The payphone, once a fixture of public life, now sits at the edge of cultural memory. This poster examined what might happen if a fully functioning payphone were reintroduced into a contemporary public space and how people might reinterpret, repurpose, or ignore a once-essential communication technology. Presented at the 2025 SPARK! (Showcase of Projects, Art,… continue reading
When stories about place are repeated often enough, they harden into “truth” – even when they are incomplete, flattened, or wrong. Angel Perez, an alum of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program and a current student in the Emerging Media (MA) program, is working to interrupt that cycle. At the First-Generation, Lower-Income (FGLI) Consortium… continue reading
Game controllers aren’t just devices for play—they can be gateways to inclusion or barriers that keep people out. That perspective shaped the work of Wayne Reynolds, a student in the Emerging Media MA/MPS program, who presented his paper “Gaming with the Xbox Adaptive Controller” at the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) 2025 conference, held at… continue reading
Deep in the intersection of digital storytelling and critical theory, Frank Schuenemann, a second-year MA student in the English and Media Studies program, is crafting an interactive Twine game that disrupts traditional ideas of player agency and narrative structure. Twine, an open-source tool for nonlinear storytelling, allows players to navigate a web of linked passages… continue reading
Documentary filmmaking isn’t just about capturing reality—it’s about transforming how we see it. Through bold experiments in format and narrative, Robert A. Emmons Jr., Associate Teaching Professor of Filmmaking and inaugural director of the Emerging Media/Digital Studies MA and MPS programs, has spent his career challenging conventional storytelling. From exploring America’s history of violence in… continue reading
Tucked inside a century-old library at Rutgers-Camden, a groundbreaking program is redefining the way we think about technology and its role in shaping history and culture. At the Digital Studies Center, students dive into projects that bridge the past and future, analyzing everything from retro video games to now-obsolete social media platforms like Friendster. This… continue reading
