Two Journalism and Mass Communication majors presented their senior theses in the Undergraduate Research Paper competition at the Southeast Symposium of the American Journalism Historians Association in Panama City Beach, Fla., in January.

Anna Cox won second place in the competition for her study of Southern Living magazine. She set out to study how the depiction of women's roles in the magazine's advertisements changed between 1966 and 2006.  Along the way she discovered an interesting demographic shift, so her study ultimately encompassed the aging of the magazine's readership. Cox titled her paper "Sexy  to Senile: Southern Living's Portrayal of Women through Ads Over Time".

Will Stewart presented "Depth Perception: Critical Reception of 3-D Films from the 1950s and Today in The New York Times". His study revealed that today's critics are a little more accepting of 3-D than critics of the 1950s, but critics mostly viewed, and still view, 3-D technology as calling attention to itself, and thus detracting from the movie.
JMC professor and thesis adviser Julie Williams also presented at the conference as part of a panel discussion on the importance of undergraduate publication.