General News 3 | DEV College of Media

Media literacy research and engagement initiatives address societal challenges

October 29, 2025

Faculty and graduate students across the College of Media are pursuing a range of activities aimed at understanding challenges to media literacy and developing interventions to improve it.

Recent activities include:

A team including Michelle Nelson, professor of advertising, Amanda Ciafone, associate professor of media and cinema studies, Stephanie Craft, professor of journalism, ICR doctoral student Gillian Paxton, and undergraduate student Maaike Niekerk, is investigating older adults’ media use, media literacy, and the role of media in fostering social connection. The research seeks to understand how older adults use media across a broad range of platforms and tools, including generative AI, and the challenges they face in doing so. The aim is to explore how improving media literacy may help them better navigate the media environment to meet their social and information needs. The study involves interviews with those who offer help and instruction regarding media and technology use through senior centers, public libraries, park districts and the like, and focus groups with older adults. This project is funded by a College of Media seed grant.

Professor Amanda Ciafone presenting at IMEDIA workshop — Amanda Ciafone, associate professor of media and cinema studies, presents at a workshop hosted by IMEDIA.

Related to this project, Ciafone was awarded funding to organize media and digital literacy workshops with European scholars and advocates to advance research, education, and transatlantic dialogue on older age and media literacy under the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence grant awarded to the European Union Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Ciafone said Europe has more rapid “demographic aging,” where a population’s average age increases, than the United States and robust models for media literacy policy and education.

As part of its mission to bolster research in media literacy, the College of Media hosts a regular gathering of faculty across campus to discuss research in media literacy across disciplines and to identify potential opportunities for collaboration. These conversations have so far included faculty in the College of Fine & Applied Arts, University Library, School of Information Sciences, College of Education, and College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

The Initiative for Media Education Inquiry and Action, a collaboration between the College of Media and College of Education, is developing a media literacy micro-credential for teachers. IMEDIA was created in 2021 to help teachers in Illinois fulfill the mandate of a state law requiring media literacy instruction in public high schools. IMEDIA has offered in-person workshops for teachers to help them incorporate media literacy into their current teaching. The aim of the micro-credential is to broaden the reach of workshops by making the instruction and resources available online in a way that also offers teachers the opportunity to add a media literacy credential to their licenses.

A research study conducted by Nelson, ICR doctoral student Sakshi Bhalla, and Michael Spikes, co-founder of the Illinois Media Literacy Coalition, emerged from IMEDIA’s teacher workshops. The study, which included interviews with 20 educators from across the state of Illinois about the nature and challenges of media literacy education in their schools, found several digital divides that undermine the efficacy of state-mandated media literacy instruction in Illinois high schools. Their findings were published in the Journal of Media Literacy Education.

IMEDIA also is updating its eText, MEdia Matters, which is currently used in a variety of introductory undergraduate courses. The text will be a key resource for teachers pursuing the micro-credential and will be freely available for use in their classrooms.

Craft is part of a team comprising faculty from five universities engaged in a long-term research initiative to build a model of news literacy behavior that will inform efforts to increase people’s resistance to misinformation. The team has developed a widely used measure of news literacy knowledge and most recently has been investigating how greater news literacy knowledge translates into better news consumption behaviors reflecting that greater knowledge. The most recent study was presented in August at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

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Illinois Public Media’s magazine program ‘Prairie Fire’ wins five regional Emmys

October 28, 2025

Prairie Fire, a magazine program produced by WILL-TV at Illinois Public Media, was awarded five regional Emmys across five categories at the 2025 Mid-America Regional Emmy Awards, including “Best Magazine Program” in the region.

“Our win for Magazine Program for the second year in a row is a real thrill for the Prairie Fire team” said host and producer Sarah Edwards, “because it really underscores the excellence and thought we put in to making every episode as good as it can be. Prairie Fire represents the best of PBS programming produced at the local level.”

The team, which was nominated for 10 awards, also earned regional Emmys in the following categories:

Human Interest – Short Form Content (up to 10 minutes): “Meet Shannon Voss”
Education/Schools – Short Form Content (up to 10 minutes): “Illinois Hip Hop Camp”
Entertainment – Short Form or Long Form Content: “Leah Marlene Live”
Informational/Instructional – Short Form Content (up to 10 minutes): “Fresh Press Paper”

The Prairie Fire Emmy-winning production team includes Edwards, fellow producers Taylor Plantan, DJ Roach, and Tinisha Spain, along with cinematographer Daniel Clarke, and audio engineer and cinematographer James Treichler. (Pictured below: Producers Tinisha Spain, Taylor Plantan, and Sarah Edwards, who also hosts Prairie Fire, with one of the Emmys they won for their program.)

“As producers of the show, we carefully curate and construct the stories of Illinois’s local characters to highlight the very best creatives, small business owners, and innovators our state has to offer,” said Plantan. “The success of the program is a testament to the charisma and talent of the Central Illinois community.”

Spain pointed to the significance of the work done by the Prairie Fire team. “Being honored with an Emmy is a deeply humbling reminder that local storytelling is important—that the stories we tell do matter,” she said.

“We’re incredibly proud of the Prairie Fire team and their dedication to telling authentic, locally grounded stories,” said Moss Bresnahan, Illinois Public Media’s executive director. “These awards reflect the quality, creativity, and heart that exemplify Illinois Public Media’s work.”

About Prairie Fire

Reimagined and brought to life once more, Prairie Fire is a new take on WILL-TV’s beloved magazine program from the mid-1990s. Rooted in storytelling, Prairie Fire brings viewers cinematic documentaries, profiles, and performances from downstate Illinois. The show airs on local PBS stations across the state of Illinois, including Nine Network St. Louis and WTTW Chicago.

Illinois Public Media is a not-for-profit public media service of the College of Media at the University of Illinois, enriching people’s lives through programs and services that educate, entertain, inspire, empower, and address community needs and concerns. Additional services include WILL-AM 580, Illinois Soul (FM 101.1) WILL-TV, Illinois Public Media News, and many more.

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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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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New lecturer in advertising Penne Heede brings agency expertise to classroom

September 3, 2025 | Kelly Youngblood

Penne Heede, a 30-year veteran in the ad industry, is looking forward to bringing her agency expertise to the classroom this fall as a new lecturer in the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising.

Heede (MS ’23, strategic brand communication) will be teaching undergraduate and graduate classes including Advertising Design and Direction, Experiential Branding, and Creativity: Concept and Ideation.

More than three decades after Heede started her career with a technical degree in graphic design and worked her way up to creative and strategy director for an elite ad agency in Denver, Colorado, she went back to school to obtain a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary liberal arts.

Heede said she enjoyed the experience so much she was inspired to work towards a formal education in branding to open the door to a career in post-secondary teaching.

Heede was drawn to the strategic brand communication master’s degree Illinois offered due to its innovative focus on the science of branding.

“I loved Illinois’ program because it was a master of science [degree], not of art, and I was impressed with the mix of faculty” she said.

A few months after she graduated with a master’s degree, Heede saw the job posting for advertising lecturer at the College of Media and said, “it just read exactly what all my experiences have been.”

Heede’s teaching philosophy comes from a belief that everyone has their own personalities and way of doing things. She also tries to abide by 13^th-century poet Rumi’s famous quote “to be a lamp, a lifeboat, or a ladder” for others.

“I added ‘lawnmower’ because sometimes you’re in the weeds and you just need somebody to go in front of you and make it a little bit easier,” Heede said.

Heede may align her educational approach with the beliefs of an ancient poet, but her views about the changing trends in the advertising industry are anything but archaic.

“I’m psyched by [AI]. If you think about it, spell check was machine learning, and we all are just fine with it. Calculators were once taboo in high school math classes—now we’re okay with it,” she said. “It’s just the evolution of tools that help us.”

Heede also believes a human touch will always be needed in the industry to write, design, and uncover the motivation of consumers.

“[Asking] what inspires a person, what is their motivation towards doing things, what do they love, what do they hate—I really like that [kind of] thinking,” she said.

Heede considered similar questions for a three-year capital campaign she led, which raised $33 million for a 71-mile trail in the Denver region called the High Line Canal.

“I’m very proud of that campaign not only because it was so successful, but also because the trail is an amazing amenity for the region and it’s now protected in perpetuity,” she said.

For Heede, a good ad creates a behavior, whether it motivates someone to donate money, start recycling, or buy a chocolate bar. And sometimes, she said, a good ad will just elicit a strong emotion.

Heede, who is a huge fan of the late musician Prince, said she will never forget the full-page newspaper ad Chevrolet created after the star’s death.

Paying tribute to Prince, the ad featured a picture of a red Corvette with the epitaph: “Baby, that was much too fast. 1958-2016,” referencing lyrics from his 1982 hit, “Little Red Corvette.”

“I’m going to remember that my whole life; it was so good,” Heede said. “That’s what an ad should do. It should make you feel.”

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Grad student Sekhar Padmanabhan champions public service journalism as manager, reporter at life-saving wildfire app Watch Duty

Smoke from the January 2025 wildfires light up the sunrise over downtown Los Angeles, CA.

August 27, 2025 | Holly Rushakoff

During the historically destructive wildfires in Los Angeles in January 2025, Sekhar Padmanabhan, a graduate student in the online science and technology journalism specialization program, found himself in need of the real-time alerts issued by Watch Duty, a free app where he works as a senior regional reporting manager and staff reporter.

Although he was on the edge of the evacuation order zone, he stayed home with his cats while other reporters covered for him.

“I was watching on Watch Duty, just like everybody else,” Padmanabhan said. “I had the scanner and our Slack channels, but still, it was a very surreal experience.”

He was even interviewed by PBS Newshour to share his accounts as a Watch Duty employee who was also witnessing the fire grow.

Living through a wildfire firsthand and relying on Watch Duty to help him make decisions made him value the nonprofit service even more.

“What we want to do is give people enough information that’s correct, that they can do something with when things are happening, because you don’t always think clearly in an emergency,” he said.

While Padmanabhan’s home survived, he said, “everybody I knew, knew somebody who lost something”—his niece’s classmates lost homes in the Palisades, his sister’s friend’s restaurant burned down in Malibu, and his girlfriend’s doctor’s office burned down in Altadena.

His job carries immense responsibility because not only does Watch Duty serve the general public, it also serves the first responders who use it when risking their lives. In just one night during the January wildfires, 600,000 new users signed up.

It’s been very rewarding to know that we have definitely helped people, given people extra time to get out, grab their pets, grab things they need, and be able to make informed decisions.

Sekhar Padmanabhan

Senior Regional Reporting Manager and Staff Reporter, Watch Duty

Watch Duty, which launched in August 2021, currently provides service to the Western half of the U.S., covering 22 states, and is staffed by 20 full-time employees, including reporters and engineers, and 300 volunteers, including firefighters, dispatchers, and first responders.

The Watch Duty app interface, which alerts users of nearby wildfires and firefighting efforts in real-time.

For its role as a lifesaver, Watch Duty was recently named one of TIME’s Most Influential Companies of 2025 in the Pioneer category and received a 2025 Apple Design Award in the Social Impact category.

Padmanabhan said it’s gratifying to be recognized by these organizations for “doing this kind of, what I call, public service journalism.” More importantly, he’s grateful for the increased awareness and downloads of the app.

“It’s been very rewarding to know that we have definitely helped people, given people extra time to get out, grab their pets, grab things they need, and be able to make informed decisions,” Padmanabhan said.

Padmanabhan, who is nine credits away from graduating and becoming one of the first alumni of the Department of Journalism’s online science and technology journalism program, focused his master’s project on fire science and fire ecology. Specifically, he spoke with scientists who have studied pyrocumulonimbus clouds, which are commonly associated with wildfires.

“Basically, they’re thunderstorms that are generated by the fire,” he explained. “You may have heard something like fires can generate their own weather. Well, that’s what these are, and they can produce their own lightning, and rain, and all sorts of [phenomena].

“They produce these giant columns; some are up to 50,000 feet [and] can be seen from space,” he continued. “Even some of the smaller ones, when they collapse, when they go back down, they can throw a lot of wind out in all directions, which is dangerous for the firefighters on the ground and residents because you can’t predict it.”

Last semester, Padmanabhan wrote a 3,000-word article after interviewing scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., and the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne, Australia. These scientists are working on predicting and modeling pyrocumulonimbus events so that fire managers will have a better idea of what’s coming.

“It really brought me back to what I love doing, which is getting this information out to the public,” he said.

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Institute of Communications Research welcomes 2025 cohort of doctoral students

August 26, 2025

The Institute of Communications Research is excited to announce their newest cohort! Please learn more about the students’ research interests below and join us in welcoming them to the University of Illinois College of Media community this fall. For more information, see full student profiles.

Thomas Farrenkopf earned his master’s degree in cinema and media studies at the University of Southern California. His research interests include new media and digital generosity; film theory, with a focus on Third and Fourth Cinema; Indigenous representation in film; media and sociology: representation, exploitation, and labor; intersectional approaches to media studies (race, class, gender, sexuality); and critical theory and media’s impact on empathy and social responsibility.

Azam Hasanpour is a multidisciplinary film and theatre artist with an MA in cinema from the University of Tehran and an MFA in film and media arts from Temple University. With over eight years of focused experience in filmmaking, she brings a rich background in both artistic practice and academic research. Her research interests include digital humanities, visual arts, mixed media, documentary studies, and critical visual and media studies.

Xiaohua (Anthea) He earned her MSc in communication science from the University of Amsterdam, where she focused on persuasive communication. Her research interests include persuasion and information behaviors, with a particular focus on how consumers process and respond to health-related advertising crafted with persuasive strategies.

Aiman Kazybayeva previously served as dean of the School of Management at Almaty Management University (AlmaU). Before that, she was program leader for the marketing educational program and chair of the Department of Management, Marketing, and Logistics. She also founded and continues to head the Neuromarketing Laboratory at AlmaU, combining research and practice in consumer behavior studies. Her research focuses on advertising, consumer behavior, neuromarketing, and biometrics. She applies methods such as eye-tracking, facial recognition, and GSR to study how consumers process advertising messages and make decisions.

Seoyoung (Selene) Kim earned her MA in media and communication from Korea University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of consumer behavior and human–AI interaction. She examines how people interact with AI and how it shapes their decision-making, particularly in the music entertainment industry and other media contexts.

Luciana Salviano Marques da Silva earned her master’s in media studies at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil. Her research interests include digital journalism, artificial intelligence, television studies, media literacy, quality television, and public journalism.

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College of Media offers new online degree completion program: BA in Media

August 20, 2025 | Holly Rushakoff

To expand access to a University of Illinois education, the College of Media now offers an online Bachelor of Arts in Media program for adult learners who have taken some college coursework but have not completed their undergraduate degree.

Targeting working adults who want to upskill or re-skill their media knowledge and advance in or change their careers, the BA in Media is one of the first online degree completion pathways offered by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, along with a similar program at the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

“This new degree will give learners the advantage of earning their bachelor’s in media at their own pace. It comes at a time when valuable skills from advertising, journalism, and media and cinema studies are in high demand across industries,” said Tracy Sulkin, dean of the College of Media. “As we near 100 years at the College of Media, we’re pleased to offer an innovative, flexible option to access our world-class education, without disrupting learners’ work, family obligations, or other commitments.”

This offering reflects the university’s broader commitment to educational innovation, societal impact, and its land-grant mission to transform lives through education. The College of Media began developing the online BA in Media program in 2023. It’s designed to remove barriers for non-traditional students, across Illinois and beyond, providing an accessible, high-quality education that empowers graduates to contribute meaningfully to their communities and industries.

The interdisciplinary program will provide a broad foundation for understanding the contemporary media landscape, along with applied training in skills necessary for career success in media-related fields. Students will take courses from each of the College of Media’s three departments: the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising, the Department of Journalism, and the Department of Media & Cinema Studies.

This new degree will give learners the advantage of earning their bachelor’s in media at their own pace. It comes at a time when valuable skills from advertising, journalism, and media and cinema studies are in high demand across industries.

Tracy Sulkin

Dean of the College of Media

Students will learn media concepts, theories, and methods; use cutting-edge tools and technology to analyze and evaluate the media landscape; and create ethical and culturally relevant media content. Understanding that students will possess a wide range of experiences and coursework, the program culminates in a capstone experience where students will apply their knowledge to a significant project that highlights their skills to future employers.

Graduates of the program will be prepared for successful careers both inside and outside the media industry, including positions in the business, government, education, and nonprofit sectors that require media and communication skills, such as writing, editing, audio production, videography, strategy, and media research and analysis.

Unlike traditional undergraduate degree programs, students in the BA in Media program will not be required to enroll full-time, nor to reside on campus. Students must complete all classes online.

The BA in Media program is open to transfer students and to those applying for re-entry to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. It is not available to first-year students or to current students seeking an inter-collegiate transfer.

The bachelor’s in media is the fifth bachelor’s degree offered by the college—which also offers master’s degrees and a doctoral degree—further expanding its academic portfolio to meet the needs of today’s learners. See all academic programs offered by the College of Media.

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College of Media welcomes Fall 2025 with faculty promotions and leadership appointments

University of Illinois campus with fall leaves and Block I banner

August 19, 2025

This fall, the College of Media announces two new department heads, seven faculty promotions, and one new faculty member.

In the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising, Sang-Hwa Oh has been promoted to associate professor with indefinite tenure. Carrie Wilson-Brown has been promoted to senior lecturer. Penne Heede joins the department as a new lecturer.

In the Department of Journalism, Professor Jeffrey Magee has been named interim head. He previously served in the College of Media as associate dean for academic affairs from 2019 to 2022. Alison Davis and Josh Heuman have both been promoted to senior lecturer.

In the Department of Media & Cinema Studies, Professor James Hay has been named interim head. Anita Say Chan has been promoted to full professor. Jenny Oyallon-Koloski has been promoted to associate professor with indefinite tenure. Josh Heuman, Jonathan Knipp, and Carrie Wilson-Brown have each been promoted to senior lecturer.

In the Institute of Communications Research, Amanda Ciafone, associate professor of media and cinema studies, will serve as interim director of graduate studies for Fall 2025. Derek Long, associate professor of media and cinema studies, will return as director of graduate studies in Spring 2026.

Continuing for a second term within the college administration, Jason P. Chambers, professor of advertising, will serve as associate dean for access and engagement, and Stephanie Craft, professor of journalism, will serve as associate dean for academic and faculty affairs.

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