In the New Media Institute, students don't just learn ABOUT new media. They DO new media. No student leaves the NMI without bits under their fingernails. So each semester students complete and show-off a bevy of cool projects. All of them are team projects. And they all demonstrate that our technowledgeable students understand how to use new media to achieve important goals.
Click Here for Current Projects
Previous Projects and Events
At the conclusion of each semester, we host an event showing off what the students have done.
Here is a list of previous projects and events.
Personal Media | Public Good
May 1, 2010
For Spring semester 2010 in the New Media Institute, we investigated how personal media (mobile phones, social media, and games) can contribute to public good. Specifically, our projects looked at how these personal media platforms can be used to encourage health behaviors. On Saturday, 5/1/10, the Health and Medical Journalism Program, the Center for Health and Risk Communication, and the New Media Institute teamed up to host a conference exploring the ways that new digital media tools can help make communities stronger. It was a day of panels, discussion and planning. And it was awesome.
Technology for the Turnaround
April 25, 2009
Perhaps subconsciously celebrating the 25th anniversary of the world’s acceptance of the internet, the “Technology for the Turnaround” conference at the University of Georgia’s Miller Learning Center explored a diversity of issues confronting new-media education. While there was plenty of twittering and texting about, the 175 experts and students also tackled the day’s topics through time-honored practices like actually sitting down and talking to one another.
Hosted by UGA’s New Media Institute, “Technology for the Turnaround’s” cause – seeking ways to improve the delivery of digital media education to best prepare students for the ever-changing, ever-upgrading real world – is a righteous one, as evidenced by the professionals who sacrificed a beautiful spring Saturday to hear and be heard.
“Today is the beginning of the discussion,” said NMI director Scott Shamp. “This is about the University of Georgia, but UGA educators aren’t the only ones here. We’ve got to figure out how to make all ships rise with the tide – how to make things better.”
With the nation’s economy tanking on a daily basis, the rules for everything concerning commerce are rapidly devolving into a kind of “no holds barred” cage match, with jobs disappearing, companies faltering and shuttering, with those getting clobbered unable to escape the fenced-in pen they’re in. It’s a crisis, for sure, but for leaders with vision, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
The AIDS Personal Public Service Announcement Project
April 23 & 24, 2008
Atlanta, GA
Watch the AIDS PPSAs
Watch video overview of AIDS PPSA project
Over 260 million people in the US have cell phones.
Over 250 thousand people in the US are infected with HIV — and don't know it.
The AIDS Personal Public Service Announcement (AIDS PPSA) project is exploring ways to use the cell phone to battle AIDS. Over two days in April in Atlanta, people from eight universities and five advocacy groups came together to create messages to be distributed to cell phones encouraging young people to be tested for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Because these messages were created for the most personal medium, the cell phone, we call them Personal Public Service Announcements (PPSAs).
On April 23, participants engaged in an intensive orientation to the science of HIV/AIDS, health messaging, and mobile media technology consisting of AIDS researchers, CDC professionals, and volunteers representing several AIDS organizations. Five teams were created and each was assigned to a professional producer who would guide the creation of the PPSAs. Each team had to develop a campaign of messages concerning HIV testing. That evening, the teams presented their proposed PPSA campaign to a panel of experts charged with evaluating the approaches and offering feedback. At the conclusion of the evening, 22 PPSAs were cleared for production.
On the morning of April 24, the five student teams were given their mobile production studio consisting of a Nokia N95 cellphone, an Apple laptop, and Verizon's BroadBand Access high speed internet service. Students used the N95 to capture audio and video to be transmitted via Verizon's network to the producer back at the event hotel. Each team had seven hours to complete their production and return to the hotel. The producers then had until 6P to complete the editing and post-production work on the PPSAs. At 7P, all 22 PPSAs were debuted.
After the event, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed all the videos for accuracy, responsibility, and approach. Eight of the 22 videos were cleared for national distribution.
In conjunction with National HIV Testing Day, Verizon Wireless will create a channel on its VCast mobile video network called "Take Control — Take the Test." This is the first time that a US carrier has dedicated use of its mobile video network for a public information campaign. The VCast channel will run from June 20 to July 20, 2008.
The CDC has also created a YouTube channel for the AIDS PPSA project.
The AIDS PPSA was made possibile through the support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Verizon Wireless, and Nokia. This innovative project was a cooperative effort of a host of creative, energetic, and brave individuals who are dedicated to using personal media to contribute to the public good.
For more information contact Scott Shamp (sshamp@uga.edu, 706.542.2857).
