Coms Students Present at Winter Research Competition

The Communication Studies Department is enormously proud of our students who presented their original research this quarter at the Winter 2021 Cal Poly Student Research Competition. Caitlin Lee and Anika Maney both participated in the competition online, February 20, 2021. 
 

Caitlin Lee presented research from a project titled The Real-World Implications of Sexism in Parks and Recreation. After performing a content analysis, her primary results showed that sexism occurred 71 times in 57 episodes of the TV show Parks and Recreation. Overall patterns provided an opportunity to discuss the potential impacts this may have on viewers’ beliefs and attitudes towards women in politics and how this show could impact society more broadly.
 

Anika Maney presented research from a project titled I Don’t Care for G.O.B.: Effects of Social Aggressions on Viewers in Arrested Development. After performing a content analysis, her primary results showed that social aggression occurred 522 times in 19.5 hours of the TV show Arrested Development. Implications from the analysis show a lack of consequence faced by characters in the show, which may contribute to viewers perceiving acts of social aggression to be normalized in inappropriate ways. 

Over 45 student projects were presented at this competition and 10 were selected to be included in the upcoming spring CSU Student Research Competition. We are also excited to report that Anika’s Maney’s presentation was competitively selected to be included!

These two projects were developed during Dr. Aubrie Adams’ Media Effects class during the fall 2020 quarter.  Students in this class designed content analyses to identify the frequency to which certain communicative acts and behaviors were shown to occur during popular television shows. Students also identified what kinds of potential impacts may occur on audience members as a result.