Communications Major presents at National Conference

Senior strategic communications major and pre-law minor Amanda Schiavo presented some of her research at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) on April 7 at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.

Schiavo presented findings from a study she completed in her Communications Theory and Research course during the 2015 fall semester at Saint Francis.

The title of her study is “Media Coverage of the 2016 Presidential Primary Debates: Information or Infotainment?”

After viewing the first Democratic debate and the third Republican debate of the 2016 U.S. presidential primary race, Schiavo analyzed the debate statements made by each of the party’s two leading (in the polls at the time) candidates, as well as media coverage of their debate statements, specifically coverage by The New York Times, the Washington Post and the USA Today in the 24 hours following these debates. 

Her study explores whether immediate post-debate media coverage of these three major news outlets was reflective - in content and proportionality - of the candidates’ debate statements.  The findings revealed that post-debate media coverage of the candidates’ debate statements is not proportionally reflective of the content of their statements.

The mission of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) is to support and promote high-quality undergraduate student-faculty collaborative research and scholarship.  Schiavo’s mentor on the project, Saint Francis associate professor of communications Pat Farabaugh, accompanied her to the conference at UNC-Asheville.

CUR was founded in 1987.