By: Karissa Ketter, News Writer 

SFU Faculty of Communication, Arts and Technology (FCAT) is setting the stage for their annual Undergraduate Conference on March 4, 2022. 

Students from any FCAT school — contemporary arts, communication, interactive arts and technology (SIAT), or publishing — were able to submit projects from “Fall 2021 or a previous semester.” The FCAT conference website explains “the conference is an opportunity for students, faculty, staff, and industry members to come together, share knowledge, and build meaningful connections.”

The conference allows for submission of art exhibits, films, research papers, live performances, or co-op work reports for consideration. School ambassadors will select a curation of student projects to be showcased at the conference and invite selected students to present their projects. 

Jacob Lee is one of the students hoping to present at the conference. A fourth year communication major, Lee submitted his research on the way the COVID-19 pandemic has been represented in news media. In a statement to The Peak, he outlined his presentation. “My project was a research paper that investigated the origins of COVID-19 and how certain news outlets covered this issue.

“I conducted a framing analysis on 40 total news articles from CNN, CGTN (news outlet from China), and Fox News, to see how each outlet framed this issue. I found that by doing this, I would be able to uncover some of the underlying political motives that each news outlet had when covering this topic,” said Lee. 

Judy Yae Young Kim is also a fourth year communication student who submitted research on Twitter’s artificial intelligence translators. “Before the implementation of Twitter’s automatic translations (powered by Google), the international K-Pop fandom had to rely on the power of fan translations. Now with automatic translations, the fandom relies on fan translations less, which brings up a concern to those translators that received celebrity treatment.

“People have this idea that in first or second year classes, you might not be as able to be ‘creative’ since you’re still learning the ropes of Communications Studies. I think my project challenges that notion because I was able to take something I am interested in (K-Pop) and turn it into a school project,” said Kim.

“Since FCAT is such a diverse faculty, the conference is a great way to bring students together from different departments and explore the faculty’s overall academic excellence and achievement,” said Lee. 

The Peak reached out to Victoria San Martin, communication, design, and event assistant, to find out more.

The conference “is a celebration of all the hard work that students put into their courses,” said San Martin.

The conference has been hosted since 2013. This year, it will be held virtually through the online conference-hosting platform, Hopin, to keep community members safe and reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission. 

“One of the coolest things about it is there’s projects from films, dance performance, or research papers. There’s even some video games from our SIAT students. So it’s really exciting to see the amount of projects and different things that you can experience at the conference,” said San Martin. 

The keynote speaker at this year’s conference is award-winning Cree Filmmaker, Dr. Jules Koostachin. She completed her PhD in gender, race, sexuality and social justice at the University of British Columbia with a focus on Indigenous documentaries and relationships to storytelling.

“She’s going to be talking about her experience, her journey, and how she’s gone to find her voice in this area of the arts. And then she’ll also be tying that into sharing wisdom she has with the students who come to the conference,” said San Martin.

The FCAT conference will also have a question and answer panel with SFU alumni from each of the FCAT schools. There will be 39 students presenting a total of 20 projects at the conference.

For announcements on how and when to register for the conference, details will be uploaded to the FCAT conference’s website and their instagram, @fcatatsfu.