A first time for everything
Presenting my first academic paper in Toronto
Last week, I traveled to Toronto to attend the AEJMC annual conference* and present one of my papers from grad school last semester. I had no idea what to expect since I was presenting my first academic paper in a session at my first academic conference.
My paper was a content analysis of a year’s worth of posts on branding review website Brand New. Here’s the abstract:
Crowdsmashing: A content analysis of Brand New’s branding reviews and reader response. This study uses content analysis to examine the relationship between the presentation of new corporate visual identities and how people respond to them by evaluating one year of reviews on the design critique web site Brand New. Results indicate that several structural elements correlate with better reader response, while others seem to have no relationship.
Basically, when more examples were shown in the review, readers voted higher in the poll at the end. And even though two-thirds of the posts had video or animation, they had no systemic effect on reader voting. The paper has much more in terms of findings, details and statistics and I’m looking to expand the study and improve it.
My presentation went well. I was on a panel with three other papers. There were only a handful of people there for the presentation, but I was grateful for those that came out at 8:15 in the morning. I was worried about two things: going over my 10-minute time limit and someone asking a question I couldn’t answer. But I worried for nothing: I stuck to my allotted time and an audience member made an interesting observation that may shape some of my further research.
Since it was my first academic conference, I wanted to get a feel for the various types of presentations. I attended some of the other paper presentations like mine, some panel discussions and walked through the poster presentation area. I particularly enjoyed some of the history and visual communications sessions. Of course, I also spent some time walking through Toronto. It’s a beautiful city and I enjoyed the limited amount of sightseeing I was able to fit in. I’d love to go back with my family sometime.
We’ll see if I get any papers accepted to next year’s AEJMC conference in San Francisco.
* AEJMC is the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. Follow Bob on Instagram.