COMM members win Faculty-Student Research Awards (FSRA)!

Congratulations to Drs. Sahar Khamis and Nana Kwame Osei Fordjour, and Ph.D. Students Felicity Dogbatse and Yao Anani Kuwornu!

Two COMM projects won 2025 Faculty-Student Research Awards from the University of Maryland. Both awards are for $15,000. 

COMM Assistant Professor Dr. Nana Kwame Osei Fordjour and Ph.D. Student Yao Anani Kuwornu

Dr. Nana Kwame Osei Fordjour & Yao Anani Kuwornu are working on a project that examines how the media in Ghana reports on rain-related disasters, specifically floods, over the past decade. Since floods are a significant concern in Ghana, affecting infrastructure, livelihoods, and public safety, how they are covered in the news plays a crucial role in shaping public awareness, influencing disaster response, and even impacting government policies. Using the agenda-setting theory, their study will analyze the themes and sentiments in media narratives from print and online sources to understand how they inform and warn people about floods. To efficiently analyze large volumes of news data, they'll use machine-learning techniques with Python, allowing for a faster and more accurate examination of reporting trends. This research will contribute to disaster communication studies and provide practical insights for media professionals, policymakers, and scholars focused on climate-related media discourse.

COMM Associate Professor Dr. Sahar Khamis and Ph.D. Student Felicity Dogbatse

"Digitally Mediated Anti-Harassment Campaigns: Feminist Voices from Egypt and Ghana"

The proposed study will analyze the digital strategies deployed by feminist activists in Egypt and Ghana to raise awareness about the toxic phenomenon of sexual harassment and to implement effective strategies to counter it. This will be achieved through textually, rhetorically, and visually analyzing the digitally mediated messages which are shared by feminist activists in both of the studied countries, namely Egypt and Ghana, with a special focus on the framing of their anti-sexual harassment messages and their modes of delivery.

The proposed project will explore the extent to which the effectiveness of these campaigns is a product of a myriad of complex factors, including the level of preparedness and technological savviness of the feminist activists; the depth, breadth, scope, outreach, and suitability of the mediated messages and online campaigns; and, ultimately, their visibility and ability to mobilize the masses and to galvanize support.

A comparison between both countries will be conducted to illustrate the similarities and differences between them in terms of all of the above.

Congrats on being recognized for your hard work!