Studying Spotify and Plagiarism With A Verrazano Enrichment Project

Dominic Provenzano, a Communications major in the Verrazano Class of 2014, has been doing an enrichment project for his senior seminar as part of his Verrazano course requirement.  Below, Dominic shares what he's been working on and what he has learned from the experience. 

My name is Dominic Provenzano and I’m a junior Media Studies major in the College of Staten Island. I am a member of The Verrazano School, and I am currently participating in a Verrazano Enrichment Project/Course Substitution in order to fulfill my graduation requirements within the program. 

The course I decided to “enrich” is COM 450, Senior Seminar in Communications Research with Dr. Christopher Anderson. By working with Dr. Anderson closely, I am able to learn more about Communications Research, a field I am very interested in.  At the beginning of the semester, I, along with an assigned group, had to chose a topic we wanted to study throughout the entire semester.  We chose the music streaming service Spotify and how music streaming services affect the music industry and online piracy.  We have had a number of assignments that we have had to work on together including creating a sampling exercise, conducting interviews, reading and creating our own content analyses, writing literature reviews, and more. The Verrazano enrichment project has led to me taking a greater leadership role within my group and I write a journal after each assignment reflecting on the assignment and what I learned from it.

As part of the Verrazano enrichment project, I am also working with Dr. Anderson on one of his own projects. Throughout the next few weeks I will be studying New York newspapers from 1800-1850 and I will be looking for evidence of plagiarism within the newspapers. This will give me a sense of how media has evolved and changed in the past few centuries and will help to improve my research capabilities. 

Aside from my student life at the College of Staten Island, I work at Royal Crown Bakery as a barista and will be interning at Hungry Man Studios in the fall. I am also an avid lover of music and play a few instruments, including guitar, bass, and ukulele. I perform almost every weekend with my cover band Cause and the Effects in Staten Island bars and New York and New Jersey fundraiser benefits. I also enjoy playing with my puppy Harrison, collecting vinyl records, reading, watching, and studying the world of Game of Thrones, and long walks on the beach.