Director: Kaitlin Scheie
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