Digital media and mass media – Wicked Problems, Wicked Solutions

Making Sense of January 6th: Trump’s Capitol Offense

This post was first published in January 2021. Editor Note: Over the coming weeks, The College of Social Sciences and Public Policy at Florida State University will work to provide experiential and academic faculty perspectives on the causes and consequences of the events surrounding January 6, 2021. This means that some posts will offer academic…

Making Sense of January 6th: What We Know About Why Mobs Emerge

Opting-In: Women as Agents of Their Own Subordination.

Fringe male supremacy groups have increasingly gained mainstream notoriety in recent years. From being tackled by major new sources to being tweeted about by Elon Musk, many of these groups no longer live in the shrouded corners of the internet. Male supremacy movements are garnering increasing popularity online and gaining more support than ever, however,…

Ph.D. Spotlight: Generalization Performance and Properties of Pruned Neural Networks

By removing as much as 90% or more of a deep neural network’s (DNN’s) parameters, a wide variety of pruning approaches not only allow for DNN compression but also increase generalization (model performance on test/unseen data). This observation is in conflict with emerging DNN generalization theory and empirical observations, however, which suggest that DNNs generalize…

Research Spotlight: Closing the Gap or Widening the Divide: The Impacts of Technology-Enabled Coproduction on Equity in Public Service Delivery

Smart technologies, such as IoT and smart city management apps, can provide real-time and location-specific data that facilitates timely decision making in public resource distribution. It may also distort the distributional equity as many low-income may participate less. Existing research on technology-enabled citizen participation in public service provision shows mixed findings. Most studies find that…

Galentine’s Day has become a thing – why hasn’t Malentine’s Day?

This first posted on February 13, 2020. On Feb. 13, women will celebrate Galentine’s Day, a holiday trumpeting the joys of female friendships. The holiday can trace its origins to a 2010 episode of “Parks and Rec,” in which the main character, Leslie Knope, decides that the day before Valentine’s Day should be an opportunity to celebrate…

Galentine’s Day: What It Tells Us About Our Changing Society

Whether or not Galentine’s Day has staying power remains to be seen. In the end, it doesn’t matter much. Social change is already happening.

Won’t You[r Money] Be Mine? The Marketability of Queer Inclusivity on Valentine’s Day

While we’ve pointed out some flaws with the upcoming holiday, we’ll also note that there are some pros. It’s fun to dress nicely, receive chocolates and flowers, and pretend to like that chalky heart-shaped candy, all for the sake of celebrating our significant others. But if we’re going to celebrate this made up Love Day, then we should each do it our way, no matter who we are or who we love. And the retailers shouldn’t get to have the final say on how we choose to go about it.

Social Science Scholar: Adaptive Web Design

Unprecedented times call for rapid adjustments, and my Social Science Scholars project was no exception. Entering the summer, I had an internship lined up with a lobbyist organization whose chief purpose was to lobby Congress to reallocate defense spending to poverty reduction programs. While I was initially intrigued with this mission, complications due to the…

Teaching Spotlight: Silver Lining and Online Teaching

‘Tis the season for good cheer. So, as we turn the page on 2020, I want to highlight silver liningsfor education moving forward into 2021 and beyond. First, we have some experience with theonline format and this is crucial for our student’s learning. Second, we have been thoughtful inour development of content and pedagogy during…