Stephanie Tong, a communication professor at Wayne State University, has found in her research on online dating that it’s common for people to get their friends’ input when sending messages or swiping through potential matches. “A lot of times, people want to eventually introduce their significant other into their social networks, but with online dating, people are doing that at a really early phase,” Tong told me. “Friends are actually getting in on the selection [process], which is new in a way.” The future significant other just doesn’t know it yet.

COVID-19 vaccines appear to be working well in Michigan to prevent people from getting sick or dying. But some news consumers might be getting the wrong impression about how safe the vaccines really are. And many recent headlines — including from established and reputable news sources — aren’t helping. MichMash hosts Jake Neher and Cheyna Roth discuss those headlines and why they might be misleading, and continue the conversation with Wayne State University Associate Professor of Journalism Fred Vultee, who wrote headlines for 25 years as a newspaper editor and now specializes in media framing and news practice. He noticed these headlines with concern. “I don’t want to say that this one headline is gonna make people say, ‘Bang. No vaccine.’ What this can do is maybe amplify or — ‘See, I told you so’ — or remind you that your initial idea, ‘I am scared of vaccines,’ might have been the right one to think about,” says Vultee. “We’re not going to say offhand that this media message makes people get up and walk across the room and turn off the TV. But we say that if it amplifies the wrong ideas, we’d rather have it steer in the direction of amplifying the right ideas.”    

Michigan is home to a variety of ethnic media outlets: the Jewish News, the Latino Press, the Michigan Chronicle among them. Hayg Oshagan, a professor at Wayne State University, looked at the outlets and had a vision: What would happen if they were brought together? So, in 2005, he met with editors from the News, Press and Chronicle -- and the Korean Weekly and the Arab American News. These five papers have a combined circulation of more than 130,000, and a readership reach above 400,000. And while circulation declines have bedeviled the mainstream newspaper world -- a 30 percent drop nationally between 1990 and 2010 -- some of the these properties (Arab American News, Latino Press) are showing surprising resilience in their subscriber ranks. Together, they are now New Michigan Media. Oshagan's goal was to make issues and concerns of ethnic and minority communities more visible to the surrounding community -- to make minority communities more visible to one another and to promote their contributions to the region. “Minority interests have been largely ignored by mainstream media,” said Oshagan. "The collaboration aims to change the existing narrative by bringing to light issues as a group -- and making people see the economic, social, moral argument of immigration to this nation and region.”

Theatre and Dance at Wayne, the producing arm of the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance at Wayne State University is sharing its first virtual dance production, "Dynamic Perspectives" through its website 5 p.m., Saturday, Jan 23. "Dynamic Perspectives" is a virtual storytelling presentation that combines the work of Dance students from the Fall semester. The presentation is a commemorative reflection on the Wayne State dance community's efforts to navigate the present moment as the world grapples with the impacts of COVID-19. The project is devised, organized, and executed by students in the Virtual Dance Collaboratory (VDC) - a new company created to give students creative space to process, dialogue, and create work about the present moment and future possibilities. VDC is a student-driven collective whose structure has been built from the ground up.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency  announced $50,000 in funding to two student teams in Michigan through its People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) grants program. The teams from University of Michigan and Wayne State University will receive funding to develop and demonstrate projects that help address environmental and public health challenges. The Phase I teams will receive grants of up to $25,000 each which serve as their proof of concept. Across the nation, this year's winners are addressing a variety of research topics including efforts to reduce microplastics waste and food waste, creating innovative and solar-driven nanomaterials, building a stand-alone water treatment system that can provide potable water for indoor use in single family homes, and removing PFAS from water using liquid extractions. These teams are also eligible to compete for a Phase II grant of up to $100,000 to further implement their design in a real-world setting. A student team from Wayne State University will research how green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) affects urban groundwater quality and flow by piloting a network of community-based groundwater monitoring stations surrounding GSI sites in Detroit.

Cold, hard science powered the race that produced the first coronavirus vaccine, expected to win clearance imminently after gaining a positive vote from a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee Thursday night. The challenge next moves to more-fraught terrain — getting impatient Americans to understand that, while a vaccine is here, most will have to wait. Gallup’s most recent polling in November found that 37 percent of Americans would not agree to get a coronavirus vaccine, an improvement from the 50 percent who would not agree in September. Overcoming that hesitancy will require a broad-based education campaign from federal, state and local governments, featuring corporate and religious leaders, celebrities, sports stars and influencers, say experts. They will be up against an explosion of disinformation. “Unfortunately we have done a very good job of creating distorted and misleading narratives around this pandemic, and I still know individuals who say it’s just the bad flu, it’s a hoax,” said Matthew W. Seeger, a professor and dean at Wayne State University and co-author of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention manual on pandemic leadership and communication. “We now have these wildly competing narratives, and we need to do a much better job of telling the truth about covid 19,” he said.

Hospital leaders have pleaded. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has warned. Health officials have mandated, inspected and threatened fines. And a statistical model developed by Harvard researchers predicts nearly 1,000 COVID deaths a day in Michigan by year’s end if we can’t change the arc of the virus. But even as hospitalizations and deaths accelerate, will residents follow state pandemic restrictions — including limits on holiday gatherings — to help curb the spread of COVID-19? Public messaging on health risks is a “really challenging form of communication, and it's a lot easier to get it wrong than it is to get it right,” said Matt Seeger, dean of Wayne State University’s College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts and an expert in crisis communications. “It's difficult to get people's attention around risk issues. Consider how long we've been trying to convince people to stop smoking,” he said. Mixed messages, politics — and an evolving understanding of the coronavirus — have complicated the task. Seeger said a one-size-fits-all message is unlikely to work, and may backfire when it’s delivered by the government. 

While its theaters may be dark, Wayne State University’s Department of Theatre and Dance has reinvented its offerings to reach its audiences digitally, despite the pandemic precautions which keep live performance venues silent. Thomas Karr, director of marketing and audience engagement for the Magee Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance, said the 2020-21 season is three-fold, offering digital content to audiences worldwide, and includes a Productions Series, a Dialogue Series and Studio Hours. The Productions Series offers streaming and recorded theater performances. “Our Productions Series is where you’ll find the digital experience of viewing fully-realized theatrical productions, similar to what you might experience when attending in-person at the theatre,” Karr said. “Anyone can attend these digital performances for free, but we suggest a $10 ticket to help us maintain the high quality you’ve come to expect from us.”

Small, personal stories can actually make big statements about important, universal issues. That's the driving notion behind the three-day virtual workshop "The Power of I — First Person Storytelling in Times of Crisis," presented by Wayne State University's Department of Communication in partnership with Freep Film Festival.

While there are a lot of efforts being made by different companies and designers, the fact that being sustainable has become trendy does lead to some companies thinking the sustainable label, with little follow through, is good enough. Take for instance, H&M, which has a sustainable brand but since they aren’t cutting back on any of their other inventory, it just creates more waste, which ends up in landfills and further enhances the problem. H&M – the definition of fast fashion – also has a recycling initiative, which then gives customers a 15 percent off coupon for their next in-store purchase for every bag dropped off. “Who doesn't love a discount? But what does that do? That entices you to buy more.” said Monika Jonevski, who teaches fashion merchandising at Wayne State University. “Then that's just feeding into the cycle…you can buy a $5 t-shirt at H&M…But then you wash it a few times, it's going to turn into like sandpaper and shrink. Then you buy another and then you buy another and buy another. In the end, it's the same cost of spending a little bit more for a shirt that is well made and not harmful to the environment.” Jonevski has been front-and-center of sustainable fashion over the last decade. She was with Adidas when a push came for the company to work with recycled plastic from the ocean to create outsoles on footwear, something they began in 2016 through their partnership with the advocacy group Parley for the Oceans. As of March 2018, the shoe company had sold one million pairs of shoes made from ocean trash, made possible by a yarn developed by the advocacy group that turns the ocean plastic into a polymer that’s used to contract the knitted footwear. Each shoe uses an average of 11 plastic bottles per pair. Jonevski was also with Adidas when they worked with fashion designer Stella McCartney, who Jonevski called a game changer in terms of sustainability. That partnership unveiled a tennis dress made from cellulose-blended yarn and Bolt’s Microsilk in 2019.

President Trump has defended the way he downplayed the dangers of the coronavirus. He says he was showing leadership during a time of crisis, but that's the opposite of what crisis management experts recommend. NPR's Ayesha Rascoe spoke with Wayne State University Professor Matthew Seeger. After 9/11, he helped the Centers for Disease Control develop plans for talking to the public about emergencies. “Whenever I hear, you know, the rationale of panic as an explanation for why people are withholding information, it's like fingernails on a chalkboard.” Seeger says past crises have shown that people rarely panic in these situations, and that's why experts recommend transparency. “When there is an announcement of a hurricane warning in South Florida, people don't panic. I mean, they don't abandon everything and jump in their cars and drive north.”

The Detroit Institute of Arts had just avoided selling off parts of its collection to help pay the debts of the city that owned it. It had a new, independent ownership structure, new revenue streams and a new standing as a museum that tried to replace the foreboding demeanor of many art institutions with a more welcoming, visitor-centered experience. And it had a new director, Salvador Salort-Pons, who had come from its ranks, a charismatic curator and Spanish-born scholar of Velázquez, who seemed to understand its struggles and its future and who took office to a rousing ovation at a board meeting in 2015. But five years later, at a time when museum leaders across the country are being challenged on whether their institutions are systemically racist, few are confronting as many thorny issues as Salort-Pons. “There has been discontent,” said Jeffrey Abt, professor emeritus at Wayne State University who has written about the history of the institute. “I can see how it is potentially perilous. On one side are the unhappy staff members who are objecting to Salvador’s administration,” he added. “On the other side are the friends outside the museum he has made over the years who think that, here, they have someone who is championing their cause.” Bill Harris, a writer and emeritus professor of English at Wayne State University, said he visited the institute as a young boy even though he didn’t feel welcome. “It has evolved from that, but it’s still a white institution,” he said. Melba Joyce Boyd, a professor in American Studies at Wayne State University, said that she respects much of what Mr. Salort-Pons has done but because of its location and audience, she said the institute has special responsibilities. “The D.I.A. should be the number one place for African-Americans in the whole country,” she said. “Detroit should be taking a lead on a lot of these issues.”

Labor Day weekend is always one of the biggest weekends for music in and around Detroit, in large part because that’s when the Detroit Jazz Festival takes over Hart Plaza each year. But because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, audience members won’t be heading downtown to watch the festival in person this year. But there’s good news — the show will go on. WDET is returning as a live broadcast partner of the Detroit Jazz Festival for the first time since 1999. WDET will provide a wall-to-wall, uninterrupted broadcast of more than 40 hours of festival performances over Labor Day weekend Sept. 4-7. Chris Collins is the president of the Detroit Jazz Festival. He told Stephen Henderson on Detroit Today that the festival has been working on contingencies for months. “The ‘Pandemic Pivot’ — it’s a new dance, we’re all working on it,” jokes Collins. “When we talk about WDET returning as a broadcast partner, I mean, what a perfect fit,” he continues. “This is why public radio is so important and is worth everybody’s support…We wanted to make sure this was truly free and available to everybody and the answer to that was WDET, our public radio partners… If people don’t have online access or whatever, they can listen on the radio and they can listen with everybody else. It was a very important part of our design.”

Fifty years ago this summer, vibrating with agitation and energy, Marvin Gaye headed down the wood steps into a Detroit  studio and made his anthem for the ages. “What’s Going On,” a poignant musical masterpiece crafted in a season of unease, persists as a timely backdrop to another heated summer, half a century later, when the world feels upside down. Racial tensions, police controversy, environmental anxieties, a globe on edge — they were the topics on the front burner when Gaye rebooted his musical career and took control of his creative vision inside Motown. “What’s Going On” was richly Detroit. Gaye had been “all over the city, soaking up Detroit’s vibes and moods as he was recording,” wrote the Freep’s Bob Talbert, who was tight with Gaye at the time. With its seasoned jazz and big-band players, Motown’s ace Funk Brothers and the DSO, the track was a collective hometown feat. “People always talk about various influences out of Detroit. This really was a hometown effort that went worldwide. It captured that community sensibility and coming-together during a challenging time,” said Chris Collins, a music professor and director of jazz studies at Wayne State University. “The production — the openness of the music involved — was a pretty spectacular example of what can come out of that.” Collins said his 22-year-old son is enamored with the song and album. “It's in his musical life as a young person,” said Collins, also director of the Detroit Jazz Festival. “I think that speaks to the power and sincerity of that recording. It spans generation and communities.” At Wayne State, ethnomusicologist Josh Duchan’s course on 20th century popular music zeroes in on “The Message,” the pioneering 1982 rap hit by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. “A song like that — which is much more explicit in its lyrics — is kind of the extension of what Marvin Gaye and ‘What’s Going On’ did years earlier,” he said. “It’s looking around at the world and saying: These are not the conditions we all hoped for.” 

As the pandemic continues, theaters struggle to stay on board this ever rocking ship. Every week it seems communities change and adjust to the “new normal”. But what are the effects of COVID-19 on theaters? How can an industry and a community entirely driven by large groups of people change to customize themselves to fit into the new social distance mold? As Director of Marketing and Audience Engagement at Wayne State University, Thomas Karr says “Our function is the same, but our tools will be different.” For the Bonstelle and Hilberry theaters, these different tools include live streaming, recording and sharing skits and dances, putting together live, in person outside events in parking lots and on campus, as well as drive-by events. Dance and theater students of Wayne State University have created and led virtual events on Facebook and Youtube. These events have received a far greater number of viewers than events produced within their theaters before the pandemic. This new way of production brings a new hope and excitement to the community that is already so intent on sharing stories and art. Soon to be chairperson of the Department of Theater and Dance at Wayne State University, Mary Anderson says, “They have been so resilient. But at the same time I grieve their losses. This time has been incredibly disruptive and alienating for them.”

Georgians will increasingly be on their own to fight the coronavirus in the coming weeks as Gov. Brian Kemp scales back statewide social distancing mandates to benefit the state’s struggling economy. Kemp’s decision this week to begin reopening the state for business made Georgia an outlier among the states by focusing on the pandemic’s most serious collateral damage. Georgia still ranks in the lowest tier of states in coronavirus testing rates, and the statewide death toll now exceeds 800. Under Kemp’s orders, businesses such as gyms, barber shops and tattoo parlors may reopen on Friday. Restaurants may resume dine-in service next Monday. And Kemp appeared ready to let a statewide shelter-at-home order expire on April 30. Kemp is sending mixed messages about containing the virus, public health experts said, telling Georgians it’s safe to eat in a restaurant or get a haircut while still ordering them to stay home. “This creates significant confusion, undermines credibility and does not provide clear direction to the public,” said Matthew Seeger, a professor and dean at Wayne State University who specializes in public health communication. “The result is a reduced trust in government and reduced ability to persuade the public to take appropriate action.”

As the realization that we were going into an extended period of lockdown began to dawn, a frenzy of questions started flying around the internet. Many people were wondering what it might mean for our romantic lives, from whether we should still date while social distancing to how to practice safe sex during the pandemic. But what about at an emotional level? What should we do to keep our relationships happy and healthy during the pandemic? In the absence of a loved one, something physically sent by them can help. Katheryn Maguire, a professor in the department of communication at Wayne State University, talks about the remedying effects of a “good old-fashioned handwritten letter.” “There is something special about holding something they held,” she says. “The paper was in their hand; you see their writing, if they wear perfume [you can smell it], that makes it very present.” In fact, isolating together brings its own stresses. One thing that long-distance relationships can teach us then is there is something about segmenting your life: being together and focused on each other when you are, and being apart and focused on that,” says Maguire. Maguire concludes that if the only problem you have is being away from each other – well, that’s a really good sign. Likewise, couples isolating together should remember that the stress of quarantine will pass.

Elizabeth Stoycheff, associate professor of communication at Wayne State University, addresses privacy and security issues that have increased during the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced many to stay connected virtually. As a researcher who investigates how these issues affect the use of online platforms, Stoycheff outlines the differences between privacy and security and the different consequences for using videoconferencing platforms.

Residents of Michigan communities with large African-American populations are disproportionately sickened and killed by the coronavirus, according to a Bridge Magazine analysis of public health data. Detroit, which is 79 percent African American, has 7 percent of Michigan’s population but 26 percent of the state’s infections and 25 percent of its deaths. The outbreak so far is centered in southeast Michigan, as Wayne, Oakland and Macomb have 80 percent of the state’s 9,334 cases as of Wednesday. Bridge’s analysis of public records shows: In suburban Wayne County, communities with the largest black populations — Highland Park, Redford Township, Ecorse, River Rouge and Romulus — have roughly double the rate of infection as the county. In Oakland County, infection rates are highest in majority-black Southfield and suburbs with higher-than-average black populations: Lathrup Village, West Bloomfield and Farmington Hills. In Macomb County, nearly 35 percent of all infections were among African Americans, who comprise less than 15 percent of the county’s population. County maps show the most cases are in southern Macomb including Warren, Eastpointe and Roseville, all of which have a higher percentage of African-American residents. Matthew Seeger, a communications professor at Wayne State University who has worked with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said public health officials must tailor messages to different audiences by using different media. He said Whitmer, Duggan and Evans have done an “exceptional job” so far.

Local theaters are silent as productions have paused to limit the spread of COVID-19. While some people stuck at home rediscover hobbies, local thespians feel lost and adrift without their creative outlet, missing the chance to create, perform, enjoy the spotlight and an audience’s applause. Sarah Hawkins, an area actor who teachers theater at Wayne State University, has had her classes move to an online platform. The online platform is challenging for theater performance students who rely on human contact and full-body movement to practice their art. “I feel fortunate to have the steady employment of teaching…” she said. “I am struggling with how to best support my students in their creative endeavors, knowing they will be entering a field that will be hard-hit after this pandemic comes to an end.”