Norman Lear Center to create program that will measure the impact of media

Posted on April 30, 2013 by AlexReed

LearCenter_250p.ashxBy Alex Reed
Student Writer

USC Annenberg’s Normal Lear Center was featured in a Los Angeles Times article about their new program that will act as “global hub” for measuring the impact of media.

“The metrics that have been used for this have been astonishingly primitive,” said Marty Kaplan, USC Annenberg Professor and Director of the Norman Lear Center.

According to Kaplan, counting page views is futile “when trying to figure out whether an opinion piece, a documentary film or a television show actually moved anyone.”

“Those measure how many people saw something,” Kaplan said. “That’s not the same as an outcome.”

The purpose of the program is to act as a “clearinghouse for information from researchers,” and to create better ways to “measure what matters.” It will provide the tools non-profit groups need to measure impact as effectively as corporate advertisers.

The program is being financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The new program was also featured on Poynter.org and PublicityInsider.com.

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Norman Lear Center
Marty Kaplan

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Study by the Center for the Digital Future shows that ‘Millenials’ care less about online privacy

Posted on April 30, 2013 by AlexReed

DCA9A6BB0AB74AA686B2D5B7AD529AA1.ashxBy Alex Reed
Student Writer

A study done by USC Annenberg’s Center for the Digital Future on online privacy was featured in article from USA Today. According to the study, “Millennials” are less concerned with privacy and are the most willing to share personal information online.

“From very early ages, Millennials were just very comfortable really using technology as their bridge to the world, and therefore [have] very little to fear from it,” said Jeff Cole, USC Annenberg professor and director of the Center for the Digital Future.

Millennials, the study shows, have a more instinctive understanding of the value of interacting with companies online. Companies use the data provided by online interaction to improve rapport with customers.

“They understand that their information is a valuable commodity, and they want to be compensated,” Cole said. “They’re willing to accept advertising, but they want something out of it.”

The study found that 56 percent of people, ages 18-34, said they would share their location in order to receive free coupons from businesses near them, while only 42 percent of people over 35 said they were willing to share their location.

“Millennials are the trendsetters,” said Cole. “They are the ones that are proving it’s OK to do these things.”

The study was also featured in Forbes, Yahoo! News, and the Press-Enterprise.

Read more about the study on the USC Annenberg website.

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Center for the Digital Future
Jeff Cole

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USC Annenberg students and faculty team up with Leimert Park to repurpose the payphone

Posted on April 30, 2013 by AlexReed

totem3By Alex Reed
Student Writer

The Los Angeles Times featured a new project that USC Annenberg and the artists and community leaders of Leimert Park have started to revive the cultural history of the area.

The Leimert Phone Co., which resulted from a research lab led by USC Annenberg Francois Bar and PhD candidates Benjamin Stokes and Karl Baumann, is a “participatory design project [that] aims to re-invent the payphone as a portal to the local culture and history” in Leimert Park.

Over the course of five weeks, three teams, made up of USC students and Leimert Park artists, looked at how the outdated payphone could be repurposed to reinforce Leimert Park’s cultural roots. Everything from restaurant recommendations to motion-activated Wi-Fi was considered.

8577469369_5a49fba391_b-300x225According to website for the Leimert Phone Co., the hope is that “this collaborative project could be a model for how communities around Los Angeles can bridge the physical and digital, bringing social issues and gentrification into public space and still promoting sustainable development.”

Earlier this month, the prototypes were brought to the Leimert Park Business Improvement District to discuss the continuation of the project.

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Leimert Phone Co.
Francois Bar

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Topping Ceremony Commemorates Construction of Wallis Annenberg Hall

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Olivia Niland

By Olivia Niland
Student Writer

img_5733 - version 2A traditional topping ceremony was held on April 24 to commemorate a milestone in the construction of USC Annenberg’s Wallis Annenberg Hall. The ceremony occurred in recognition of the “topping out” of the building’s structure, and was attended by Annenberg Dean Ernest J Wilson III and Director Geneva Overholser, among other Annenberg officials.

Part of the ceremony included Wilson, Overholser, and other Annenberg officials, as well as construction crew members, signing the steel beam that was then placed atop the building. In keeping with the objective of the new building, the Dean’s signature was accompanied by the words “Annenberg Advantage.”

img_5776 - version 2

The topping ceremony also included the placing of the American flag and an evergreen tree, atop the highest beam, which traditionally commemorates the completion of the building’s highest point and is meant to symbolize “life, growth, and good fortune” according to Senior Project Manager Stephen A. Jenneman of Bernards Construction.

Jenneman, who has worked on the project since the beginning, spoke to those assembled at the ceremony, and called the event a “reward for all of the hard workers” who have made the construction of the new Annenberg Hall progress possible, and acknowledged that it will be “a place for growth and education.”

Following the signing ceremony, the Dean, Director, and other Annenberg officials lunched at the barbecue held at the site and were guided through a tour of the building’s framework.

The five-story, 88,000 square foot Wallis Annenberg Hall is scheduled for completion in Fall 2014.

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Alumna Schweitzer makes Business Insider’s “30 Most Important Women Under 30 In Tech” list

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Jackson DeMos

Business Insider named alumna Callie Schweitzer (B.A. Journalism ’11) to its “30 Most Important Women Under 30 In Tech” list, adding that, “She is literally the future of media.”

Callie Schweitzer

Callie Schweitzer

Schweitzer was honored with a spot on Forbes’ annual “30 under 30 in Media” list in December, and Time Magazine named her Twitter feed one of the world’s best in March.

From Business Insider:

About: Callie Schweitzer oversees corporate brand management and awareness, and audience growth for SB Nation, The Verge, and Polygon. Prior to joining Vox Media, Schweitzer worked as deputy publisher at Talking Points Memo. While at Talking Points Memo, Schweitzer played a key role in the company’s efforts to increase traffic through distribution deals with Google and Yahoo. Last month, Time magazine named her Twitter feed one of the world’s best.

What people are saying about her: “I don’t think I’m overstating things when I say Callie will likely be running the media world by the time she is thirty (or whatever the ‘media world’ looks like by that point). She is literally the future of media.”

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L.A. River Collaborative Hosts River Bike + Walk Spectacular to Build Momentum for a “Riverfront District” in Northeast Los Angeles

Posted on April 25, 2013 by GretchenParker

Los Angeles—On Saturday, April 27, over 200 cyclists, pedestrians and community members are expected to attend a fun-packed day full of family activities, a community fair, bike rides, walk routes, a live collective mapping project and an outdoor movie screening alongside the LA River.

LA River Collab image

The event aims to engage community members in the efforts to transform the LA River and create a “Riverfront District” in Northeast Los Angeles. The event will lead to future Northeast Los Angeles (NELA) Riverfront Collaborative policy workshops this year that will further engage community members from the surrounding neighborhoods in planning for sustainable development in the northeast LA River study area.

Activities are organized by the NELA River Collaborative, in collaboration with Multicultural Communities for Mobility, LACBC, Mujeres de la Tierra, Elysian Valley Arts Collective, NOMAD Los Angeles and Movable Parts.

As part of the event and collaborative, the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s research centers Metamorphosis and Mobile Lab will implement different engagement projects that research the community’s visions around the river. The centers will collectively live map the bike ride and walk routes and contribute to the storytelling of the event and the NELA Riverfront Collaborative.

NELA RC program manager and Metamorphosis team member George Villanueva said, “It’s important to have USC Annenberg be a collaborative partner in a project that envisions the future of Los Angeles and its river. The project can serve as an interdisciplinary model for future collaborations focused on social change between universities, cities, non-profits, the private sector, public media and the communities we work with.”

The festivities will take place at Marsh Park (2960 Marsh Street) in Elysian Valley.

4 pm: Bike+Walk

Group bike ride and walk routes with live mapping activities, exploring the River and its neighborhoods via the L.A. River Greenway Trail.

6 pm: Community Fair

Art and educational activities, bike-powered music, and tables to learn more about the NELA RC and other community organizations. Bike valet provided.

8 pm: Bike-in Movie

Free outdoor screening of “Beetlejuice” in the park. Attendees are encouraged to bring blankets.

For more information on the event and the NELA RC, visit www.mylariver.org.

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USC Annenberg news organizations recognized by Society of Professional Journalists

Posted on April 16, 2013 by AlexReed

file17542By Alex Reed
Student Writer

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) announced the winners of their Region 11 Mark of Excellence Awards in Las Vegas over the weekend, recognizing several of USC Annenberg’s student-run news organizations.

USC Annenberg’s Neon Tommy, Annenberg Television News (ATVN), and Annenberg Radio News competed against other organizations from universities in Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada.

Neon Tommy, who took home five awards, received the third place award for Best Independent Online Student Publication (Large).

Catherine Green, Corrina Shuang Liu, Paige Brettingen and Benjamin Gottlieb, of Neon Tommy, received the first place award in Online News Reporting (Large) for their story, “Ongoing Coverage of April 2012 USC Shooting.”

Neon Tommy’s Catherine Green, Agnus-Dei Farrant and Matt Pressberg received the third place award in Online In-Depth Reporting (Large) for the story, “L.A. Riots: 20 Years After the Unrest.”

The first place award in Online Sports Reporting (Large) went to Neon Tommy’s Jonathan Kendrick. He was recognized for his story, “How High School Eligibility Rules Spiked Todd Hunt’s Football Dreams.”

Tom Dotan, former writer for Neon Tommy, received the second place award in Online Opinion and Commentary (Large).

ATVN received the second place award in Television General News Reporting for Vicki Chen’s piece, “Urban Barn Teaches Teamwork through Horseback Riding.”

Aaron Schrank on Annenberg Radio News received the first place award in Radio Feature. He was recognized for his piece, “A Deaf Man Hears Music.”

The first place winners head to Anaheim in August for SPJ’s national student conference. There, they will compete against the winners from the other 12 SPJ regions.

Read more about the awards here and here.

See the other winners here.

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School of Journalism Director Geneva Overholser and Professor Robert Hernandez mentioned in Poynter

Posted on April 16, 2013 by AlexReed

By Alex Reed
Student Writer

USC Annenberg School of Journalism Director Geneva Overholser and Journalism Professor Robert Hernandez were mentioned in a column for Poynter about the conversation surrounding journalism education.

The column addresses the argument that journalism education is failing, saying that the “trade school model” is, instead, “giving way to something better, a change many of us have been advocating for years.”

ThougSchool of Journalism Director Geneva Overholserh the field “doesn’t ring the cash register the way it used to,” the importance of the curriculum taught in communications and journalism classes still holds.

Overholser noted that students “are [now] getting better jobs out of school than previous generations ever did.” This is because they now possess digital skills that employers demand. Many news publications are also “shifting to less costly workers.”

Hernandez_161pHernandez was mentioned for his “pioneering concepts in peer learning,” in which journalism instructors act as “Socratic coaches.” He was referred to as an example of “a new model of journalism educator[s].”

In an article Hernandez wrote for Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab about his teaching method, he said that “students should bypass the normal route and hijack [their] school’s assets to selfishly improve [their] skills.”

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Geneva Overholser
Robert Hernandez

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KCRW interviews Clayton Dube about Governor Brown’s trip to China

Posted on April 16, 2013 by AlexReed

Taiwan-Panel_Clay_FullBy Alex Reed
Student Writer

Clayton Dube, executive director of the USC U.S.-China Institute, spoke with KCRW’s “Which Way L.A.?” about California Governor Jerry Brown’s trip to China this week.

Brown’s trip is being funded by private business owners in the Bay area and Silicon Valley to strengthen California’s economic ties in China. Brown will also open the new California trade and investment office in Shanghai.

“One of the things [business owners] are hoping for, in some cases, is investment from China,” said Dube. “California is a top investment destination.”

Those funding the trip are also hoping to expand exports. California is currently the top exporter to China in the United States.

“Our state has a very strong relationship [with China],” said Dube. “We are both competitors, as well as, in some cases, collaborators [and] partners in many of these enterprises.”

Listen to the interview
Clayton Dube
USC U.S.-China Institute

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USC Annenberg to Host ‘Girl Rising’ Screening, Goody Awards

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Olivia Niland

By Olivia Niland
Student Writer
GirlRising

USC Annenberg will host a screening of the documentary “Girl Rising” as well as the Goody Awards for Social Good on Thursday, April 18.

‘Girl Rising’ is a documentary which aims to raise awareness of the 66 million girls ages 5-18 who are not attending school, and about the high rate of marriage for girls under 18 around the world. It tells the stories of 9 girls in developing nations, as narrated by celebrities such as Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep, and implores viewers to “educate a girl, change the world.”

This year’s Golden Goody award recipient, Erica Greve, is the Founder of Unlikely Heroes, an anti-human trafficking organization which aims to rescue and rehabilitate child victims of sex slavery. Greve is currently working with child victims in the Philippines, where she has established a safe house for rehabilitation, and will receive the Golden Goody via satellite.

Stacy SmithThe ‘Girl Rising’ screening and Goody Awards ceremony will occur in the USC Annenberg Auditorium and be followed by a Filmmaker Panel and reception. USC Annenberg Professor Stacy L. Smith, who has researched the role of gender and race in film and television extensively, will moderate the Filmmaker Panel. Beth Osisek and Rediate Tekeste of ‘Girl Rising’ will participate in the Q&A session following the film.

This event is free and open to the public. Those interested in attending can reserve tickets here.

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