Faculty

By: Dima Mahmoud

After waiting anticipatedly, the research study of Plagiarism and Family Morals conducted by Dr. Walaa Fouda, Dr. Nahla Mousa and Dr. Jihene Mrabet who are teaching in the college of CMMC is finally done after a long process and hard work through the spring semester of 2020. The main reason for conducting a research of such a topic is because of the high increase of sharing information caused by the internet and globalization, which helped people to have access to everything and everywhere and reach various sources of information widely. But however, as a consequence, plagiarism and cheating extremely increased in schools and universities particularly, which led to the reduction of creativity, hard work and independence of students. This encouraged the researchers; Dr. Walaa, Dr. Nahla and Dr. Jihene to conduct a research for the topic “Plagiarism and Family Morals”. The research study conducted aims to explore family morals influence on student’s plagiarism behavior, hypothesizing that family morals influence student’s honesty.
There are several methods that have been used to test the hypothesis and to measure the following aspects: firstly, is the perception and the frequency of cheating and plagiarism among the students of the American University in the Emirates. Therefore, the degree of transparency of cheating and plagiarism behavior with parents, siblings and friends should be measured as well. In addition, the comparison of student morality with the perceived morality of the parents. For this, forty-two students from various nationalities aged between 17 and 25 years old were part of the study, as they were answering the questionnaire surveys resulting the qualitative data in order to measure the morality scale.
After all, the outcome of the research showed that the perception of plagiarism among students is still unclear and deeper methods and awareness campaigns are needed to be done in educational institutions. Hence, studies proved that students rely on cheating and plagiarism as a result of facing difficulties in time management inflaming anxiety to abide by self – confidence issues, deadlines, the need to score high marks and lack of interest in the courses. The majority of our sample are reluctant to sharing their plagiarism and cheating behavior with their friends because they need to maintain a good social image and they do not feel proud of it. However, the ones who do it are mostly being encouraged to maintain the plagiarism behavior. The greater part of the sample population is reluctant to sharing their plagiarism and cheating behavior with their siblings because it is considered to be done in order to maintain a good social image as they do not feel proud about it and also, because of the lack of interest manifested by the siblings. On the other hand, the ones who do it are either encouraged to maintain plagiarism behavior either by being advised and reprimanded for their deviant behavior. Almost half of the sample population is reluctant to sharing their plagiarism and cheating behavior with their parents because they need to maintain a good social image and also because of the lack of interest manifested by the parents. However, the ones who do it, are either encouraged to maintain the plagiarism behavior either by being advised and reprimanded for their deviant behavior by their mothers. Regarding confessions made to fathers, students were facing banalization, lack of attention and very rare blaming reactions.
The results of the research finally, show that perceived parent’s morality is indeed influencing the student’s morality especially when perceived mother’s morality and perceived father’s morality comply to one another. Certainly, that creates consistency in the child’s attitude and help him/her to internalize the norms and values in a safer way. These results confirm the outcomes of the study of Oladipo (2009) exploring the responsibility of moral child education among parents. The research highlighted that during childhood, caregivers play a fundamental role in their children’s moral development. He also, emphasized the quality of the bound between parents and children assuring that the warmth degree between them, can guarantee the good implementation of morals.

By: Amira AlNahdi

Dr. Razan Takash, an Assistant Professor at the college of Media and Mass Communication at the American University in the Emirates, produced and directed a promotional video about The College of Media and Mass Communication, highlighting the practical nature of the college, and its content.

The video was a request from Prof. Muthanna Abdul Razzaq, President of the American University in the Emirates, after a discussion he had with the Dean of the College of media and mass communication, to produce self-made content through the participation of the faculty members, the students and by using the equipment in the university. The video produced by Dr. Razan Takash was a test video that was shown to upper management which gave them an idea of what can be done if they hire some people from outside the university to get high-quality equipment.

Dr. Razan, who has more than 10 years of experience in the world of cinema and television in the United Arab Emirates and in the Middle East, wrote the script, and the storyboard, as she also hired a videographer from outside the university. However, she highlighted the effective participation of the faculty members of the college and the effective  role of CMMC students from different specializations like Radio and TV, Public Relations, and Integrated Marketing Communication, Some participated as actors and others were just observing behind camera for the purpose of learning on the spot how to make a video professionally. beside the producing and directing, Dr. Razan wrote the voice over and recorded it.

In an interview we had with the director and producer of the video Dr. Razan where she  assured us that working on this video took a total of 10 to 11 working hours: “ We had 10 to 11 working days, to write the script, get it approved, do the storyboard, co-ordinate the shoots, communicate with the faculty members , sign up the students who wanted to volunteer, book the schedule with the videographer for the shoot day, book different locations, and then we shot it in one day and it was edited in 5 days, so 3 days for first cut, then comments from me, then final draft, and was sent to the dean for approval, so total of 10 to 11 working days “.

The chosen locations for the video represents the college and the university, where it mostly focused on the production studio in the university and the equipments in it, whereas the other scenes were around the campus, in the corridors, and in some classrooms.

Regarding to the budget of the video, Dr. Razan commented that: “ the actual budget for a video like this, if you hire a production company to do it, it will be between 15,000 dhs to 20,000 dhs, but because we were doing it internally, it cost the university 5000 dhs only “.

Dr. Takash a Writer and director holds a Masters in Fine Arts in directing and cinematography from the Red Sea Institute for Cinematic Arts. She received many awards from Jordan. She was involved in many International and Hollywood productions. She received the 1st place award at the 48hour Film Project Dubai 2016 and awards for “Best Director” and “Best Special Effects / Postproduction”.

The promotional video is expected to be posted in the AUE social media outlines as she stated that: “the video is not posted yet, but we are aiming for “.

 November 27, 2019

Congratulations to Mrs. Razan Takash for advancing to the semi-finalist status in the Second International Moving Film Festival. Mrs. Razan wrote and directed the short-film Scrap as part of the “48 hour film competition.” She has re-edited and reworked it, thereby submitting it for consideration at various festivals. And, the film was also selected for Top Ten and screened in the International Dubai Film Festival in 2017. The big achievement that the film has been selected last month for “2nd International Moving Film Festival” and achieved a semi-finalist placement. It was selected from a pool of 3046 total submissions.

November 09, 2019

Assistant Professor of Media and Mass Communication, Dr. Noor Yusoff, was recently awarded second place in a calligraphy competition held by a Dubai gallery on 5 October 2019. Dr. Noor, who joined the faculty in August 2019, participated in the competition organized by Aisha Al Abbar Art Gallery. In line with the competition’s theme of “Tolerance,” Dr. Noor produced artwork that featured both Romanised and Arabic calligraphy. All participants were required to start and complete their artwork on canvas within a time limit of two hours at the gallery.

Another positive outcome from the calligraphy competition was the enthusiasm of the gallery owner to establish ties with Dr. Noor as a member of the faculty. This includes the possibility of future cultural events and programs to promote Arabic calligraphy to university students. The University congratulates Dr. Noor on his professional achievement.

November 09, 2019

College of Media and Mass Communication (CMMC) is excited and thrilled to welcome five (5) new faculty members this fall 2019/2020.
Prof. Tyler AdamsProfessor / Dean, College of Media & Mass Communication

Dr. Tyler Adams is a natural United States of America citizen educated at Florida State University (Ph.D. in Communication & Educational Leadership, 1995; M.S. in Communication Theory, 1992) and the University of Florida (B.A. in Communication Studies, 1990), Adams is an organizational specialist. He was a D’Aquin Endowed Professor of Communication at the University of Louisiana from 2006 to 2013, Vice Dean at The University of Business & Technology in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (2013-2014), also in Kuwait City at the Gulf University for Science & Technology as Professor of Mass Communication (2015-2016), he was in Mexico City as a Distinguished Foreign Visiting Professor at the Monterrey Institute of Technology (2017-2018), The Bahamas as Dean of Continuing Education & Lifelong Learning at the University of The Bahamas (2018-2019), Learn more about him — https://aue.ae/en/portfolio/prof-tyler-adams/.

Dr. Noor Hasbi Yusoff

Assistant ProfessorDr. Noor earned a Ph.D. in Media and Communications from the RMIT University in 2017. Dr. Noor earned his Master of Teaching and Graduate Diploma in Multimedia from Monash University. In 2002, he also earned a Bachelor of Applied Science in Information Technology from RMIT University. Specializing in user experience (UX), multimedia (audio and video) production, visual communication design, cultural studies, and inclusive education.Learn more about him.https://aue.ae/en/portfolio/dr-Noor-hasbi-yusoff/

Dr. John Maszka

Assistant ProfessorDr. John Maszka is an International Relations scholar with expertise in terrorism and violent extremism. Born in America, Dr. Maszka completed his BA and both MA degrees in the United States and his Ph.D. in the United Kingdom. Dr. Maszka has lived and taught in the United States, East Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. He is the author of five books, eleven journal articles. Learn more about him- https://aue.ae/en/portfolio/dr-john-maszka/

Dr. Kyung Sun Lee

Assistant ProfessorDr. Kyung Sun (Karen) Lee has received her Ph.D. degree in media studies (2018) from the The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Lee’s research focuses on global communication, development communication, and digital media technologies. Dr. Lee’s articles have been published in prominent journals in the field of communication and media studies, including the International Journal of Communication and Computers in Human Behavior. Dr. Lee has received two top research awards from the International Communication Association (ICA). Learn more about her-https://aue.ae/en/portfolio/dr-kyung-sun-lee/

Ms. Silvia Valentinova

Assistant Professor

Silvia Valentino is an interdisciplinary educator with a broad range of expertise including visual communication, creative writing, media, journalism, art production, cross-cultural and inter-cultural awareness, globalism, personal development and growth, and international curatorial practices.In the U.S. she lectured in the Master’s Program of Cross-Cultural Education and trained practicing teachers in Reading and Writing, Cultural Democracy: Contemporary Local and Global Issues, Methodology for Cross-Cultural Education, Cultural Foundations of Linguistics, Cognition, Language, and Culture, and Multicultural Children’s Literature. Learn more about her- https://aue.ae/en/portfolio/ms-silvia-valentinova/

November 27, 2019

The Chair of Public Relations (Arabic Section) Dr. Samia Hashim signed her new book New Media and Public Relations at the 2019 Sharjah Book Fair. Dr. Thoraya Al-Sanousi co-authored this book with Dr. Hashim. The book New Media and Public Relations is a valuable text that deals with the use of modern communication technologies — and the Internet — in the field of public relations. It is a book prepared for students studying in the faculties of information and communication who intend to specialize in the field of public relations. 

February 10, 2020

The Faculty of media and mass communication welcomes a new faculty member Dr. Jeff shires who earned a Ph.D. (1998) from the University of Missouri-Columbia in Communication-Media Studies. His dissertation focused on applying the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin to the media through the lens of British Cultural Studies. He received an MA (1994) from Indiana State University in Communication where he primarily focused upon Bakhtin’s description of the Bildungsroman, showing how the classic television program M*A*S*H, through the character of Hawkeye Pierce, demonstrated actual character learning and growth that mirrored the program’s physical setting. His research focuses on the work of Bakhtin and his influences to examine how interaction with the media affects the development of the individual’s concept of self. The second strand of research focuses on the importance of the liberal arts in developing reasoned individuals which can counteract the media’s influence. His areas of expertise include social media, British Cultural Studies, and Bakhtin’s writings on the individual as architectonic. unity.Dr. Shires has taught at three previous institutions, Campbellsville University, Wartburg College, and Purdue University North Central/Northwest, where he developed and taught courses in mass communication theory, mass media ethics and law, communication and emerging technologies, broadcast production, and American humor. He has worked with countless students on individual study projects, including projects that led to conference presentations and publications. Dr. Shires is a Fellow of the Society for Values in Higher Education which awarded him the Robert Spivey Award for his research