Degree Type

Honors Capstone Project

Date of Submission

Spring 5-1-2012

Capstone Advisor

Harriet Brown Assistant Professor Magazine Journalism

Honors Reader

Melisa Chessher Associate Professor Magazine Journalism

Capstone Major

Magazine, Newspaper, and Online Journalism

Capstone College

Public Communications

Audio/Visual Component

no

Capstone Prize Winner

no

Won Capstone Funding

no

Honors Categories

Creative

Subject Categories

Creative Writing

Abstract

Medusa Magazine is a student-run campus publication, co-founded by the author of this project and Samantha Lifson, a 2011 graduate of Syracuse University. The idea for the magazine came together over the summer and fall of 2009, with Medusa gaining official status as a Recognized Student Organization in the spring of 2010. The first issue was printed in April of 2010, and we have published two issues per semester since.

The process of Medusa’s creation involved the drafting of our constitution as a student organization, numerous meetings with Bethany Piraino, our consultant within the Office of Student Activities, to ensure we met all the criteria to become a student organization, and application to the Student Association for the funding necessary to print. To create the format, which we have perpetuated in each subsequent issue, Samantha and this author worked very closely with Chloe O’Connor, our first design editor. We established coherent sections to the book, and set examples for things like the sex column, writing style for the features section, profile writing format, and photo/art spreads. We held numerous general interest meetings, and constantly recruited writers. We set an editorial process, which the staff follows consistently twice a semester to ensure the issues are printed on time and distributed to the student body efficiently. We also developed a style guide of general style rules for the publication, as well as a feminist style sheet, dictating the kind of politically correct language that should be used to discuss feminist issues in the publication.

Medusa was founded to promote a feminist discussion on campus, and to bring into the public eye the outstanding achievements of women in their chosen career field. We feature art, poetry and opinions by female writers, and we allow column space to anyone with arguments to express. The publication was also founded to act as a critique of cultural norms, and to view and analyze current events and trends through a feminist lens.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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