Moody College at SXSW 2015

Students and faculty represent at interactive, film and education festivals

SXSW 2015 Banner

The Moody College always has a significant presence across events at the annual festivals hosted through South by Southwest. Here is how Moody faculty, students and staff are involved. SXSW runs Friday, March 13 through Sunday, March 22. Join the conversation by using hashtag #UTSXSW.

Pre-SXSW Workshop
Journalism Hackathon
Thursday, March 12
11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Austin American-Statesman
305 South Congress Avenue
Hackathon registration required

The School of Journalism is co-sponsoring a pre-SXSW hackathon with The Austin-American Statesman led by faculty members Robert Quigley, Christian McDonald and Jeff Lindwood. Come up with something exciting and new for the field of news technology. Need ideas or technical advice? We'll have sponsors and mentors from leading technology companies to help you learn something new—and build it in just eight hours.

SXSW Film Festival
The presence of the Department of Radio-Television-Film is always so dominate it needs its own page. For details on RTF at SXSW Film, visit this link for RTF film screenings.

In addition to the many screenings during the festival, several alumni and faculty members from the department will be 2015 SXSW film mentors. The list includes Lecturer Chris Ohlson, alumnus and SXSW co-founder Louis Black, alumna and WME Entertainment agent Deborah McIntosh, and Assistant Professor Cindy McCreery, among others.

Known as an attendee favorite, mentor sessions are 10-minute one-on-one interactions that provide a direct connection to experienced filmmakers and industry leaders. To participate in mentor sessions you must have a film, gold or platinum badge.

SXSW Interactive Festival
Media Criticism and the Study of Games - Solo / Dual / Panel
Saturday, March 14
9:30 a.m.  to 10:30 a.m.
Hyatt Regency Austin, Zilker Ballroom 4
208 Barton Springs Road
Interactive, gold or platinum badge required

Warren Spector, director of the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy, will deliver an address on the medium of gaming. Video games, it can be argued, are the medium of the 21st century—the first new medium of expression to come-of-age since television. The medium is, then, still in its infancy. Our understanding of how games make meaning and how they function as art objects and cultural artifacts is vague and unformed. It seems only natural that critical methodologies applied to other media would be applied to games as well.

This is especially true when video games clearly share some essential characteristics with existing media like movies and television. The auteur theory, genre criticism and industrial analysis have proved useful in those media. In this talk, we will discuss whether they have value in helping us understand video games. In addition, we will discuss the utility of some unique critical approaches developed and used to enhance our understanding of video games.

Sports Mega-Events: Do They Have a Future? - Solo / Dual / Panel
Sunday, March 15
11 a.m. to noon
Four Seasons, San Jacinto Room
98 San Jacinto Blvd.
Interactive, film, gold or platinum badge required

Ben Carrington, sociology professor and member of the Texas Program in Sports and Media, will discuss the utility of major sporting events. Sports mega-events (SMEs), such as FIFA’s World Cup finals and the IOC’s summer Olympic Games are powerful economic forces. Now, for the first time since the financially successful 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the very model of SMEs as unequivocal public goods is being called into question. Concerns about their negative environmental impact, the hidden costs of hosting games, protests against public money subsidizing for-profit events, on and off the field accusations of racism, and corruption within national and international sports governing bodies, has led to a general public skepticism of the claims made by both political and business leaders concerning the benefits of SMEs.

Can the current model of sports mega-events as promoted by the IOC and FIFA be sustained into the future? How can local populations retain control over and benefit from SMEs? What new business and financial models are needed to ensure SMEs are sustainable in the future?

The Ticket as Currency: Access to Entertainment in Sport - Solo / Dual / Panel
Sunday, March 15
5 p.m. to 6 pm.
Four Seasons, Ballroom CD
98 San Jacinto Blvd.
Interactive, film, gold or platinum badge required

Michael Cramer, executive director of the Texas Program in Sports and Media, will discuss the battle between revenue generated from hosting live events to the negotiation of watching events on television. Ticketing, the meta-media of sports and the foundation of the industry’s economic engine, is under-going a radical 21st century transformation. In many respects, in-venue competition is becoming secondary to the ticketholder’s game day experience and the lure of television everywhere. What does it mean for teams, leagues and sponsors in the burgeoning domain of live event entertainment? What does it mean for fanship and the cultural traditions embedded in generations of partisan spectators?

The Digital Health Communications Revolution - Solo / Dual / Panel
Monday, March 16
3:15 p.m. to 4 p.m.
JW Marriott, MedTech Stage
110 E 2nd Street
Interactive, gold or platinum badge required

Jay Bernhardt, director of the Center for Health Communication in the Moody College, will discuss the rise of the digital health industry. Digital health is transforming the creation and application of health information and data. Technological innovations make personalized, real-time health information far more accessible to patients, providers, populations and policy makers.

This panel explores the digital health communication revolution from the perspective of university research, government practice, and corporate innovation.

How Framing Affects Privacy Decisions - Solo / Dual / Panel
Monday, March 16
5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
JW Marriott, Salon 4
110 E 2nd Street
Interactive, gold or platinum badge required

Matthew McGlone, associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies, will discuss how individuals and companies reach conclusions about privacy and information security policy. The decisions people make about privacy are influenced by “framing”— that is, the way they conceive the options they have to choose from, the outcomes associated with these options, and the contingencies between options and outcomes. Research in behavioral economics, communication, and psychology has identified several factors that affect framing, leading people to frame the same putative decision in dramatically different ways.

In this presentation, McGlone will describe five of these framing factors: linguistic agency, nominalization, anchoring, loss aversion, and the endowment effect. He will use non-technical language to review each factor and its effects on judgment and privacy decisions. He will also address practical suggestions for incorporating these factors into strategic communications about privacy and information security decisions.

Look Away: Managing Online Persona Expectations - Solo / Dual / Panel
Tuesday, March 17
11 a.m. to noon
JW Marriott, Salon 4
110 E 2nd Street
Interactive, gold or platinum badge required

Brenda Berkelaar, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies, will discuss how we present ourselves online and what it means to enhance or destroy our reputation. We know that the Internet allows us to stay connected with family and friends, find romance, share expertise and skills, advocate for social issues, and advance our careers. It is a space that allows us to grow up and try on new identities. For most of us, what we do online affects many (and perhaps all) aspects of our lives.

So what happens if most of us, or even enough of us, focus our digital energies on maintaining our ideal work persona online? What if we take the common career advice to manage each piece of online information as if future employers might see it? Would we lose more than we gain?

This lively, research-supported session will explore companies’ aggressive cybervetting practices, the changing notions of what it means to fit in an organization, and how employees can balance transparency and privacy online. Let us find alternative ways to fulfill organizational due diligence while also respecting that people, including ourselves, have lives outside of work.

SXSW Edu Festival
Interactive Strategies to Improve Student Thinking – Workshop
Monday, March 9
3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
JW Marriott, Salon G
110 E 2nd Street
Education badge required

Robert Quigley, senior lecturer in the School of Journalism, will present on a panel about how to improve student learning and cognitive skills. Mobile apps, political cartoons and logic puzzles all can play a role in teaching students to think critically and creatively. Three of UT Austin’s most innovative faculty members will engage the audience in student-centered activities across a range of disciplines, including communication, mathematics and education. Participants will sample three classroom activities, after which the presenters will participate in moderated discussion and field questions from the audience.

Objectives are to practice a cross-disciplinary creative design process, a collaborative problem-solving process, and a critical analysis process with sample learning tools to support authentic engagement in various fields. The goal is to experience a variety of instructional approaches to foster critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and creative problem-solving skills.

Marc Speir
Senior Content Producer