Phoenix: A History of Color is a creative project that examines three communities of color within the city of Phoenix. Taking the form of a short form documentary it was directed and produced by Pacey Smith-Garcia. Marrina Thomas, who prefers to use her traditional O’odham name of Running Deer, shows us around the former village of La Ciudad. This site is now being lost due to construction for low-income housing. Afterwards we take a look at archival footage from the city government that takes us through the Okemah community. The African American community was lost due to the freeway expansion and zoning. Finally we look at the former Golden Gate Barrio that was lost due to the expansion of Sky Harbor Airport.

This research targets multimedia content generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) on social media and measures user responses to the content. AI-generated content on social media has the potential to spread misinformation, so it is important to investigate the type of responses such content evokes. This research asks how easily users can recognize the provenance of AI-generated content, what emotional reactions they have to the content, and how factors such as disclaimers, topic, and platform effect recognition and reaction. The study was done by analyzing comments on popular posts on TikTok and X containing multiple types of AI-generated media spanning a wide range of topics. Findings underscore a dominant majority of negative responses (70.8%, 177 comments) and comments with themes of Aversion (45.2%, 113 comments). Contextual analysis pointed out a stronger negativity towards disinformative posts (89.2%, 33 comments) and more positivity towards humorous posts (39.3%, 11 comments). Differences between platforms showed that X users properly recognized the provenance of AI content 7.3% more than TikTok users, further influenced by the presence of disclaimers. User disclaimers were more effective than platform disclaimers, showing the pivotal role users play in combating misinformation on social media. This research displays the scarcity of platform-initiated disclaimers, showing a need for more proactive measures to identify AI content. 9.6% of responses (24 comments) included legislative sentiments, which paired with such a large majority of negative responses highlights public support for regulatory interventions as societal apprehension towards AI lingers. As AI continues to develop, more research is needed to determine the ability of humans to discern the provenance of AI-generated multimedia content, and new ways to combat misinformation on social media may be needed to address this new technology.

Education in state politics is critical for undergraduate students in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University. At our four-year universities, the only Arizona state politics courses that are taught are to fill teacher certification requirements. This project intends to propose alternative pedagogy to an existing Arizona State University course titled POS 417 - "Arizona Politics". Through reviewing the literature surrounding discipline-based learning, simulations, and active learning findings concluded that students benefit from engagement and active participation in simulated activities, in addition to longer retention of material. In addition to literature, interviews with two former practitioners and responses from a short student attitude survey coincided these findings. Overall, SPGS and Arizona State University would benefit from a simulated Arizona state politics course being available to them.

As a Journalism/Public Relations student minoring in Fashion, I have found myself interested in and surrounded by event production. As a member of the ASU student organization, The Chic Daily, I was beginning to see our production value decrease as we hosted our semesterly charity fashion show events. Factors playing a part in that included so many various items such as who was leading the production, how much time we had, venue conflicts, time conflicts, etc. I saw that our main problem was that two months was not enough time for full-time students to plan a quality, large-scale event, thus our student organization’s tradition needed to evolve into hosting a yearly non-profit fashion show instead. I also saw an opportunity for our events to be so much more than just a student-based event. For my Barrett, The Honors College Thesis, I created a public relations campaign to promote a fashion show I produced, and analyze the impact of the media campaign on the attendance and overall perception of the show. I conducted secondary and primary research regarding our past fashion shows, including relevant interviews with previous producers, event statistics and a social media audit. Moving forward, I began the branding process for our next show, including building a branding guidelines book, organizing and creatively directing promotional photoshoots, and organizing the timeline for a model casting, picking the venue, coordinating with sponsorships, building a budget, building media lists, drafting media advisories and pitches, and more. In producing the fashion show, I created a magazine to put on every guest’s chair, as well as curated the runway choreography, vendor organization, model and designer lineup.

'The G-Word': An Evolution of the Historic Garfield Neighborhood focuses on the economic and demographic transition that the historic Garfield neighborhood, located just outside of downtown Phoenix, is experiencing. Additionally, the story dives into the history of the neighborhood, the changes it has faced in its past and the community projects and supports that exist in the neighborhood today -- all through the lens of residents of the historic neighborhood. The project features a long-form article, a video and dozens of photos.

This is a creative project that resulted in the creation of "Our Endless Summer this Way West," a book of poetry journalism that recounts experiences had while reporting and acting as a journalist in the American Southwest and Midwest. The attached written essay is a brief and engaging exploration into creative, narrative forms of journalism and how those genres intersect with traditional reporting.