Gaylord College doctoral student Vishala Persad earned a top student award at the National Communication Association’s conference last month. A third-year doctoral student of strategic communication, Persad was one of just four students to receive top paper honors in the Communication and Future Division at the association’s 109th annual conference in National Harbor, Maryland, from November 16-19. Her paper, titled "A Post-modern Surveillance Culture: A Simulacra of Self-Importance,” examines the phenomenon of surveillance culture across social hierarchies and how society's dependency and trust in A.I. tools are altering the definition of freedom and civil liberty norms.
Persad said this research allowed her to investigate the changing relationship stakeholders have with organizations utilizing A.I. technologies that increasingly rely on stakeholder trust to supply surveillance data. She added that as society becomes more favorable to being surveilled, new technologies and their organizations are profiting by supplying an illusion of human control and a simulation of the human center.
Three other Gaylord graduate students also presented at conference: Elizabeth Cox, doctoral student; Alex Eschbach, doctoral student; and Xiao Liu, doctoral candidate. NCA’s 2024 conference will be in New Orleans.
