A roundup of recent research and creative activity by Newhouse students, faculty and staff, along with accolades and other highlights.
The Fall Newhouse Impact Symposium, sponsored by the Newhouse School’s Office of Research and Creative Activity, takes place Friday, Dec. 1! The symposium will showcase and celebrate the school’s wide range of student and faculty research and creative activities in an effort to create awareness and encourage communications and collaboration at Newhouse and across campus. For more information, visit the Newhouse events page.
The Newhouse Impact podcast is a collaboration of the Newhouse School and WAER 88.3 to showcase research and creative work. On this episode, host Kevin Kloss chatted with Dan Pacheco, a professor of practice of magazine, news and digital journalism and the Peter A. Horvitz Endowed Chair in Journalism Innovation at the Newhouse School.
Pacheco is the author of the book “Experimenting with Emerging Media Platforms.” Kloss and Pacheco discussed topics including wearable tech and future professional uses of artificial intelligence. Below is part of their conversation; to listen to the show, please visit the Newhouse Impact episode page.
Pacheco
The book really came out of a lot of things. First, it encapsulates a lot of what I’ve done in my career, even before I was a professor. I’ve been teaching at Newhouse for about 11 years now, which is amazing to me. I’ve never done anything this long before. But, before that, I did a lot of stuff in “new media,” which was when a new technology called the Internet showed up and you could actually use it. And it was just there. There was no textbook to tell you how to get started, you had to learn everything yourself. A lot of us did that and it really paid off.
So, then I came here, as a professor and the Peter A. Horvitz Endowed Chair in Journalism Innovation. My job is to help students be prepared, to always be 10-20% ahead of change and ready to adopt. That was the second impetus for the book. It encapsulates what I teach, but also what I believe in. I want all our students who go into media careers to be changemakers.
Pacheco
That’s always the challenge, even with teaching. The book does get into some currently emerging technologies, which have since changed. (Particularly with AI.) I did address that topic as well.
Along similar lines, I have a class called “Emerging Media Platforms” that I’ve been teaching for about the last six years, which has the same problem. But a process has emerged from this, from having hundreds of students go through the course. Basically, one approaches the problem through field-testing. The subtitle of my book is “Field-Testing the Future,” and that really is what you’re doing.
To use this process, you first find a problem. A small, but significant problem that involves a target audience. One that can be solved in a new way in a short amount of time with little to no money. For example, determining how to help a museum use augmented reality to reach people during a pandemic. (We actually had a lot of innovation like this during the pandemic because of how removed everyone was from one other.)
You then put things together. You create something really cool, but really focused. You have a target audience, and you get some data. In the startup world, which I came out of, they call this a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach. The book “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries also gets into this, though it’s focused on information media storytelling.
Marketing the “Barbie” Movie: Going Big Garnered Big Results
Guests: Newhouse Senior Associate Dean Regina Luttrell and research assistant Carrie Welch examine the outsized marketing of the “Barbie” movie and how the success could shape future marketing efforts.
Roy Gutterman participated in a conference on criminal trials, the first amendment, and the media.
Shaina Holmes was the VFX supervisor for the film “Creeping Death,” and was also the producer for the Official CDR animated explainer video in collaboration with Syracuse University’s Center for Disability Resources.
Holmes worked on a documentary last summer with Newhouse students called “The Tuskegee Airmen: Return to Ramitelli,” which premiered in May 2023 on PBS stations and streaming.