Spook Fest Style Guide

This style guide contains branding guidelines for Spook Fest, including logo design, logo use, color palette, and typography.https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/grc_380/1007/thumbnail.jp

Communication and the Common Core: Disciplinary Opportunities

The subject of how to strengthen primary and secondary education in the United States is widely discussed in news and popular media. While an extensive range of opinions have been expressed, the common thread is that these issues are normally situated in the domain of politicians and K-12 teachers. Primary and secondary education are rarely addressed by scholars who publish in Communication Education. This divide between Communication researchers in higher education and K-12 practitioners reflects generally weak connections between the two domains. As seems fitting for our changing times, that situation is also ripe for change. In tandem with the rapid evolution of higher education, primary and secondary education are undergoing a transformation of their own. One of the more significant events in recent years is the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by many states. This new set of standards has the potential to significantly impact our discipline either positively or negatively, depending on how we respond during this implementation phase. At present, it appears that few scholars are paying careful attention

His Final Homily: Pope John Paul II\u27s Death as an Affirmation of His Life\u27s Message

Every Sunday morning, a member of the Roman Catholic clergy addresses his flock after a reading from one of the Gospels. These homilies ordinarily last between 10 and 20 minutes and allow the priest an opportunity to interpret the Gospel message from that day\u27s reading, as well as discuss how that message relates to contemporary events and issues. During the final two months of his life, Pope John Paul II provided a longer, more powerful symbolic homily to the world. The message summarized his positions on freedom, suffering, and the dignity of human life

Cowboys, Angels, and Demons: American Exceptionalism and the Frontier Myth in the CW\u27s \u27Supernatural\u27

The CW network series Supernatural (2005–) draws its text from the horror and fantasy genres as well as religious mythology. Concurrently, it transmits a core “American” mythos. As its protagonists keep watch along a supernatural frontier and eradicate threats to the American way of life, this program both reinforces and alters aspects of the frontier myth and the myth of American exceptionalism by depicting its main characters as representations of America writ large whose mission has grown from an appointment by God to being equals to God. In this manner, Supernatural forwards a new American exceptionalism through the notion that America is exceptional because it is not just divinely appointed by God, but is divine itself

Editor\u27s Page

This year the National Communication Association (NCA) celebrates its centennial. NCA began over a dispute between speech teachers and English teachers over the perception of oral communication receiving less instructional attention, and for the last century communication experts have been the primary party responsible for communication instruction of college students. Over the years the basic course has largely been focused on public speaking as the course to deliver this instruction, though we developed, and still teach, interpersonal communication and hybrid courses that also include small group communication. There have been several different venues in which the basic communication course has received attention during these hundred years. For just over half of them the annual Basic Course Director’s Conference has convened to discuss administrative issues pertaining to the implementation of the basic course, and for twenty-six years the pages of this journal, the Basic Communication Course Annual, have served as a platform for those who conduct research into the pedagogy and performance in this important course

Editor\u27s Page

Despite its nom de guerre, there is nothing “basic” about the basic communication course in colleges and universities. It has served as a locus for research into communication skills, instructional technology, speech anxiety, instructional design and pedagogical practices. All of the research on these topics impacts more than just the basic course, as it is often relevant to instruction in other courses. The work done in the basic communication course is complex and important for both our students and the discipline. In this, the 27th volume of the Basic Communication Course Annual, there continue to appear studies that examine the changing face of the course that is the bulwark of the communication discipline. For a second straight issue the BCCA contains a set of short essays by scholars devoted to discussing one key question. This time the question addressed is “What is the most important area of training for a new basic communication course instructor?” As with the prior issue’s Forum essays, these are varied in their answers. Such variety indicates the multitude of challenges faced by communication departments who deliver large and medium scale basic courses, and whom rely on new pools of instructors either through adjunct faculty or graduate teaching assistants to successfully deliver their course

Editor\u27s Page

The editor, Joseph Valenzano III, provides a summary on the content of Volume 29 and reflects on his term of service as editor of the Basic Communication Course Annual

Eliminating the Oral Communication Requirement: A Response

Authors was asked to prepare an essay as if they were writing a letter to their dean (whose academic training was in another discipline) who (1) asked that enrollment in each basic course section be increased to a level that compromises the pedagogy of the basic course or (2) proposed that the required basic communication course be eliminated from the university’s general education program

Directing the Winds of Change: The Basic Course and General Education

Communication departments remain heavily reliant on the inclusion of an introductory communication course in their institution’s general education program. For this reason it is essential for Basic Course Directors (BCDs) to educate themselves on general education. In doing so they will find a new iteration of change to general education where the required course and distribution model are disappearing in favor of an interdisciplinary outcomes-driven approach. Such a shift can have dramatic repercussions on the basic course and communication programs if the course is not further connected with other areas of general education. In this essay, I argue for Basic Course Directors to rethink how they design their respective courses so that they are better protected from the changes sweeping the landscape of general education. To do so, I provide a brief overview of the history of general education, detail the importance of the basic course to communication departments and external constituencies, and provide some suggestions for guiding a “re-imagining” of the basic course

The Value of Inaugurals: Analysis of Construction

An analysis of modem mass mediated presidential inaugurals was conducted through the use of close textual analysis of each speech as well as an historical analysis of the development of the mass media since the nation\u27s birth. In an effort to identify the goals, themes and strategies used by presidents in their inaugurals, seven pre-Kennedy and every post-Kennedy first inaugural address were analyzed. Using the work of Campbell and Jamieson (1991) as a stepping stone for the identification of these themes, seven themes and their various strategies of enactment were uncovered. Each of these themes were found to be enacted by each president of the modem media era with two goals in mind: 1) the reconstitution of the people; and 2) to lay the foundation for policy appeals. It was found that several of these themes evolved at relatively the same time as the mass media and audience size grew, leading to the conclusion that the mass media play a role in the construction of a modem mass mediated presidential address. This role seems to be related to the notion of the evolution of audience, which in turn is related to the development of new themes and strategies within inaugural addresses. This discovery indicates that the media have become a mitigating factor speech writers must pay attention to when constructing any political address