First CU student at Pi Sigma Alpha Conference

Elisa presenting her research at the conference.
Photo Courtesy of Elisa Sperandio

Elisa Sperandio became the first Concord student to attend Pi Sigma Alpha National Student Conference in Washington D.C. on February 16-17. Sperandio is from Italy and she is a senior student at Concord, double majoring in geography and political science.

    The 2017 National Student Research Conference is a platform for political science undergraduate students to present their research and get feedback on how to develop it to the next level. Overall, Sperandio says there were about 50 chapters of Pi Sigma Alpha that presented in the conference from all over the country. The requirements to present research at the conference were as strict as the requirements to become a member of Pi Sigma Alpha in general.

    Pi Sigma Alpha is an Honor Society which has a small chapter at Concord. “Our chapter right now sits [at] about eight or nine people. It is just because it is really, really hard to be even able to apply to be the part of the chapter,” says Sperandio, who was one of three founders of the chapter at Concord last year. In order to join, a student needs to have a declared political science major, have half of the credits within the major completed and hold a certain GPA.

    When an email from the Pi Sigma Alpha executive director came asking if there was any member of the society at Concord who had a research to present, Sperandio happened to be the only one who had something on hand, even though th original research was done for geography department.

    “It is not like I was in a better position,” Sperandio says. “I was just lucky enough that I already had research done through another department. I pretty much took the research which was the base for the poster and expanded on it, and turned it into a full paper. So I looked more into [the] political side, more into [the] theory side for this paper. I adopted it for the occasion.”

    During the conference, Sperandio gave a 12 minute presentation on her research, titled “Rhetoric of Doom: A Case Study of Media Representation of Refugees,” where Sperandio talked about “media representation of refugees and migrants and how different media representation can guide [the] political outcome,” she explains.

    “I did a comparative study between Italy and Germany. Italy because, of course, it is my home country, Germany because I lived there and did research there in [the] 2015 summer,” says Sperandio. “And I did research with [a] migrant community there and what I was finding from them is that they were talking about employment, and where they worked, how much they made and how they fared in the community; then, I saw on TV that these things didn’t match up. Media represented migrants as lazy, and not working and unemployed.” So, Sperandio decided to have a closer look at the past patterns of migration representation in the media in these two chosen countries.

    What she found is that Germany uses the word “refugee” more often than “migrant,” while Italy preferred using “migrant” more often. “This [is] important because “migrant” and “refugee” mean two different things,” says Sperandio. “Migrant is somebody who chooses to go to another country for economic reasons, for environmental reasons, even for political reasons. A refugee is somebody who will be killed or prosecuted if they do not flee. The fact that Italy calls them migrants instead of refugees is important because they are giving the message to its people that these people are choosing to be there. It is a different kind of message.”

    Dr. James White, professor of political science at Concord, is a sponsor for Pi Sigma Alpha chapter, and he was the one who helped Sperandio to adopt her research for the conference. “The research that I presented at the conference was originally done as a part of geography project, but it was geopolitics. It was both geography and politics, which are very interconnected fields. I decided to elaborate the paper in a way that it could apply to political science and present it at this conference,” says Sperandio. Dr. White comments, “I think Elisa’s research is very interesting, compelling, and timely, improving our understanding of the effects of media coverage on public perceptions of migrants.”

    Sperandio thinks she was asked the most questions among others at her panel at the conference and got feedback from a Ph.D holder from George Washington University, which is “probably in [the] top five in political science in the country,” Sperandio says.

    Overall, Sperandio was very happy with her experience at the conference. “In the nerdiest way possible, I did get to meet the chief White House correspondent from CBS, I did get to meet a New York Times journalist, and that gave me a lot from the [an] insider point of view on politics in Washington. How life on the Hill is right now and what media perceives this new situation to be like, the role of facts… I think it was really interesting,” says Sperandio. “We also got to see three TED talks by fellow Pi Sigma Alpha students that did a TED talk about the future of three different aspects of society. I think the most exciting part was to get to hear all the ideas.”

    The cost of the trip to D.C. was covered by Concord. “Undergraduate research is good for students, faculty, and the university,” says Dr. White, evaluating the importance of Sperandio’s experience for her personally and for Concord in general. “Elisa clearly learned a great deal and was able to apply the skills she has acquired in a way that advances our understanding of an important contemporary issue. Moreover, she improved her own career prospects for graduate school and/or employment.” As Sperandio was the first Concord student to go to the conference, “The fact that she impressed the sponsors increases the likelihood that future CU students will have similar opportunities,” says Dr. White.