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ZOPPÉ FAMILY CIRCUS SHOWS UP
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ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT Printing the news, sounding the alarm, and raising hell since 1899
MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2013
VOLUME 106 • ISSUE 78
DAILYWILDCAT.COM
Facebook decreases loneliness KELSI THORUD
Arizona Daily Wildcat
In a recent study, a UA professor defended the benefits of Facebook and suggested that updating one’s status more often can reduce the feeling of loneliness. Matthias Mehl, an associate professor of psychology, published the study, “Does Posting Facebook Status Updates Increase or Decrease Loneliness?: An Online Social Networking Experiment” on Dec. 20, 2012, and examined 102 undergraduate students at the UA. The experiment monitored the participants’ Facebook profiles for one week. Half of
the students were asked to post more status updates than they normally would, the other half were used as a control group and were not instructed to change anything. “We had seen that the topic of Facebook, whether it was good for you or bad for you, has been a really long debated question. But no one had ever done an experiment, a true experiment, and that’s the only way to answer the question,” Mehl said. The experiment was carried out entirely online, where the subjects were directed to temporarily friend a “Research Profile.” This “Research Profile” allowed
Mehl and his associate Fenne Deters, of the University of Berlin, to continuously monitor the participants’ Facebook profiles and confirm that they followed all instructions. For the researchers to learn if posting status updates caused someone to become more or less lonely, they made every participant complete questionnaires that included the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness scale. This scale measures subjective feelings of loneliness and social isolation using a scale ranging
FACEBOOK, 2
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Hosted by UApresents, the Zoppe Family Circus performed at Reid Park this weekend. The Zoppe family has carried on its tradition for 170 years.
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Get more online. Check out the photo gallery of the Zoppé Family Circus this weekend. DAILYWILDCAT.COM
QUOTE TO NOTE
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We’re not like other circuses where it’s one act after the other. We tell a story during our show — the story of our family, seven generations.” ARTS & LIFE — 3
WEATHER HI
Cyril, OK Sterling, AK Archer, FL
UA revives minor in journalism RACHEL MCCLUSKEY
MULTI
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BRIANA SANCHEZ/ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
MATTHIAS MEHL, associate professor of psychology, discusses the outcome of his Facebook experiment, conducted in December 2012.
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GABRIELA DIAZ/ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT SEVENTHGENERATION CIRCUS PERFORMER Giovanni Zoppé, of the Zoppé Family Circus, performs at Reid Park. The one-ring circus, hosted by UApresents, performed for a sold-out crowd this weekend. See the story on page 3.
Students will have the opportunity once again to declare journalism as a minor as it was reinstated after being dropped in 2003. The 18-credit program begins in the summer and will emphasize online communication and building civic engagement. Classes will include writing and reporting, taking photos and video, and media law and ethics. A final class will allow students to create their own journalistic professional project of interest. “I think the capstone is the coolest class,” said David Cuillier, Director of the School of Journalism. “It’s where you take everything you learned and you get to produce something interesting and fun.” Students can finish all the classes, except for the final class, during the summer sessions. The introduction to journalism class will be taught in the summer pre-session on campus. The journalism school will accept 45 students into the minor on a first-come, first-served basis. Tad Sallee, a media arts sophomore and former Daily Wildcat employee, declared the new journalism minor along with nine other students. “I am hoping to get more speaking skills [from the minor],” Sallee said. “I hope to learn the business aspect of it and learning to make a career out of it. I’m looking forward to it.” The minor was originally suspended because the number of majors increased and the School of Journalism needed to ensure majors could graduate on time. “I was really disappointed because I wanted to declare my minor back in September, but they weren’t going to offer it,” Sallee said. “Then they reoffered it in December or November, and I was like ‘Yeah, I’m going to go for it.’ I guess it was meant to be.” Cuillier explained that the skills learned in the minor could be applied outside of the journalism realm. “I think it’s crucial that every U of A student has really good communication skills when they graduate from here, because it will help in any career,” Cuillier said. “The ability to gather information, sift through it,
JOURNALISM, 2
Experts doubt impact of immigration waiver RYAN REVOCK
Arizona Daily Wildcat
A new immigration rule has raised questions on the UA campus regarding its overall benefit for undocumented immigrants. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security issued a new rule on immigration that will allow undocumented immigrants who are relatives of a U.S. citizen to apply for an unlawful presence waiver while still in the U.S. The new rule, which goes into effect on March 4, is aimed at reducing the amount of time that a person applying for a waiver has to spend away from their family. “Almost all of those laws sound better than what they really work
out to be but at least it is not a step backward,” said Anna Ochoa O’Leary, assistant professor of Mexican American Studies. O’Leary’s research focuses on migration and immigration. According to O’Leary, many eligible undocumented individuals may not try to take advantage of this new rule out of fear and will wait to see what happens to people who have already taken advantage of the new rule. To be eligible, an undocumented immigrant has to have an immediate family member who is a U.S. citizen, and they must prove that separation from the family member would cause “extreme hardship.” Once the waiver is approved, the undocumented immigrant must return to their
country of origin to finish the rest of the process to obtain a visa for reentry into the U.S. The waiver is meant to prevent them from being barred from entering the U.S. due to time spent in the country illegally. Andy Silverman, a Joseph M. Livermore Professor of Law at the UA James E. Rogers College of Law, has been teaching immigration law for over 30 years and said this rule is only changing where an undocumented immigrant can apply for the waiver. The new rule is not changing anything else and the person must still “qualify” for the visa, he added. Silverman said that the requirement about proving extreme hardship has to be something that is out of their control such as an
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illness. Patricia Mejia, who works with the UA Immigration Law clinic and a local immigration attorney, says proving extreme hardship can be very difficult. Mejia said that a person would have to be severely or terminally ill in order to prove the hardship requirement. Although some see the benefits of the rule, there are questions on the overall impact. “The benefits [of the new rule] would be that it is going to help a group of people who are living here DREW GYORKE/ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT illegally and hopefully potentially get them status,” Mejia said, “but it ANDY SILVERMAN, a UA law professor, leaves out millions more without any shared his views on a new immigration law that goes into effect in March. solution in sight.”
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