Mormon Media Studies Symposium

As a requirement for one of my classes I have to go to the Mormon Media Studies Symposium on BYU campus this weekend. At first I was only happy because I didn't have to go to class this week in order to make time for going to the symposium. However, after looking at the schedule and doing some research on the speakers and the program I am getting excited. They are covering every topic from Mommy blogs to Internet safety to media coverage of Mormons and prop 8. It's like a dream come true.

The coolest thing about this event may have already been discovered. One of the speakers, Larry Richman, is the author of www.ldsmediatalk.com. This site is awesome. Pretty much everything that anyone would ever want to know about LDS media or the LDS church in the media or really media in general is on this site. My favorite feature is the search by category feature located on the righthand side of the screen in a pull down menu. Richman has categories like: "Family-Friendly Content" and "Internet Statistics" to "Social Media" and "Websites and Blogs of Interest". This guy has done his research. You need to check it out. I'm excited to meet him this week and ask him a few questions in his panel discussion.

What I am most excited about the Mormon Media Studies, however, is the call for papers. Each year they select papers from grad students, undergrad students, professors, and people from all around the country to present at this symposium. Next year I want to submit a paper or two. I'm thinking that with how much blogging to referenced in this years symposium I will be a lead candidate for my paper on blogging I'm currently writing. I'm pretty excited. The next call for papers isn't until the end of next summer, so I have some time. We'll let you know how it goes.