This semester I have the extremely unique opportunity to co-teach with our UT Minister of Culture, Matthew McConaughey, and another film professor, Scott Rice from Two Shot West Productions here in Austin, Texas. The course does a critical analysis of all of Matthew’s commercial work including Salesforce, Lincoln, and Wild Turkey. There is a great deal of experiential learning happening with in-person visits from the Salesforce creative team, commercial directors, and creative professionals from the advertising and film industries. Students deconstruct the creative process behind each of these brands and then get to learn from the creators themselves about how it all came together for the chosen campaign. The picture below is from a recent class where we interviewed the Salesforce creative team to teach the students about how the commercial for “The March” was created. A wonderful learning experience all around – with special thanks to the student film crew who produced the whole show!

Salesforce Creative Strategy Head, Darren-Brady Harris, joining us for class in February 2023.

Excited to share that two of my top doctoral students had their work accepted to the International Communication Association Annual Conference happening this May in Toronto, Canada – very cool topics and interesting work that we have been chipping away at for the past six months or so:

• Safoui, Asma, Matthew S. Eastin, and Laura F. Bright (2023), “Failure to Notice or Noticing the Failure”: Defining the Social Contract Literacy, a Novel Approach to Understanding Users’ Literacy of Digital Contracts,” International Communication Association Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, May 25 – 28.
• Li, Stan, Matthew S. Eastin, and Laura F. Bright (2023), “Rome Wasn’t Watched in a Day”: Influence of Sequential TV Binge-Watching and Playback Speed on the Effectiveness of Advertising and Product Placements,” International Communication Association Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, May 25 – 28.

Also, finally punched my bingo card for most authors on a paper ever for a piece that is the first to come out of the grant work I have been doing with the Center for Health Communication at UT Austin – more to come on this as we continue the campaign:

• Mackert, Michael, Erin Donovan, Daniela De Luca, Haley Nolan, Audrey Shaffer, Weijia Shi, Karly Quaack, Jiahua Yang, Tracy Arrington, Jakki Bailey, Kaitlin Berns, Laura F. Bright, Catherine Cunningham, Lisa Dobias, Qinyan Gao, Lori Holleran, Mazmu Islam, Susan Kirtz, Ashley McDonald, Stephanie Menhart, Amaya Ngo, Sean Upshaw, Carmen Valdez, Jessica Wagner, Joy Woods (2023), “Developing a Health Campaign for Substance Use Prevention and Mental Health Awareness: Lessons Learned from a Large Mixed-Methods Project in the State of Texas,” International Communication Association Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, May 25 – 28.

It is going to be another fun semester on the 40 acres – Hook ’em Horns :).

A few fun new publications from work completed with our fabulous grad students over the last year or so …

Anderson, Joshua, Lindsay Bouchacourt, Kristen L. Sussman, Laura F. Bright, and Gary Wilcox (In press – 2022), “Emerging Themes in Telemedicine Amidst a Pandemic: Social Media Textual Analysis,” Digital Health, DOI: 20552076221090041.

Bright, Laura F., Kelty Logan, and Hayoung Sally Lim (In press – 2022), “Social Media Fatigue and Privacy: An Exploration of Antecedents to Consumers’ Concerns Regarding the Security of their Personal Information on Social Media Platforms,” Journal of Interactive Advertising, DOI: 15252019.2022.2051097.

And, some new work showing up at AEJMC and NCA this Fall …

Hendricks, Abby, and Laura F. Bright (2022), “Influencer Trends Shift: The predictors of influencer engagement on Instagram,” Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Conference, Detroit, MI, August 4 – 7.

Acaf, Yara, Lucy Atkinson, and Laura F. Bright (2022), “Celebrity Advocacy of Environmental Causes: The Impact of Credibility and Existing Beliefs on People’s Attitudes and Behaviors,” National Communication Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 17 – 20.

More coming soon in Fall 2022.

I am excited to be traveling to St. Petersburg, Florida this week for the 2022 American Academy of Advertising Annual Conference which will be our first in-person meeting since 2019! I will be presenting some new research work as well as participating in panels on graduate education and academic reviewing, respectively.

Here are the specific programming details:

Wilson, Rick T., Laura F. Bright, and Adam S. Richards (2022), “Privacy and Biometric Data: An Exploration of Advertising Appeals and Consumer Willingness to Share Personal Information Online,” American Academy of Advertising Annual Conference, St. Petersburg, Florida, March 24 – 27.

Hayes, Jameson, Cynthia Morton, Chen Lou, Kasey Windels, and Laura F. Bright (2022), “How to be an Effective Reviewer: A Word from the Best Reviewer Award Winners,” American Academy of Advertising Annual Conference, St. Petersburg, Florida, March 24 – 27.

Ryan, Tanya, Laura F. Bright, Patricia Huddleston, Ofrit Kol, and Dorit Zimand Sheiner (2022), “The Future of Graduate Education in Advertising: A Discussion with Educators and Industry Experts,” American Academy of Advertising Annual Conference, St. Petersburg, Florida, March 24 – 27.

Will look forward to seeing my academic colleagues there :).

As we turn the page on another year, I will be starting an administrative role in the School of Advertising and Public Relations in the Moody College of Communication at UT Austin.

Beginning next week, I will be the newly appointed Associate Director of our school serving with Dr. Natalie Tindall as our Director. I am excited to take on this challenge and look forward to helping students and faculty with their work in our college despite the many challenges that the pandemic continues to present.

And, here’s to hoping we can cruise through this semester like this …