Kelly | DEV College of Media

How well does NPR incorporate history into its journalism?

October 23, 2025 | NPR Public Editor

When journalists don’t have access to historical tools, and don’t have that impetus to go and check out things, they are presenting news that is really not informing the public. And nobody wants to do that.

Melita Garza, Associate Professor and Tom and June Netzel Sleeman Scholar in Business Journalism

When news stories ignore the past, the audience sometimes struggles to fully understand the issue. Because of this, history professors stress the importance of incorporating historical context into news coverage of current events. Doing so enables journalists to bring forth a more complete and informed story, which benefits the audience.

Melita Garza, associate professor and Tom and June Netzel Sleeman Scholar in Business Journalism, stressed the importance of including current events within the context of historical background in this installment of the News Literacy Edition of the NPR Public Editor. In her research, Garza says she has seen journalists declare something “unprecedented” when what they reported on was not, in fact, unprecedented.

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Social media stampedes: How mass user exit reshapes the digital landscape

October 16, 2025 | MediaWell

Leaving social media does not always mean disengagement from news, but it does disrupt habitual news consumption. Some people report feeling less informed about current events after quitting Facebook, as social media is a key news source for many. However, they also experience benefits like reduced anxiety and improved well-being.

Margaret Ng, Associate Professor of Journalism

According to the Pew Research Center, at least half of U.S. adults rely on social media for information about current events. But what happens when they leave those platforms behind?

Margaret Ng, associate professor journalism, explores the phenomenon of “social media stampedes”—cases of mass user exodus from a specific platform, the (un)successful migration to alternative sites, and the long-term implications for trusted digital information networks—in this opinion piece for MediaWell.

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Professor Leona Yi-Fan Su chosen as Sandage Scholar in Advertising Research

October 6, 2025

Leona Yi-Fan Su, associate professor of advertising, has been selected to become the next Charles H. Sandage Scholar in Advertising Research for 2025-2027.

Su was chosen based on her proposal, “Digital marketing in the agricultural sector, with emphasis on how farms can leverage emerging technologies such as social media and artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance advertising and marketing effectiveness.”

The Charles H. Sandage Scholar in Advertising Research was established in 2021 to honor outstanding associate professors in the department who are accomplished researchers in the field of advertising, media, or communication research with the potential for continued achievement.

The Sandage Scholar designation is for two years, with recipients receiving $12,000 per year in discretionary funding for research. In line with the fund’s guidelines, full professors in the department provided evaluations on the research proposals.

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I on the Media: Sang-Hwa Oh discusses Netflix’s ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ and K-pop branding

October 6, 2025

K-pop, short for “Korean pop,” is a music genre from South Korea celebrated for its dynamic mix of styles, elaborate choreography, and visually captivating performances. Its influence now extends beyond music, reaching film and other media.

This summer’s animated movie KPop Demon Hunters not only became the most-watched film in Netflix history but also made headlines as the first soundtrack to place four songs in the Billboard Hot 100’s top 10.

Sang-Hwa Oh, associate professor of advertising and expert in entertainment, celebrity, and K-pop branding, and PR and strategic communication, shares the factors that helped turned KPop Demon Hunters into a global cultural phenomenon.

About the Media Expert

Sang-Hwa Oh is an associate professor of advertising in the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising and a faculty member of the Institute of Communications Research. Her research delves deep into the realms of emerging media effects, encompassing AI and VR technologies, and scrutinizes the dissemination of health and risk misinformation. She focuses on enhancing media literacy and understanding the nuanced roles that varying emotions play in the communication processes essential for promoting public health and initiating positive social change.

KPop Demon Hunters became a global phenomenon. Does its success show a shift in who’s shaping pop culture today? Are there specific branding or fan engagement tactics that global brands might want to experiment with?

The success of KPop Demon Hunters goes beyond viewership numbers. It illustrates how the center of popular culture has expanded. In the past, Western stories and filmmaking styles stood as the benchmark for mainstream entertainment. In contemporary popular culture, however, diverse cultures and storylines emerge as parallel centers of attention, captivating audiences worldwide. What feels ordinary and familiar to one community may appear fresh and captivating to another, and this interplay of familiarity and novelty has become a powerful force in shaping global culture.

What makes KPop Demon Hunters especially meaningful is the way it blends cultural specificity with universal resonance. Its storytelling emphasizes shared human experiences—making mistakes, confronting hardships, building relationships, and affirming one’s identity. These themes transform cultural differences into stories that spark empathy across audiences.

The K-pop industry has long modeled this approach. Idol groups share their debut journeys and performances openly through social media platforms such as YouTube, while fans respond in real time. This participatory model, pioneered by the K-pop industry, has transformed how global audiences interact with media and set new standards for branding practices worldwide. By extending this participatory structure to the screen, KPop Demon Hunters shows how branding has shifted away from one-directional promotion and now thrives through fan engagement and interaction.

The film showed idols doing everyday things—eating ramen, lounging on the couch. How does that kind of relatability play into humanizing celebrity brands?

One of the film’s most distinctive features is how it humanizes its characters, making them feel approachable and relatable, lowering the barrier between celebrity and fan. These are not just comic touches; they reframe the idols not as untouchable superstars but as humanized brands with whom fans can feel a genuine connection.

K-pop fandom has long been built on this premise. Fans seek not distant superheroes but special presences that feel tied to their own lives. KPop Demon Hunters captured this sentiment effectively, giving audiences the sense that they were not just spectators but part of the story. This deeper emotional connection helps explain why some viewers engaged repeatedly, building layers of affective experience that fuel what is often called the fandom economy. This demonstrates how emotional branding fosters loyalty through shared identity and emotional resonance—principles later expanded through Netflix’s participatory fan strategy.

KPop Demon Hunters scene eating at couch

KPop Demon Hunters had lore, character backstories, and fan art contests—almost like a real K-pop group debut. How does that kind of immersive fan experience help drive engagement?

Netflix placed fan experiences at the center of its promotional strategy, mirroring the immersive fan culture of K-pop. Just as idol groups connect with audiences through YouTube vlogs, fan meetings, or pop-up stores, KPop Demon Hunters translated these participatory practices into its own story world.

Its characters are not confined to fictional roles; they are embodied by real singers and actors, allowing audiences to experience them as living figures. Beyond polished stage personas, the film included meme-worthy comic moments and open-ended storylines that encouraged reinterpretation and fan-made creations. As a result, the film relied not on one-directional marketing but on branding amplified through fan-driven participation. Viewers became active agents, creating and sharing fan-cams that captured their real-time reactions while watching, participating in dance challenges, and generating memes that spread organically on social media. In this way, audiences shifted from being passive consumers to becoming co-authors of the story itself.

This extended beyond digital platforms. In the United States and other countries, Netflix organized sing-along screenings, inviting audiences to join in the songs featured throughout the film. These screenings turned a typical movie showing into a fun, shared, and participatory event, amplifying the sense of belonging and collective enjoyment.

Ultimately, the film became more than an animated feature. It served as an experimental space for fandom participation, where audiences could create, share, and connect. This, in turn, was a driving force behind its explosive global success

**What does the global success of KPop Demon Hunters reveal about how Korean cultural products—like K-pop, K-dramas, and animation—are evolving and resonating with international audiences?**

The global success of KPop Demon Hunters demonstrates how Korean cultural products have evolved from niche appeal to influential creative forces shaping global media culture. Rather than being treated as foreign curiosities, they are now embraced as meaningful contributions to the global mainstream.

While the film benefited from the global networks established by the K-pop industry, its appeal reached far beyond existing fandoms. Many viewers with little prior exposure to K-pop were drawn to its accessible storytelling, dynamic music, and engaging characters. This suggests that Korean cultural products are entering a new phase: sustaining loyal fan communities while also attracting new audiences worldwide.

A compelling example of this cultural translation appears in the film through the characters Derpy, the tiger, and Sussie, the magpie. In Korean folk paintings (hojakdo), the tiger is often portrayed as a humorous or satirical figure, while the magpie symbolizes good fortune and joyful news. The film reimagines these figures with playful personalities, making them immediately recognizable to Korean audiences yet fresh and engaging for international viewers. Their popularity quickly extended beyond the screen. Netflix released official merchandise featuring Derpy and Sussie, and The National Museum of Korea saw its special-edition goods sell out. This indicates how entertainment products today are branded through the convergence of emotional resonance, cultural symbolism, and market strategy.

The film also situates its story within Korea’s historical background. Beginning with references to earlier eras, including the Joseon dynasty, and moving into contemporary Seoul, it underscores continuity between Korea’s past and present. Seoul’s cityscapes are rendered with careful detail, grounding the story in a distinctly Korean setting while offering imagery that resonates with audiences worldwide.

In turn, KPop Demon Hunters illustrates that Korean cultural products now embody a dual identity. They remain rooted in Korean traditions and aesthetics while speaking to universal human experiences. The result is a model of cultural production that is locally grounded, globally resonant, and emotionally authentic.

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I on the Media: Ewa Maslowska discusses AI “friendships”

October 6, 2025

As AI chatbots become more sophisticated, people are increasingly turning to them not only for information, but also for companionship. Concerns are growing over increasing cognitive, emotional, and social reliance on AI tools.

The College of Media spoke with Ewa Maslowska, associate professor of advertising and expert in consumer-brand interactions in the context of new technologies, to learn how AI chatbots are able to simulate friendships, the benefits and risks of using chatbots as “friends,” and how to maintain healthy boundaries with chatbots.

About the Media Expert

Ewa Maslowska is an associate professor of advertising in the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising. Her research centers around marketing communication and consumer behavior, specifically consumer-brand interactions in the context of new technologies.

Her current research and teaching interests include personalized advertising, brand engagement, social media advertising, eWOM, consumer decision making, digital analytics and computational advertising.

In your research, you describe AI chatbots as exhibiting human traits to assume roles as “friends.” What makes these simulated friendships feel so real?

Several factors contribute to the realism of these simulated relationships. First, chatbots communicate in natural, conversational language and can simulate diverse personality traits. They are hyper-personalized, adapting to individual users over time. Like social media platforms and other engagement-driven technologies, they are designed to exploit cognitive and emotional vulnerabilities to maximize user interaction.

Humans are predisposed to anthropomorphize. We often attribute human characteristics to non-human entities. I am sure we have all described an object in human-terms, maybe named our car or a laptop.

AI chatbots are designed to trigger perceptions of humanness, encouraging users to relate to them in personal and social ways. They address us by name, praise our ideas, agree with us, and offer encouragement. Many users say that chatbots do not judge or challenge them, but they simply listen. In this sense, they function as mirrors, reflecting back our thoughts and beliefs. I strongly recommend Shannon Vallor’s book The AI Mirror. Chatbots are also always available. As such, they are easier to form relationships with than our fellow humans, who do not always have the time, who may disagree with us, who may criticize us, or be in a bad mood.

What should be considered before using AI chatbots?

AI chatbots can have mental health benefits: Chatbots may stimulate cognitive engagement, provide positive emotional experiences, encourage behavioral change, and offer a space to practice social skills.

However, there are also risks. Overuse and emotional overdependence are growing concerns. Delegating cognitive tasks to AI may impair critical thinking, and outsourcing emotions and empathy may hinder the development of interpersonal skills. Interactions with a chatbot may reshape our expectations for human relationships, potentially leading to disappointment or even social withdrawal. Moreover, chatbots are designed to sound convincing, and despite known issues such as hallucinations and bias, we tend to trust them, sometimes more than other people.

Privacy is another major concern. We have to rely on the companies behind these tools to protect our data and not use the data to train their algorithms or try to manipulate us. This is especially important in the case of emotional dependence. Because chatbots reflect users’ beliefs and are trained on online content, they can reinforce biases and create echo chambers.

You argue that AI chatbots’ ability to form simulated relationships—and thereby influence users—constitutes a new dimension of social engineering. Can you explain what that means and how this form of persuasion is different from traditional advertising?

Unlike traditional advertising, which typically relies on one-way communication, AI chatbots engage users in two-way, dynamic, personalized, and emotionally resonant conversations. This interaction creates a sense of intimacy and trust, which can make users more susceptible to influence.

Furthermore, traditional advertising is often clearly marked and easily identifiable. AI persuasion is frequently embedded within seemingly neutral interactions, which makes it harder for users to distinguish between genuine advice and influence.

Whereas traditional dark patterns manipulate users through interface designs, such as misleading buttons or confusing opt-outs, AI chatbots use relational manipulation that leverages simulated empathy, attentiveness, emotions, and social cues.

What responsibilities do advertisers and designers have when creating chatbots that can persuade through simulated relationships? What should they keep in mind so that AI persuasion doesn’t cross ethical lines?

Designers who create these tools and advertisers who use them to embed their products or develop interactions with their customers should keep in mind that these chatbots are not just delivering messages, but they are engaging users in interactions that can shape beliefs, behaviors, and maybe even identities.

They need to realize that these tools are not neutral; they reflect certain values and beliefs. Transparency is very important, but it should be done in a non-manipulative manner (compare cookie disclosures that discourage from rejecting cookies and other dark patterns). There should be mechanisms to provide users with an option to consent or opt out. Chatbots should have safeguards to not exploit emotional vulnerabilities and to protect users, especially vulnerable populations. Chatbots should also be auditable. There is also an issue of accountability—that is, who is responsible for intended but also unintended consequences. We need new ethical guidelines for both designers and advertisers.

If you could give advice to everyday users about maintaining healthy boundaries with AI chatbots, what would it be?

It’s essential to maintain healthy boundaries with AI chatbots, especially as they become more integrated into our daily lives. With so much hype surrounding AI, it’s easy to fall into extremes: either becoming overly optimistic or deeply skeptical. We need to think critically and expose ourselves to a variety of perspectives. There are excellent books, newsletters, and podcasts that can help us better understand what these tools can do, and how to use them in ways that protect our well-being.

My first piece of advice is simple: prioritize your human relationships. These relationships can be challenging, but they offer emotional depth, shared vulnerability, and opportunities for empathy that AI cannot replicate.

On a more practical level, I’ve adopted strategies to dehumanize my interactions with AI chatbots. For example, I don’t thank the chatbot. I see it as analogous to thanking a spreadsheet for executing a formula. I’ve also customized my chatbot settings to depersonalize the interaction. For example, I’ve asked it not to address me by name, not to evaluate my questions or provide encouragement, and to provide a range of perspectives.

Finally, it’s important to remember that engagement is the business model. Like social media, these tools are designed to exploit our cognitive and emotional vulnerabilities. We need to practice self-awareness. Reflect on how your interactions with AI affect your mood, thinking, and behavior. Set usage goals. Sometimes, the best way to protect ourselves is through traditional methods: turning off notifications, scheduling tech-free time, and taking walks to take care of our minds and bodies.

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Roger Ebert Lecture: “A Yellow Spot on the Silver Screen”—Anna May Wong’s Performative Pleasure

September 29, 2025

The 2025 Roger Ebert Lecture and Screening will be held October 23-24 in the Knight Auditorium of Spurlock Museum.

Join us in person or via Zoom on Friday, Oct. 24, at 2 p.m. for the 2025 Roger Ebert Lecture, “A Yellow Spot on the Silver Screen”—Anna May Wong’s Performative Pleasure, given by Yiman Wang, professor of film and digital media at UC Santa Cruz. Wang’s lecture will present from her recent book To Be an Actress, on early Hollywood Chinese-American performer Anna May Wong and her work in cinema, theater, radio, and American television. Anna May Wong forged a four-decade media-crossing, border-crossing career largely during the U.S. segregation era. Her recent return to public attention testifies to her indelible legacy. Yet, how we might reanimate her legacy remains a question.

Viewing Wong as a performer and worker, not just a star, Wang invites a reconsideration of racialized, gendered, and migratory labor as the bedrock of the entertainment industries.

Presented by the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies and co-sponsored by the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies and the Asian American Cultural Center.

As part of the annual Roger Ebert Lecture and Screening, join us for the screening of Piccadilly (1929) on Thursday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. at the Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum. E.A. Dupont’s film starring Chinese-American pioneer Anna May Wong is a formative cinematic entry in the transition from silent to sound films. Part crime drama and part thriller, Piccadilly uses its technical advances to tell the story of a dancer framed for murder in the London nightclub scene. Don’t miss this fascinating entry in classic British cinema.

About the Presenter

Yiman Wang is Professor of Film & Digital Media at University of California, Santa Cruz. She is author of Remaking Chinese Cinema: Through the Prism of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Hollywood (University of Hawaii Press 2013), and To Be an Actress: Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong’s Cross-Media World (University of California Press 2024).

She has published numerous articles in journals and edited volumes on topics of feminist media histories, ethnic border-crossing stardom, eco-cinema and environmental media, Chinese cinema, independent documentary, film remakes and adaptation. She is editor of a special issue of Feminist Media Histories on Asian Feminist Media (2019), co-editor of an InFocus Dossier on Queering Asian Media in Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (2023), co-editor of Chinese Animation: Multiplicities in Motion (2025), and co-editor of the Global East Asian Screen Cultures book series published by Bloomsbury. Presented by the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies.

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Take 5 with Media Alumni: Jason Kim

September 29, 2025

Jason Kim (BS ’13, media and cinema studies) is a director of photography and editor at Omnicom Studios in New York as well as director and executive producer of his own production company, House Productions LLC. Kim has earned numerous awards for his film work including a 2018 Telly Award for “General Branding” and a 2022 Webby Award for Advertising, Media & PR, “Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics.” Learn more about this College of Media alum whose work is shaping the future of storytelling across film, advertising, and digital media.

1. What first drew you to filmmaking and production, and how did that evolve into starting your own company, House Productions?

It’s difficult to pinpoint any one moment in time that drew me into filmmaking except for when I saw Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The inverse relationship between hero and circumstance—its anti-hero arc—showed me anything was possible in storytelling. I pursued being an artist through the medium of film ever since. House Productions allows me to hone my storytelling practice, learning, experimenting, and growing as a filmmaker. Today, House Productions produces high quality corporate videos and films I write and direct, including my latest project, Selfless.

2. Winning awards like the Telly and Webby, among others, is a huge accomplishment. Is there one project that felt especially meaningful to you?

The one project that has special meaning to me is working with the government to produce, write, direct, and edit a documentary series on the Stonewall National Monument, which helped pave the way for the gay rights movement. It’s not the most entertaining documentary but I learned a lot, and producing a document that recollects a period of time in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, is special to me.

Watch the 15-part series:

3. What advice would you give to students who want to break into directing or production but don’t know where to start?

Directing and producing are two separate paths. The best way to break into producing and production is to gain experience on set wherever you are and move to a bigger production market as soon as possible. Working with more experienced and nuanced crews, getting hands-on experience with the minutiae of filmmaking, and administrating complex paperwork is the name of the game.

As the adage goes, there is no one way to directing. Everyone has their own unique story and journey to how they come to directing. The best way to start is just to start. Get your hands on a script or write one. Find friends who will act and crew for you. Every project I’ve directed has included a learning curve, creative risk-taking, and a financial commitment. Not every project will feel true or significant. Moving past doubt, problem-solving limitations, and exercising curiosity are the first steps to directing.

4. The media landscape is constantly changing—how do you keep your work both current and true to your vision?

The media landscape is more turbulent than ever, especially with the consolidation of traditional media companies with data-driven companies. Media production is under disruption from AI generation, with film projection being made especially vulnerable.

Disruption will have matured when AI artists can tell equally visually compelling stories—replicating the work of filmmakers, artists, craftspeople, and designers, as well as the human emotion and camaraderie in front of and behind the camera. Even still, if the art, intent, and motivations are pure, then I believe that work will have currency and truth.

5. What’s one dream project you’d love to direct or produce in the future?

My dream project is an indie sci-fi retro-noir that investigates the existence of hope in an Orwellian society. The goal is to receive a small working production budget to create something beautiful, meaningful, and artistic to satisfy the tastes of arthouse cinephiles as well as mainstream audiences. As film is a business, I have no delusion that a director must be profitable in their artistry to continue to practice directing. I believe a sci-fi genre within a low budget independent film context has the potential to break the ceiling and achieve commercial and artistic appeal. Complex VFX will be eschewed, instead of relying on ornate set design, practical effects, costumes, and locations for world-building. Then, the story itself will be the determinant of its success.

Another dream project of mine is to create a documentary on the early phases of the Internet developed at ILLINOIS through the ILLIAC computer and PLATO network. Researching the history of these emerging communication systems as a media and cinema studies major was the highlight of my time on campus. I would love to dive deeper into these early networks’ role in shaping society as we know it today, from the maturation of social networks to the advent of artificial intelligence. To premiere this document that encompasses the past, present, and future of digital communication would be a dream.

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Professor Brant Houston to be honored at Investigative Reporters & Editors 50th anniversary gala

September 15, 2025

Update 9/19/2025:

Pictured above: Professor Brant Houston, left, is honored with awardees Lea Thompson and James B. Steele (far right), with host Scott Pelley, correspondent for 60 Minutes. (Photo by Nathalie Schueller.) The Investigative Reporters and Editors 50th Anniversary Gala raised $1.5 million for journalism training.

See more photos from the event.

Brant Houston, Knight Chair Professor in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting in the Department of Journalism, will be honored at the Investigative Reporters & Editors 50^th Anniversary Gala on Monday, Sept. 15, in New York City.

The event, which also serves as a fundraiser and live auction, recognizes journalists representing milestones from each decade since the organization’s founding in 1975. Co-chairs of the event are Paul Sagan, chair of ProPublica; AG Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times; and Judy Woodruff, senior correspondent at PBS NewsHour.

Houston will be honored for his impact on the industry during the 1980s, for his contributions to “The Emergence of Data and Consumer Investigations.” The other honorees in his category include James B. Steele of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Time, and Vanity Fair; and Lea Thompson of NBC News and WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.

Houston served as the executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors from 1997 to 2007.

He co-founded the Global Investigative Journalism Network in 2003 and serves as chair of its board of directors; he also co-founded the Institute for Nonprofit News in 2009.

Houston currently oversees the online newsroom at Illinois, CU-CitizenAccess.org, which serves as a lab for digital innovation and data journalism.

“These stars of journalism, who all received training at IRE, exemplify the power and future of journalism, the very foundation of democracy,” said IRE executive director Diana Fuentes.

The gala will also feature Michael Keaton, acclaimed actor, director, and press freedom advocate, accepting IRE’s first Champion of Investigative Journalism Award, recognizing his spot-on portrayal of journalists and steadfast support for a free press.

IRE, a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting, was formed to create a forum in which journalists throughout the world could help each other by sharing story ideas, newsgathering techniques, and news sources.

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Journalism student Nathan Gonzalez chosen for New York Times Corps

September 4, 2025

Nathan Gonzalez, a junior in journalism, was one of 19 undergraduate students nationwide chosen to join The New York Times Corps, the newsroom’s talent-mentorship program for aspiring journalists.

Gonzalez will be paired with NYT Pentagaon reporter John Ismay, receiving career guidance and professional development sessions until he graduates. After completing the program, Gonzalez will have the opportunity to visit the New York Times newsroom to learn from other journalists in person.

Gonzalez recently wrapped up a summer internship for FOX News at the Washington, D.C., Bureau, producing coverage of protests, U.S. District Court cases, Senate and House committee hearings, live shots, interviews, and press conferences with members of Congress.

Some of the content he produced aired on shows like Fox News Live, The Big Weekend Show, The Story, America Reports, America’s Newsroom, Special Report with Bret Baier, and The Will Cain Show.

Since its launch in 2022, the Times Corps has offered mentors to 80 undergraduates who demonstrated a commitment to the field of journalism. The best-performing corps members are considered for The New York Times Fellowship, a yearlong work program, and other journalistic opportunities.

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Media students gain unique, real-world experience through summer internships

September 3, 2025 | Kelly Youngblood

From working on film production crews and meeting famous actors to interviewing congressmen on Capitol Hill, several College of Media students ended their summers on a high note after wrapping up internships that offered memorable learning opportunities.

Francisco Albarran (MACS), Film Production Intern, Chili Finger

When media and cinema studies senior Francisco Albarran heard Chili Finger—a new film starring John Goodman, Judy Greer, Sean Astin, and Bryan Cranston—was filming nearby this summer, he took a chance and emailed Rantoul-based Flyover Film Studios, asking if he could help out.

To his surprise, the words “perfect timing” quickly appeared in his inbox and the very next day, Albarran was on set, helping build scenes and soaking in hands-on production experience at locations across central Illinois.

In his second week of the internship, Albarran got a surreal assignment: pick up Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) from his rental house in Champaign. The next day, Albarran was in his driveway, watching with awe as the garage door slowly opened revealing one of his all-time favorite actors.

“It looked so amazing. It looked like Walter White [the character Cranston played in Breaking Bad] was actually right there in front of my eyes, which basically he was,” Albarran said.

During the 20-minute drive, the two shared a conversation about the Chili Finger production, life in general, and Albarran’s own film aspirations. Albarran asked Cranston to sign a plank of wood he had saved from the film set as a souvenir. The message read: “Francisco, thanks for the ride, my friend, Bryan Cranston.”

“One week you have dirty laundry in the back of your car, and then the next you have an Emmy Award-winning [actor],” Albarran mused.

Albarran said meeting Cranston and working alongside the film crew, as well as working with his MACS 480 classmates, helped reinvigorate his passion for storytelling and filmmaking. He hopes to write, direct, and act in a short film this year.

Nathan Gonzalez (Journalism), Assignment Desk Intern, FOX News Channel at the Washington, D.C., Bureau

As an assignment desk intern for FOX News at the Washington, D.C. Bureau, Nathan Gonzalez, a junior in journalism, produced coverage of protests, U.S. District Court cases, Senate and House committee hearings, live shots, interviews, and press conferences with members of Congress.

Some of the content he produced even aired on shows like Fox News Live, The Big Weekend Show, The Story, America Reports, America’s Newsroom, Special Report with Bret Baier, and The Will Cain Show.

“That was a huge moment,” Gonzalez said. “It reassured me that even as a rising junior, I’m capable of producing content that meets national standards.”

Gonzalez learned how national political reporting is structured, the importance of fostering relationships with fellow reporters, and that national and local reporting aren’t as different as they seem.

“While national outlets have far more resources, the core skills—approaching officials and asking questions—apply at every level. If you can interview municipal officials, you can press congressmen on Capitol Hill, without a doubt,” Gonzalez said.

Jonathan Mathew (Journalism), Entertainment Promotions Intern, Chicago Dogs

Whether he was working in the team store, ushering VIPs, overseeing the team’s Kid Zone, or dressed up as “Squeeze” the mustard mascot, Jonathan Mathew, a junior in journalism, had a great experience as an entertainment promotions intern with the Chicago Dogs baseball team this summer.

Mathew said the opportunity to intern with the independent professional baseball team taught him a lot about sports business and entertainment, including different marketing techniques, as well as how to interact and engage with the public.

“I learned a lot of life lessons that will be valuable to me in the long run, and I am confident the return on investment I have with this internship will be more than I can imagine,” he said.

Mathew recalls one day working behind the mic as a gameday co-host tasked with entertaining the crowd between innings.

“That [is] an experience I will hold closely to my heart and have as a reminder to keep me motivated in achieving my career dream,” Mathew said.

Sarah Juan (Advertising), Social Media Content and Video Intern, Glow Recipe

Sarah Juan, a junior in advertising, went above and beyond to secure an internship at the global skin care company Glow Recipe, crafting a mock-campaign proposal highlighting a celebrity partnership. Her hard work paid off as Juan was awarded the internship as a social media content and video intern.

In her role, Juan assisted with content development, conducted market research, tracked metrics, and helped the social media team with new product launches, which was the highlight of the experience for her.

“Supporting the content team on set in NYC, I was able to work directly with models for new product launches and help direct filming for social content! Being on set was the most rewarding experience,” Juan said.

Juan recalls an important lesson her supervisor shared that will stick with her: “We’re all storytellers, no matter the industry you market in.”

“The beauty industry is tough and requires thick skin, but if you are passionate about supporting a mission through storytelling, that is what will get you far,” Juan said.

Cherie Chick (MS Advertising), Account Specialist Intern, Rakuten Advertising

Cherie Chick, an MS advertising student, applied to more than 80 positions and interviewed with eight different companies before securing an internship with her top choice, Rakuten Advertising. Rakuten provides advertising technology and consumer insights to global brands and retailers with a core focus on affiliate marketing, acting as the bridge between advertisers and publishers, including content creators, media outlets, and loyalty platforms.

Chick spent her summer in Chicago as an account specialist intern responsible for managing high-impact affiliate marketing campaigns by strategizing and negotiating publisher partnerships, optimizing creative placements to drive conversions, delivering performance insights to clients, and advising on quarterly spend strategies.

For Chick, the highlight of the internship was working with a diverse portfolio of client accounts spanning multiple countries and industries, from travel and finance to education and technology.

“This cross-regional exposure taught me how consumer behaviors, promotional calendars, and publisher relationships vary across markets,” Chick said. “For example, the way travelers research trips and the sites they interact with is entirely different from how consumers search for credit card offers or financial advisors.”

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