BCNM Student Presentations for the annual BEARS Research Symposium, February 14, 2013
Exciting and innovative new UC Berkeley research projects are presented annually at the Berkeley EECS Annual Research Symposium (BEARS). Berkeley Center for New Media hosted an open house on February 14, 2013 where students pursuing a Designated Emphasis in new media presented their work in poster session format.
Read about some of their research below:
Yngvil Beyer, Norwegian Ph.D. fellow at the National Library in Norway, Visiting Scholar at BCNM 2013
"Using DiscoverText for Large Scale Twitter Harvesting"
Beyer's research project focuses on the context of new media objects, including judicial issues and the blur of the private and public, as well as technical and practical aspects of establishing new archival practices. How can institutions like the National Library of Norway preserve new media content like Twitter for future research and documentation?
Ashley Ferro-Murray, Reginold Royston, Department of Art Practice
HASTAC MacArthur Foundation Award recipient
"Learning Internet Citizenship"
In seeking to improve online learning, we are also examining how experiences of failure, exclusion and marginality often inform the process of innovation and creativity. How can learning strategies that deviate from classroom structure and goals be recognized as innovations or alternative forms of engagement? What forms of social capital do students develop when they are allowed to define achievement for themselves?
Margaret Rhee, Ph.D. candidate in Ethnic Studies with a designated emphasis in New Media
"From the Center"
From the Center is a feminist based participatory program conceptualized by Rhee in 2009 through a New Media Studies course “Technologies for Creativity and Learning.” The project aims to provide digital media access and education for women inside and outside the jail setting by emphasizing how technology, creativity, and storytelling facilitates empowerment and alternative pedagogical methods. In particular, the project focuses on constructionist learning—learning through creating. Technology and creativity can be utilized to transform marginal voices to the center of discussion and discourse.
Elizabeth Keegan, MFA, Department of Art Practice with a Designated Emphasis in New Media
"AirQuest" version 2.0 (made in Fresno)
Over the past 6 months Keegan has served as a lead designer and team manager for AirQuest. Working with a group of 4 amazing artists, programmers, and gamers she's been working to bring an essential perspective to the pollution problems in Fresno, California. From buttons to game-play, AirQuest addresses both solution and problems around air quality confronting today’s youth.
Bonnie Ruberg, Ph.D. candidate Comparative Literature with a Designated Emphasis in New Media
"Virtually Painless: Media, Masochism, and Mastery"
How do we experience pain and pleasure vicariously through media? In what ways are these sensations mediated? Through what techniques do text, film, games and online environments create our virtual and vulnerable erotic bodies? What can the lineage of sadomasochism in literature tell us about contemporary digital BDSM practices? In what ways are the experiences of masochism and media consumption inherently linked?
Tiffany K. Ng, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Music with a Designated Emphasis in New Media
"Music at Philips Electronics: Cold War era, 1950-1988"
Did postwar developers of innovative musical instruments borrow interfaces, sonic aesthetics, and symbolism from artisans reconstructing Baroque-style instruments? Was the influence mutual?
Chen Chen, Ph.D. candidate in IEOR
"Conic Optimization for the Grid"
Power systems are undergoing broad technological and regulatory changes to address concerns about climate change, fossil fuel dependency, and the economy. We are developing algorithms for power system operations and markets to help cope with these changes by becoming more efficient, reliable and flexible.
Birce Tezel, Ph.D. candidate in IEOR
"Submodular Inequalities for the Capacitated Fixed Charge Network Problem"
We derive new valid inequalities for path substructures of the capacitated fixed charge network problem. These strong valid inequalities are based on the exact characterizations of submodular inequalities and they generalize the well-known flow cover and path inequalities.
Christopher Goetz, Ph.D. Candidate in Film with a Designated Emphasis in New Media
"Tether and Accretions: Fantasy as Form in Videogames"
Goetz proposes that videogames are structured by conscious fantasy. His project traces two fantasies (tether and accretions) that combine into the genre of the role-playing game, providing a rough timeline for the evolution of these fantasies in videogames. It also engages in close readings of individual works that highlight important aspects of each fantasy. This study can serve as the basis for a formal analysis of games that is reinforced by their divided nature (game and story).
Jen Schradie, Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology with a Designated Emphasis in New Media.
"The Digital Production Gap: The Digital Divide and Web 2.0 Collide"
How does class intersect with claims of digital democracy? Most digital inequality research focuses on digital consumption or participation, but this study uses a production lens to examine who is creating digital content for the public sphere. Shcradie's results point to a class-based gap among producers of online content. A critical mechanism of this inequality is control of digital tools and an elite Internet-in-practice and information habitus to use the Internet.
"The Trend of Class, Race, and Ethnicity in Social Media Inequality"
Blogs were the original poster child of digital democracy as an egalitarian public forum. Some scholars have challenged this theory of equality based on race and ethnicity, but no empirical analysis of American adults has questioned a class based divide over time. Blogs, as a form of digital content production, appear to mirror other technological innovations in which a small elite group of users begin to incorporate them in their daily living after which the innovation spreads quickly to the general population, as with basic Internet access. However, the author argues that unlike this consumptive practice, blogging fits into a productive framework that requires more resources.