The Daily Mississippian - October 13, 2016

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THE DAILY

MISSISSIPPIAN

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Volume 105, No. 38

T H E S T U D E N T N E W S PA P E R O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I S S I S S I P P I S E R V I N G O L E M I S S A N D OX F O R D S I N C E 1 9 1 1

WHAT’S INSIDE...

The difference between midterm stress and something more serious

Stop, hey! What’s the sound? It’s The Nomad. Check out your favorite campus DJ

Ole Miss soccer has senior night on Friday versus Texas A&M

SEE OPINION PAGE 2

SEE LIFESTYLES PAGE 5

SEE SPORTS PAGE 6

Visit theDMonline.com

@thedm_news

Journalist analyzes role of social media in protests Freedom of speech response team created ASHLEY THUSIUS

althusiu@go.olemiss.edu

Rachel Mourao speaks at The Croft Institute for International Studies on social media and political protests.

T

he Croft Institute for International Studies hosted Rachel Mourao as part of its Visiting Speaker Series last night. Mourao, assistant professor of journalism at Michigan State University, is known for her research on social media and political protests in Latin America. “As a journalist by training and someone who has researched the

ANA MARTINEZ

role of social media in political protest for her PhD dissertation, she will be able to speak from various angles about the place of social media in Latin America,” Oliver Dinius, executive director of the Croft Institute, said. A native Brazilian, Mourao looks at the impact technology has made on news production, over time and during political events. “In 2013, there were massive

protests in Brazil,” Mourao said. “For these protests, people in the press were saying that social media caused it and that it was a ‘Twitter revolution.’ I asked myself ‘Well, does it?’ and that became my main question. I don’t just study protests. I also study elections, but more so in the United States. I gravitated more toward how journalists use technology to cover political events.”

PHOTO BY: XINYI SONG

Laura Combust, a freshman international studies major with a focus on Latin America and Spanish, said she feels more informed about social media and its effect on things happening around the world. “The rise of social media is a part of all our lives,” Combust said. “Just seeing how social media affects even a protest was very interesting to me.”

The university has created a response team to help handle student protests and first amendment rights on campus. The Demonstration and Assembly Response Team is a faculty-led committee put into place after university staff needed help responding to and garnering support for demonstrations and assemblies on campus, according to Valeria Beasley Ross, associate dean of students and leader of DART. “The role of the Demonstration and Assembly Response Team is to support the opportunity for freedom of expression activities at the University of Mississippi,” Ross said. The team’s concept was developed in the fall of 2015 and now has a total of 22 staff members from Ole Miss. Team members walk across campus throughout the day and search for any demonstrations or free speech activ-

SEE DART PAGE 3

Phishing scams on the rise nationally, on campus SAMANTHA WHITTLE

smwhittl@go.olemiss.edu

Since the beginning of the semester, the university’s Information Technology Department has worked to keep scammers at bay. So far, students, faculty and staff have been protected from four scams–three phishing scams and one telephone support scam. Phishing is when a hacker uses emails and pop-ups in order to con someone into giving away sensitive, personal information such as financial information, passwords or social security

numbers. Madison Everhart, a freshman pharmacy major, said it has happened to her roommate and herself once. “Something happened with my MacBook where [the email] asked for my information,” Everhart said. “I just called Apple instead of putting in information.” Calling the computer company instead of giving out personal information through the internet or telephone is a method used to avoid scams. Although phishing scams are on the rise nationally, many stu-

dents are not aware of what they are or how to prevent them. Since January 2015, the FBI has seen a 270 percent increase in identified victims and more than $2.3 billion in losses nationally. Often after the device is hacked, it will lock up and ransom personal documents or information, asking the owner to send a large amount of money. The university has sent a total of seven emails warning students and staff of scams since September.

SEE PHISHING PAGE 3

GRAPHIC BY: MARISA MORRISSETTE


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