Technician - April 2, 2014

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TECHNICIAN

wednesday april

2

2014

Raleigh, North Carolina

technicianonline.com

NCSU researchers study relationship of music, advertising Jess Thomas Staff Writer

ELIZABETH DAVIS/TECHNICIAN

Lauren Coats, a freshman in communication, speaks about same-sex marriage rights in North Carolina at the Wolfpack Speaks public-speaking contest held in Williams Hall, Tuesday. Coats won third place. Amanda Renfroe, a senior in communication won first place and spoke about homelessness on campus.

Public-speaking contest features hot-button issues Susan Johnston Correspondent

Students used rhetoric, wit and delivery in a public speaking contest Tuesday that included the best orators from the department of communications. The 2014 Wolfpack Speaks competition featured students from the COM 301 Advanced Presentational Speaking class. Amanda Renfroe, a senior in public and interpersonal communica-

“These are issues we can help solve and that we have the resources to solve.” Amanda Renfroe, senior in communication and winner of the 2014 Wolfpack Speaks contest

tion, won the competition. Renfroe’s speech was titled “Nasser’s Story: Addressing Homelessness

and Poverty at NCSU” and focused on the issue of homelessness. “The main point I am trying to get across is that homelessness and poverty exists in colleges and universities,” Renfroe said. “These are issues we can help solve and that we have the resources to solve.” Renfroe also discussed the importance of public speaking in general. “I think it’s important to be able

CONTEST continued page 2

Music is an effective method of communication for advertisers, and researchers at N.C. State have compiled a study examining themes that can be employed by advertisers in marketing strategies. Researchers at N.C. State performed an analysis of hit songs from the last 50 years to determine the musical trends that appeal most to customers. Due to an increased demand by advertisers to investigate the role of music in marketing, the researchers analyzed music from 1960-2009. The researchers will be publishing the paper entitled “All You Need is Love? Communication Insights from Pop Music’s Number-One Hits” in the Journal of Advertising Research. David Henard, a professor in business management, said he was intrigued by the role that music has played in advertising, and he wanted to see whether there were specific themes in music that were successful. “We can look to music to see if there were communication themes among highly successful songs that were consistently used. We then looked at the number one hits from Billboard for the past 50 years and conducted a textual

analysis of them,” Henard said. The basis for the study is to conclude whether there is a set of themes present in music that can be used to break through the various types of advertising and grab people’s attention, Henard said. The study found that themes typically varied during the course of the 50-year-period, with themes such as rebellion, angst and pain being a large part of the 1960s, Henard also said. “I think we can use popular music as an advanced barometer of what’s going on in society, what people are thinking about, what they’re looking at. And it gives us a clue on what’s going on in people’s lives right now,” Henard said. In addition, Henard said that going into the study, the anticipation was to find themes such as love and war. However, the results showed themes that were closer to a nuanced form of love or war. “Relationship breakups were one of the themes, and the interesting thing about breakups is that it was seen consistently throughout all 50 years, and the theme is a constant that is always present in music,” Henard said. Henard said the study has generated interest in the scientific community, where science reporters are trying to explain why certain types

MUSIC continued page 2

Resident CHASS career fair receives mixed reviews poet talks about time in Vietnam Sara Awad Staff Writer

Joseph Havey Staff Writer

Poetry’s pervasiveness in Vietnamese culture is much deeper than that of the United States. Since 1999, an N.C. State professor has been documenting these Eastern poems, which revolve around rhymes, syntax and tones. John Balaban, poet-in-residence and professor of the English, shed light on some of those poems to a small group of students and faculty members on Tuesday. His presentation came after years of research in the Southeast Asian country, dating all the way back to 1967, when Balaban left his studies at Harvard University to travel to Vietnam and teach English. “[Then Secretary of Defense] Robert McNamara came and spoke to our class about the [Vietnam] War, and I thought he was so arrogant and evasive, I decided to go see for myself,” Balaban said. While in Vietnam, Balaban developed an interest in Vietnamese poetry, most of which has never been written down. “When I went to Vietnam, I

POET continued page 3

Even though the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Career Fair had a record number of employers attend, not all students found what they were looking for at the McKimmon Center Monday. After two previous weather cancellations, Woody Catoe, CHASS associate director for the Career Development Center said he was pleased the fair happened at all. “We were very fortunate that they actually had a space over here that we could even do it,” Catoe said. “It’s the latest we’ve ever done a fair.” The Eastern North Carolina Career Alliance, a consortium of eight participating universities, sponsored the fair, which Catoe said helped attract the 78 employers because it pooled students from surrounding colleges and provided attendees with a “bigger advantage.” “I was thinking it was going to be pretty big, and what I saw was that it was pretty small, it wasn’t that diverse and most of it was related to healthcare and business,” said Sachin Gaikwad, a student at Methodist University studying computer science. “I mean, I did find something, but there weren’t too many. At a certain level it was good, but at other points, I think it could’ve been better.” Meredith Vertrees, a sophomore in communication media, also

Latinos ayudan en Service Raleigh See page 5.

said she noticed a lack of variety at the fair. “It was cellphones, finance, and no-name graduate schools,” Vertrees said. Michelle Gardner, a senior in public policy, said although she enjoyed the “face-to-face interaction” with employers and learned things she couldn’t find on employers’ websites, she said she was disappointed to see so many corporate and sales representatives at the fair because she wanted to find a job in government. “I thought it was kind of strange also that there were a lot of I.T. jobs here for a CHASS fair,” Gardner said. According to Catoe, colleges within the consortium include business within their liberal-arts programs, causing finance, corporate and sales employers to flock to the fair. “This is a common complaint, because you have such a large variety within CHASS itself,” Catoe said. “The other side of that, though, is this really is a nice advantage for CHASS students, as well. What I tell students typically is, even though a company may be a financial-services company, they may very well likely need people in marketing, or public relations, or communication.” Those looking for opportunities with businesses such as Lemuel Nicholls, a student at Methodist University majoring in computer information technology with a concentration in business administration, did give a more positive reviews.

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JOANNAH IRVIN/TECHNICIAN

Jane Matthews, a career counselor, talks with a student at the 2014 CHASS Career Fair held in the McKimmon Center Monday. The third-annual career fair featured 80 companies, including Caterpillar, Fidelity Investments and the Peace Corp. In addition, the fair had representatives from local graduate school programs including Elon and Campbell universities. The fair attracted many other students outside of N.C. State including Meredith and Peace.

“To a certain extent, I did find it helpful,” Nicholls said. “I decided on whether to go to the workforce or go back to school, so it’s given me a lot of options in both aspects and given me a lot to think about.”

State versus N.C. State: The debate continues See page 8.

Calais Johnson, a senior in environmental sustainabilit y at Meredith College, said she took advantage of the fair’s networking

FAIR continued page 2

Pack outlasts Camels in extras See page 8.

opinion 4 features 6 classifieds 7 sports 8


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