American jazz singer and songwriter Billie Holiday has a Baltimore connection. She spent the bulk of her childhood on a block of South Durham Street in Upper Fells Point. Residents and artists in that neighborhood are honoring her by starting a project that pays tribute to Holiday while also bringing new life to the block.

Media and communication studies student Ken Corbett is an intern for WYPR’s Maryland Morning and produced and narrated a story about the project that aired on the program January 17. In December, Corbett spent a day on Holiday’s block on South Durham Street and put together a story after interviewing residents and Holiday’s biographer.

“Billie Holiday may have spent some of her darker years in Baltimore, but the people who live in her old neighborhood now are using that legacy and her image to brighten things up,” Corbett says.

You can listen to the full story here.

In an op-ed published in The Baltimore Sun, media and communication studies assistant professor Rebecca Adelman describes how pictures and video of chemical weapons casualties in the Syrian civil war did not follow the traditional model for war images.

In her op-ed titled “Atypical images of war,” Adelman writes about how the images required extensive explanation and interpretation due to what they were depicting:

The amateur photos and videos of the victims of the attacks do not follow the familiar model of the war casualty image. They were recognizable as such primarily in their quantitative aspects: the number of images and the astonishing volume of casualties (many of them grouped together) that they depicted. The scale of death bespoke militarized violence, but the qualitative dimension of those images was a bit more equivocal.

Adelman also notes how many of the images raise concerns and confusion as it relates to how they will be viewed in the future.

“Myriad uncertainties hover around these pictures. We cannot know how they will function or signify in the future, especially because changing dynamics in the region might compel the United States to negotiate with the Assad regime to prevent a jihadist takeover of the country,” Adelman writes.

You can read the full op-ed in The Baltimore Sun here.

Jason Loviglio, director of the media and communication studies program, has been elected to the Board of Directors of Wide Angle Youth Media.

Wide Angle Youth Media provides Baltimore youth with media education to tell their own stories and become engaged with their communities. Through after-school programming, in-school opportunities, summer workshops, community events, and an annual Youth Media Festival, Wide Angle supports young people making a difference through media.

Congratulations!

Jason Loviglio, director of media and communication studies, is the co-editor with Michele Hilmes of the recently-released book “Radio’s New Wave: Global Sound in the Digital Era” (Routledge, 2013).

“Radio’s New Wave” features essays from 12 top scholars from three continents.  It explores the evolution of audio media and sound scholarship in the digital age, exploring the ways that radio has transformed in the digital environment. Contributors explore what sound looks like on screens, how digital listening moves us, new forms of sonic expression, radio’s convergence with mobile media, and the creative activities of old and new audiences. “Radio’s New Wave” charts the dissolution of radio’s boundaries and its expansion to include a wide-ranging universe of sound, visuals, tactile interfaces, and cultural roles, as radio rides the digital wave into its second century.

UMBC’s Caitlyn Leiter-Mason ’14, GWST and political science, and Mitch Case ’11, MCS, are in Charlotte this week serving as delegates to the Democratic National Convention, reports Patch. Leiter-Mason, a Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar and contributor to USDemocrazy, represents Maryland’s 6th District. Case, social media coordinator at the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, represents Maryland’s 7th District.

Curious about how they got to Charlotte and what they hope to achieve? See their Tumblr A Tale of Two Delegates, read “Ellicott City delegate works to energize young voters” in the Baltimore Sun and listen to their interview on the Marc Steiner Show.

Donald F. Norris, professor and chairman of UMBC’s Department of Public Policy, also appeared in the Baltimore Sun, commenting on the rise of Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, who is in Charlotte this week as chair of the National Democratic County Officials. When asked if this role would boost Ulman’s chances in a gubernatorial race, Norris noted it “shows that he has some image within the Democratic Party outside of the state,” but, he concluded, “I don’t think that translates into votes or necessarily money.”

On August 15, The Baltimore Sun‘s free weekly B published a “Baltimore College Guide”, in which students from area universities provided insights into their schools. UMBC student Kate Godwin ’13, media and communications studies, discussed a number of on-campus and off-campus highlights and offered some advice to incoming students to help them navigate the school year successfully.

Godwin recommended Atwater’s for off-campus wi-fi and quality chai tea; Patapsco Valley State Park for a chance to get outside for a weekend or day trip for some hiking and any other physical activity; the annual QuadMania event for students; and the upper floors of the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery for some quiet study time, along with “the best hot chocolate on campus” from the ground-floor cafe.

Godwin recommended that incoling students “[d]evelop a good dialogue with your adviser” and to use on-campus resources like the Shriver Center to obtain rewarding internships. The senior also said that classes she would recommend included those in communications, gender and womens studies and American studies, which she felt had a large degree of personal relevance to her own life.

The full guide can be found here.

An August 14 piece by Fan Yang, assistant professor of Media and Communications Studies, for FlowTV discussed the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

“How London Responded to Beijing in the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony” contrasted the London ceremony with that of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, noting that the Danny-Boyled production of July 27th “follow[ed] a rather simple strategy: whatever China did, we do the opposite.” These differences ranged from an individualist vs. collective ethos, to a comparatively light-hearted party atmosphere as opposed to 2008’s manifestation of “the [Chinese] Communist Party’s burning desire to be recognized globally” as a great power on the international stage.

Yang also detailed the reactions to the two ceremonies, pointing out that viewers were more ready to criticize China’s cermony, even as London’s contained some of the same issue.  Yang concludes:

“Implicit is a commentary on the human cost of China’s rise, a display of mass subject that offers an opening to critique the real productive conditions of the information age. This representation of subjectivity stands in stark contrast to Boyle’s boy-meets-girl-via-cell-phone story. In that new-media-saturated narrative, the society of spectacle operates in full force: machine commodities displace social relations, screens blind players from seeing the game, and class consciousness is fragmented by the hidden codes of the communications network.”