UCLA Communication

[Marschak Colloquium] Collective computation and social evolution
2015-04-16 15:00 - 16:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
The Jacob Marschak Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics in the Behavioral Sciences at UCLA

[Marschak Colloquium] Two faces of subjective uncertainty
2015-04-02 15:00 - 16:30

[Marschak Colloquium] When morals matter in economic decision making
2015-03-05 15:00 - 16:30

[Marschak Colloquium] The art and science of high-fives: Field experiments at the intersection of social, developmental and educational psychology
2015-02-19 15:00 - 16:30

[Marschak Colloquium] Leveraging the science of health development: Designing systems that help children thrive
2015-02-05 15:00 - 16:30

Voice Studies Now Conference at UCLA
2015-01-31 09:00
Professor Greg Bryant and lecturer Kasia Pisanski will talk about the evolution of vocal emotion perception at the Voice Studies Now conference hosted at UCLA the last weekend in January.9:00 AM-4:00 PM: Conference Panels4:00 PM: Prof. Jody Kreiman (Keynote)

Voice Studies Now Conference at UCLA
2015-01-30 08:30
Professor Greg Bryant and lecturer Kasia Pisanski will talk about the evolution of vocal emotion perception at the Voice Studies Now conference hosted at UCLA the last weekend in January.8:30 AM-4:00PM: Conferecne Panels4:00 PM: Diamonda Galas (Keynote)

Voice Studies Now Conference at UCLA
2015-01-29 18:30
Professor Greg Bryant and lecturer Kasia Pisanski will talk about the evolution of vocal emotion perception at the Voice Studies Now conference hosted at UCLA the last weekend in January.6:30 PM: Conference Registeration7:30 PM: Concert

[Marschak Colloquium] The origin of ideas: Blending, creativity, and the human spark
2015-01-22 15:00 - 16:30

[BEC Speaker Series] Nature versus Nurture in the Inheritance of Social Status
2015-01-12 12:00 - 13:30
Most work studying the inheritance of aspects of social status across societies suggests two things. The first is that this inheritance is weak. Most social status for people is not determined by inheritance from parents. The second is that the strength of inheritance of status varies markedly across societies, so that status inheritance must be largely socially determined. In recent work using surnames as a means of measuring status inheritance across as many as twenty generations we show that in practice status inheritance is very strong, and that it varies surprisingly little across the societies and social systems. In this talk I propose that these surname results are compatible with genetics being the principle determinant of social status in most societies.

[Marschak Colloquium] Counting the many: The origins and limits of supermajority rule
2015-01-08 15:00 - 16:30

[BEC Speaker Series] Social and Physiological Resources and the Perception of Space
2014-12-08 12:00 - 13:30
Traditional theories of perception have assumed that visual processing is not influenced by top-down cognitive processes and is thus driven entirely by physical properties of the environment (Pylyshyn, 1984). For example, how a person sees stimuli such as a cup of coffee or a steep hill was thought to be only determined by factors such as the roughness of their surface and the amount of light entering the eye. However, recent research has shown that perception of space is also influenced by different bodily and experiential factors. I will review our recent work to suggest that perceptual processes take into account social and physiological resources, and that therefore perception of the world is a reflection of the extent to which one can act in it.

[Marschak Colloquium] Do justices defend the speech they hate? In-group bias, opportunism, and the first ammendment
2014-12-04 15:00 - 16:30

[BEC Speaker Series] Title: Sex Influences on Brain and Memory: The Burden of Proof has Shifted
2014-12-01 12:00 - 13:30
Abstract: Historically, neuroscience paid little if any attention to sex influences outside a limited area of reproductive functions. But all that is changing, and ever rapidly, with a flurry of discoveries the past 10 years in particular about sex influences on brain function down to the molecular level. My area of emotional memory is no exception. This talk will examine these developments, and detail how they are apparently irreversibly, and fundamentally, altering how the NIH funds not just neuroscience, but all of biological science.

[BEC Speaker Series] A Pan-Mammalian Tongue-Microbiome-Gut-Brain Axis? Implications for Health and Culture
2014-11-24 12:00 - 13:30
In a 2002 BEC talk, I described the working hypothesis that bittersweet taste is a marker for sensitivity to metabolic equanimity, manifested in ways ranging from responsiveness to energy balance to emotional reactivity and stress vulnerability; data from rats selectively bred on a saccharin phenotype and, to a lesser extent, humans, were presented in support of the hypothesis. This talk provides an update on our research program, including social behavior and evidence of an association between the taste phenotype and the gut microbiome. I will draw on others’ recent research with nonhuman primates (taste polymorphisms and behavioral ecology) and humans (embodied cognition) to advocate for refinement and testing of multilevel integrative models that link individual-level taste to processes at lower (gut-brain axis) and higher (sociality, culture) levels of organization.

[Marschak Colloquium] Climate Engineering: Challenges for international governance
2014-11-20 15:00 - 16:30

Communication Studies Info Session
2014-11-17 14:00 - 15:15
Questions about our major?If you would like more information about the Communication Studies undergraduate program, we invite you to attend our quarterly.We look forward to seeing you there!

[BEC Speaker Series] Males exist. Does it matter?
2014-11-17 12:00 - 13:30
A lot of evolutionary theory involves the concept of populations climbing towards peaks of higher fitness. Such theory has been written without taking into account that in most species there are two distinct classes of individuals — males and females — that influence the evolutionary process in a distinctly different way. I will talk about this, and try to shed some light on two quite broad questions: why do males exist, and what determines how they behave?

[BEC Speaker Series] Moral Babies: Preverbal Infants Know Who and What are Good and Bad
2014-11-10 12:00 - 13:30
How do humans come to have a “moral sense”? Are adults’ conceptions of which actions are right and which are wrong, of who is good and who is bad, who deserves praise and who deserves blame wholly the result of experiences like observing and interacting with others in one’s cultural environment and explicit teaching from parents, teachers, and religious leaders? Do all of the complexities in adult’s moral judgments reflect hard-won developmental change coupled with the emergence of advanced reasoning skills? This talk will explore evidence that, on the contrary, preverbal infants’ social preferences map surprisingly well onto adult moral intuitions. Within the first year of life, infants prefer those who help versus harm third parties, those who reward prosocial individuals and punish wrongdoers, and even privilege the intentions that drive actions over the outcomes they lead to. the second year of life, toddlers direct their own helpful actions toward helpful individuals, and harmful actions toward harmful individuals. These results suggest that our adult moral sense is supported, at least in part, by innate mechanisms for social evaluation.

[Marschak Colloquium] Quantifying country action on social policy and socio-economic rights: Can it improve transparency, accountability, and effectiveness
2014-11-06 15:00 - 16:30

[BEC Speaker Series] The Sound of Size: Human Vocal Communication of Body Size
2014-11-03 12:00 - 13:30
Body size can have an immense impact on the biology, ecology, and social status of an animal, but so too can ones ability to advertise or assess body size. Many species communicate their size vocally. Research investigating vocal communication of physical size in mammals, including humans, has focused on two salient and largely independent features of the voice: fundamental frequency and/or corresponding harmonics (perceived as voice pitch) and formant frequencies (resonance frequencies of the supralaryngeal vocal tract). In this talk, I will discuss the degree to which fundamental and formant frequencies reliably predict variation in body size controlling for sex and age, and their relative role in the perception or accurate estimation of body size in humans. The findings that I will present corroborate work on many other mammals whose mechanisms of vocal production, including anatomical constraints on size exaggeration, parallel those of humans. However, my findings also highlight the impact of psychoacoustic, sociocultural and perceptual biases on size communication in humans.

‘The Fonz’ goes to college — as a guest lecturer
2014-10-29 16:00
Henry Winkler–“The Fonz”–came to UCLA to speak as a guest lecturer for Fiat Lux freshmen seminar. Renowned for his 1970s sitcom “Happy Days” and a series of 29 children’s books, WInkler shared his process behind the books and personal anecdotes in “Collaborating in Hollywood: You’ll Never Make It in This Town Alone,” a class taught by communication studies chair Tim Groeling and two UCLA alumni working in Hollywood.

Deadline for Comm Studies Applications
2014-07-31 16:00
Application ProcedureThe Communication Studies Application will be available on June 2, 2014 at 11:00 a.m. and will close on July 31, 2014 at 4:00 p.m.The Admissions Committee will arrange to receive your UCLA transcripts from the Registrar through the end of Summer Session A 2014. General Information Students not admitted at the sophomore or junior level may reapply the following year. If you have 140 units or more, please consult with a counselor before applying. Prospective double majors must be independently accepted into the CS Department; there is no automatic acceptance. The Admissions Committee gives detailed attention to every application it receives, and its decisions each year are final. Other than to correct an error in the information it originally evaluated, the Admissions Committee is not able to comply with appeals from applicants for a second review.Please DO NOT submit letters of recommendation — they will not be accepted.Dear prospective Comm Studies majors:We are delighted to announce a major improvement in the way in which UCLA students apply to the Comm Studies major. As you already know, Comm Studies has been one of the most sought-after majors at UCLA since its creation nearly 40 years ago, with more and more outstanding students applying each year. Choosing our students from among the very best people at UCLA has been our privilege, but also our great challenge, so we have decided to improve our admissions decisions by…Giving students an incentive to take more challenging courses prior to entering the major. In our discussions with students, many told us that they had delayed taking difficult classes prior to applying for fear that receiving a lower grade might harm their chances of getting into the major–a strategy that had the unfortunate effect of making them less prepared for some of the difficult courses within the major. To ensure that students are well-prepared for the major, we have adjusted the way we evaluate the GPA of applicants, ensuring that students who take challenging courses are not penalized compared to students who take so-called “Easy A” classes.Getting to know you beyond grades. While our traditional application process has relied heavily on looking at your performance in UCLA courses, our new process will give you a chance to make a case for your admission through a series of very concise essays. The essay questions –presented below– give us a chance to better understand your experiences, attitude, accomplishments, and connection to Comm Studies. One of the most important parts of the new application is a chance for you to impress us with your best work by uploading a short creative work sample.Letting you make your case… in person: While the many applicants will still be selected and notified online before the start of Fall Quarter, our admission process will now allow some students to make their case in face-to-face interviews with an admissions committee at the start of Fall Quarter. We think giving our admissions advisory committee a chance to hear our applicants communicate will allow us to better understand how they could flourish in Comm Studies.These changes represent a lot of additional work for our applicants–and ourselves–but we truly believe they will give great students the best opportunities to be admitted to our great major. We look forward to hearing from you soon!Essay Questions:In your application, you will be asked to tell us in no more than 750 characters (each):Why do you want to be a Communication Studies major?Communication Studies is a highly selective major. Tell us briefly why you believe you should be chosen for the major.Communication Studies is a challenging major. Tell us briefly how you have overcome obstacles or adversity to achieve a goal.Communication Studies is a diverse major. Tell us briefly how you would contribute to that diversity.Communication Studies majors are leaders. Tell us briefly about a specific instance where you have successfully led others to achieve a goal.Communication Studies is a creative major. Tell us briefly about a project, short movie, writing sample, or other creative work you have completed of which you are especially proud.Creative Work:All applicants must upload a sample of your creative work for a valid application. A sample can be any format or type (e.g., special project, short film, blog, research project, writing sample, photo(s), audio file) you like, but should be something uniquely creative or exceptional. (We will also ask you to tell us about the project and explain why you are especially proud of it). For more information and instructions on uploading your creative work click here.-Tim Groeling,Associate Professor and ChairClick here to apply now!

Communication Studies Department Graduation 2014
2014-06-15 10:30 - 12:30
Congratulations! The Faculty and Staff of the Department of Communication Studies are looking forward to sharing this wonderful occasion with you.This year’s speaker will be Raymond G. Nasr.Raymond Nasr is the former Director of Executive Communications at Google Inc. He held this role from 2001 to early 2005 and was responsible for several aspects of the public communications for the senior management of the company, including Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt as well as Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.Prior to Google, Nasr was Director of Corporate Relations at Novell Inc, where he led the company’s corporate and government relations efforts. Before Novell, Nasr held various positions in the areas of public relations and corporate speechwriting at Apple Computer Inc, and at Sun Microsystems Inc.Since 2004, he has been a Communications Coach and Course Assistant at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University in the course on Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Said School of Business at Oxford University.Currently, Nasr maintains a communications consultancy where he has advised a number of start-up companies and venture capital firms, including Pandora Media, Inc., Twitter, Inc., Snapchat, Inc., and Innovation Endeavors. He is also a past President of the Churchill Club, a Silicon Valley-based business and technology forum.Nasr received his BA in Communication Studies from UCLA (1984), and his Law Degree with Honors from Pembroke College, Cambridge (1986).In June of 2007, Nasr became a Certified Sommelier through the London-based Court of Master Sommeliers. And in January 2009 he was appointed Director of Wine Programs in the Wine Division of Silicon Valley Bank.

Communication Studies Information Session
2014-05-14 13:00 - 14:00

Communication Studies Department 40th Anniversary
2014-04-24 18:00
Tim GroelingProfessor and ChairUCLA Department of Communication StudiesInvites you to theUCLA Department of Communication Studies40th Anniversary CelebrationFor the conversation Communication Studies: The Next 40 Years Moderated by Tim Groeling Featuring Judy Johnson ’84 President, Western Region, GolinHarris Andrew Lenchewski ’98 Creator and Executive Producer of Royal Pains Julia Lam ’05 Co-founder and CEO of Enchanted Labs Ron Pitts ’86 sportscaster and entertainment reporter Thursday, April 24, 20146:00 p.m.Reception to followCalifornia NanoSystems Institute (CNSI)UCLA Campus Click here to RSVP by Thursday, April 17Parking available for $12 in Structure 9 Inquiries: LSevents@support.ucla.edu or (310) 825-4038

“The Structure and Functions of Human Laughter”
2014-04-14 12:00 - 13:30
Greg BryantUCLA, Department of Communications and Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture “The Structure and Functions of Human Laughter”Laughter is a universal vocal signal ubiquitous in human social interaction and homologous to play vocalizations across several primate species. In this talk I will describe two different lines of research on the production and perception of laughter. One series of experiments examined the perception of spontaneous versus volitional laughter. Specifically, we explored relationships between particular acoustic features of laughs and judgments of how “real” they sounded, as well as a study examining the connection between spontaneous human laughter and nonhuman animal vocalizations. In another series of studies, participants across 24 societies reliably identified affiliative partners from extremely brief, decontextualized clips of recorded conversational co-laughter. Several acoustic dimensions contributed to people’s judgments of affiliation, and these results did not vary substantially across population samples. Overall, laughter is an important social vocalization with deep evolutionary roots, unique acoustic features, and a variety of possible communicative functions, both within and between groups.The Office of the Dean of Social Sciences, the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics, and the UCLA Department of Anthropology are Primary Sponsors of the BEC Speaker Series. Additional Sponsors are listed at http://www.bec.ucla.edu/support.php.

Symposium: “After the terror”
2014-03-03 09:00 - 2014-03-04 12:30
The Department of Communication Studies would like to invite you to three talks linked to a symposium titled “After the Terror: Negotiating Values and Identities” on March 3rd and March 4th in the Conference Room at the Charles E. Young Research Library. The talks are given by Simon Cottle (Professor at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies), Mark Turner (Professor at the Case Western Reserve University), and Henrik Syse (Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo). Please see abstracts below, and poster attached. A light lunch will be served. If you would like to attend either one of the talks, please send an e-mail to Rojan Ezzati, rojezz@prio.no. Abstracts”A History of Violence and Communication: Expanding the Human Circle?”By Simon Cottle (09:15 – 10:40 on Monday, March 3rd)This talk deliberately sets out to ‘bring history back in’ to the study of media and communications and violence. It offers some preliminary reflections on how different forms of media and communications have historically represented, performed and enacted violence in different historical contexts and in relation to deep historical forces of change culminating in the globalizing present. A non-teleological but nonetheless dynamic and developmental view of history is argued for, one where different forms of media communications become deeply inscribed within processes of violence and change (whether causatively, constitutively, as a contested terrain or communicatively). Recent images of ‘symbolic violence’ and ‘violent symbolism’ post 9/11, for example, deliberately choreographed by military machines and terrorists, also serve to remind us of both the not-so-subtle and viscerally shocking enactments of violence in today’s image wars. And finally we consider today’s fast changing media ecology and its possible contribution in the race to global consciousness (and the return of the globally repressed) in a world of crises and media witnessing. In these ways the lecture aims to invite a more historically grounded and engaged approach to how media and communications have entered into forms of conflict and violence across the centuries and how contemporary media and communications are no less conditioned by and contributing to a radically globalizing age in and through today’s globally expansive media ecology.“Shooter Stories”By Mark Turner (16:25 – 17:10 on Monday, March 3rd) Mass shootings of innocent victims by one or two individuals have become increasingly common in the US and worldwide. In their presentation of mass shootings, the various media make sense of the events according to a series of culturally specific stories. These stories express and embody certain cultural values and structure the events according to theories of human nature. In addition, the shooters themselves are typically motivated by their own stories, whether personal or social. There is often a sharp tension between the stories told by the shooters themselves, sometimes directly to the media, and the stories told by the media. In this talk we will present our own story of the unifying cognitive processes at work in the disparate modes of storytelling, and explore how modern mass media have recruited and morphed the ancient communicative techniques of storytelling into their own powerful instrument.”Norway after 22 July – Lessons and Critical Reflections”By Henrik Syse (11:20 – 12:30 on Tuesday, March 4th)On 22 July 2011, Norway was shaken by its worst terror attack in peacetime history: 77 people brutally killed, many of them youths coldly gunned down at a political summer camp. Seemingly, the act came out of the blue. No warning. No particular event to precipitate it. No societal situation to indicate that this should happen. And the perpetrator: A young Norwegian man, very much part of the society he wanted so harshly to rebuke. What are the key questions that Norwegian society has asked itself after the tragedy? And what does this post-terror debate say about Norway in particular and about modern, industrialized welfare societies in general? Syse will summarize parts of the post-terror debate, and formulate some theses about the debate and the road ahead. He will look at some of the criticisms and possible lessons that have been formulated in the wake of the terror attacks. These show us a Norway that wants to shake off complacency, lack of preparation, and naïveté, yet wants to remain a low-tension, low-security society. Once again, we see a peculiar meeting between the normal and the extreme, arguably typical of modern society.

Information Session
2014-02-19 12:00 - 13:00
Questions about our major?If you would like more information about the Communication Studies undergraduate program, we invite you to attend our quarterly information session.

CS Professor Tim Groeling Speaking on “Partisan Media and Democracy: An Historical Perspective”
2014-02-05 16:00 - 18:00
UCLA Communication Studies Professor Tim Groeling and Harvard Global Communications Professor Matthew Baum have written an HKS working paper on the subject “Partisan News Before Fox: Newspaper Partisanship and Partisan Polarization, 1881-1972.” To further explore this topic, Professor Groeling will be presenting at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard on Wednesday, February 5 at 4:00-6:00PM Eastern Time. The talk entitled, “Partisan Media and Democracy: An Historical Perspective” is part of the Partisan Media Seminar Series with Matthew Gentzkow, Richard O. Ryan Professor of Economics and Neubauer Family Faculty Fellow, University of Chicago; and Tim Groeling, Associate Professor and Chair of Communication Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Moderator: Marion Just, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Political Science, Wellesley College and an associate of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Leading scholars in the field of partisan news, including Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Natalie Stroud, Matthew Gentzkow, Jesse Shapiro, and Kevin Arceneaux will also be participating in these public seminars series that will be presented in February, March, and April of 2014.
