Last week, two Fairfield students had the honor of representing the Communication Department by attending the DePauw National Undergraduate Honors Conference for Communication and Theatre. The annual event is designed to encourage undergraduates and major Communication scholars to interact and share ideas.

Emily Andresen (2013) presented her paper, “To Tweet You Is To Know You: Investigating the Celebrity Parasocial Relationships on Twitter,” which she co-authored with Samantha Helm, Carolyn Schauber, and Georgia Tiftikidis.

Samantha Goodnow (2013) presented, “SES, Communication, and College Friendships.” The paper focused on the relationship between socioeconomic status and the formation and maintenance of college friendships and was co-authored with Kristen Dimmling, Danielle Manzella, and Ellen Padovano.

While noting that many of the papers at the conference shared some of the same format and writing techniques, Goodnow added, “The differences were in all of our original ideas, and it was really neat to see how a bunch of similar students from all over the country could have such different perspectives and insights and could develop such critical examinations through their papers.”

Congratulations to Emily and Samantha for attending and to Samantha, Carolyn, Georgia, Kristen, Danielle, and Ellen for their academic achievement!

Come get all your internship-related questions answered! The information session will be held on Monday, April 29 at 5 p.m. in DMH 348.

For more information, see the flier below:

Tomorrow evening, April 10 at 7 p.m. in the Fairfield University Bookstore, Dr. Serazio will be giving a talk about his new book, Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerilla Marketing.

The book, which focuses on how today’s guerilla marketing and advertising tactics give the illusion of freedom and participation while actually seeking to govern consumers’ actions on a deeper level, is the product of Serazio’s dissertation, which won the Gerald R. Miller Dissertation Award for best dissertation at the National Communication Association’s 2011 conference.

The research itself consisted of many interviews with advertising and marketing practitioners at all levels.  “As for the most interesting thing I found in talking to them,” Serazio said, “– it’d probably have to be one of core themes of the book: That they don’t see their work as advertising; or, at least, they idealize it as something culturally larger than that.”

While admitting that the book is primarily written from an academic standpoint, Serazio added, “I’d like to believe that non-scholars who are interested in marketing, pop culture, and society would be interested  as well.”

The bookstore is located at 1499 Post Road in Fairfield, and the event is free and open to the public.

Join us for a discussion about how to put your knowledge into practice after graduation. Five speakers, all graduates of Fairfield University, will be offering their insights and experience navigating the real world of communication careers.

The event will take place on Monday, March 25th at 7 p.m. in the Kelley Center. For more information, see the flyer below.