Journalism 16 | DEV College of Media

Geography, language dictate social media and popular website usage, study finds

February 9, 2023 | Lois Yoksoulian, University of Illinois News Bureau

Since its inception, the Internet has been viewed by technology experts and scholars as a way to access information at a global scale without having to overcome hurdles posed by language and geography. However, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that how people around the world use the same popular social media platforms and websites remains vastly different based on their language and geography.

A new study by Harsh Taneja, associate professor of new and emerging media in the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising, and Margaret Yee Man Ng, assistant professor of journalism, builds upon previous research and examines Internet consumption across 124 countries through their usage of popular websites, as well as Twitter and YouTube—two globally dominant social media platforms.

The results of the new study are published in the journal PLOS ONE.

“The goal of this work was to develop ways to assess which countries are most like each other in the usage of these popular websites and social media platforms and to identify factors that explain the similarities,” the researchers said.

The team found that language and geography remain the most salient predictors of web usage, and their role on YouTube and Twitter is just as significant as on the wider web.

“This is true of the websites they visit and also how they use social media,” Taneja said. “Sure, YouTube is the most popular online outlet in most of the world, but people in Nepal on average do not watch the same videos as people in the United States.”

The team collected and compared trending Internet traffic data and the use of hashtags for the two most popular social media platforms—Twitter and YouTube—and the 500 most-visited sites using Alexa’s Global Rank in the 124 nations studied.

“We chose to work with Twitter and YouTube because although they are both very popular, they attract different audiences, so they capture a very wide slice of Internet use,” the researchers said.

“Our analysis suggests that global web use is quite heterogeneous, whether it is website traffic or in how people use Twitter or YouTube, with social media usage being even less similar overall than the usage of websites,” Ng said.

Previous studies have shown that the free exchange of information has been hampered by government regulations and protections in nations like Russia and China, for example.

“However, government regulation is not the only reason for the restrained flow of information,” Taneja said. “Our study offers empirical evidence that people generally prefer content that focuses on their region and in their language.”

While using data reflecting trending YouTube videos and Twitter topics via hashtags may not wholly capture Internet consumption numbers, it works well as a proxy to gauge consumption on these platforms, the researchers said.

“An important caveat of this work is that we must acknowledge that trending topics are not purely based on consumption,” Ng said. “There is some sort of a black box that determines the complete picture, but tracking hashtags is an effective proxy and less biased than methods involving geolocation, for example, because many users do not reveal their location while browsing.”

Taneja and Ng said the study is beneficial to researchers studying the global flow of information—and, importantly, misinformation—and for web content producers interested in gaining a larger or more targeted global audience.

Seed funding from the Center for Social and Behavioral Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign supported this study.

Editor’s notes:

To reach Harsh Taneja, email harsht@illinois.edu.

To reach Margaret Yee Man Ng, email ymn@illinois.edu.

The paper “Web use remains highly regional even in the age of global platform monopolies” is available online and from the U of I News Bureau. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278594

View original press release.

2022 College of Media Teaching Award recipients announced

January 20, 2023

Each academic year, the College of Media seeks nominations for a teaching award that honors faculty who display a strong commitment to the undergraduate teaching mission. This year, Josh Heuman and Yiran Gao have been recognized as recipients of the 2022 College of Media Teaching Awards.

Heuman, a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Media & Cinema Studies and the Department of Journalism, received the Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by a Specialized Faculty Member. Heuman’s teachings range widely across the field of media studies, including courses in media industries, media law, media history, media theory, and media genre, narrative, and style. His research explores media industries and regulation, especially in television, with an emphasis on the regulation of media work. He’s also interested in the evolution of the television writers’ room where stories are first introduced.

Gao, a doctoral student at the Institute of Communications Research, received the Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by a Teaching Assistant. Since Spring 2018, Gao has consistently been ranked as excellent by her students, based on Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms. Her interdisciplinary research interests lie at the intersection of media studies, critical cultural studies, science and technology studies, and global studies. Her current research focuses on the roles and the impact of digital media on the formation of digital public sphere at a transnational level.

Award-winning journalism alumna Kalodimos releases true crime podcast

Award-winning alumna Demetria Kalodimos (MS ’83, journalism) has released a nine-part true crime podcast about a 1975 cold case murder.

Carol’s Last Christmas examines the murder of Carol Rofstad at Illinois State University in 1975. The podcast, which was produced by Kalodimos’ company, Genuine Human Productions, is the culmination of a two-year investigation with Alexandra Daskalopoulos, a journalist and legal researcher, and George Seibel, a retired Chicago police officer who founded the Institute for Cold Case Solutions at Morton College.

Kalodimos, who was named Tennessee Broadcaster of the Year in 1995 and inducted into the Tennessee Journalism Hall of Fame in 2016, was a television news anchor at WICD Channel 15 in Champaign before her 34-year career as principal anchor and investigative reporter at WSMV-TV Nashville.

In addition to podcast, documentary, and music video production, she is currently executive producer of the non-profit, web-based Nashville Banner, a locally owned, civic news organization.

Kalodimos has anchored and reported the news for more than 40 years and has won some of the top awards in broadcast journalism including 16 Emmys, three Investigative Reporters and Editors national awards, and three Edward R. Murrow Awards for investigative reporting. She was named 2021 Professional in Residence at Lipscomb University School of Communication.

New journalism master’s degree track focusing on science and technology receives campus funding

With a significant need for professionals to communicate science, discoveries, and innovations to the general public, a flexible hybrid/online program—with a focus on science and technology—will be offered through the journalism master’s degree beginning Fall 2023.

Students can earn the Master of Science in Journalism degree with a focus on science and technology journalism entirely online in as few as two semesters full-time or can tailor a part-time schedule over additional semesters. Students also may opt to take courses that “stack” to a professional credential, and those courses can later be applied to a degree.

The new program is a collaboration between the College of Media and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and was one of 10 projects selected this year to be funded by campus’s Investment for Growth program, to enhance the visibility and impact of the University of Illinois.

“The Department of Journalism is proud to expand our curricula to train current and future journalists how to communicate important scientific and technical information to the general public,” said Mira Sotirovic, head of the Department of Journalism and associate professor and Karin and Folke Dovring Scholar in Propaganda. “We have seen a growing interest in, and a growing need for, science communication and are thrilled to receive Investment for Growth funding to begin meeting the demand.”

The new curricula will also offer a science and technology communication certificate for undergraduates, and the online 400-level courses in this track will expand paths to degree completion for undergraduates.

“Scientific research and innovation are present in our daily lives, in seen and unseen ways,” said Claudia Lutz, outreach manager at the Institute for Genomic Biology. “As the last few years have reminded us, this is particularly true of the field of genomics, which intersects with almost every aspect of both life sciences and society. We are excited to help give future science journalists an inside look at how science is done and a broader awareness of its impact.”

The timing of this program coincides with needs voiced by the science communication industry for such training, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, but also to report on critical stories of our time including climate change, nuclear and chemical warfare, and health and wellness. For example, Scientific American published “How the Pandemic Remade Science Journalism,” (2022), NiemanLab reported on “Reporting That Hits Home: Covering Science for Local Audiences” (2022), and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences covered “Science Audiences, Misinformation, and Fake News” (2019).

The online master’s program and individual course modules are ideal for journalists and prospective journalists who want to improve and specialize in science writing or to gain a competitive advantage in the field; scientists and their academic colleagues who wish to be more effective in communicating to lay audiences; and communications professionals who work for nonprofits, government agencies, or science- or technology-focused corporations who are interested in boosting their skills and understanding.

Courses will cover writing science stories in plain English; the basics of data journalism, including building databases and analyzing data; visualization in newsrooms; humanizing data through video storytelling and humanizing science communication by harnessing virtual reality; and more. Students will also examine the science of genomics and its applications to environment, health, and technology through course modules. See a sample course sequence for the master’s degree and sample course modules.

As part of the preparation for enrolling students next fall, the Department of Journalism is hiring a new professor in science, technology, data, or digital journalism to supplement the course offerings.

“They will have an important role in the new concentration,” Sotirovic said. “The new faculty member will teach courses in science journalism, as well as some combination of courses in data journalism, social media analytics, and other courses based on their own expertise and interests.”

Additionally, the Institute for Genomic Biology is hiring a postdoctoral fellow in science communications curriculum coordination. This position will help develop course materials and oversee experiential learning for students in the program.

Learn more about the program and the application details. The deadline to apply is March 3, 2023.

For more information about this program, please email Mira Sotirovic.

—Holly Rushakoff

Media faculty receive SHIELD Illinois grant to study public attitudes of COVID-19 testing

Three College of Media faculty have received a $25,000 research grant from SHIELD Illinois for a project that will examine public attitudes, news framing, and online engagement about SHIELD COVID-19 testing. The analyses will help inform best practices and strategies for future campaigns addressing public health crises.

SHIELD is the University of Illinois System’s statewide saliva-based COVID-19 testing program that began in Fall 2020. More than 1,700 K-12 schools, community colleges, universities, and other organizations make up the program’s client base.

MUSE research team — The MUSE research group.

The faculty members conducting the research are Ewa Maslowska, assistant professor of advertising; Margaret Ng, assistant professor of journalism; and Harsh Taneja, associate professor of new and emerging media in the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising. Last spring, they formed a research group called MUSE to study media users and consumers through interdisciplinary methods. The SHIELD research is the group’s first funded project.

Maslowska, Taneja, and Ng broadly research media usage: Maslowska specializes in marketing communication and consumer behavior. Taneja focuses on how and why people consume media. Ng studies how data from social media platforms can be used to explore an event or issue in a different way.

The group will investigate social media discourse, news coverage, and other data to understand how the public responded to SHIELD’s communications. Their findings will be published in academic articles, compiled into a report for the general public, and posted on an interactive online dashboard in summer 2023. SHIELD plans to use the findings to further benefit the state of Illinois.

In initial observations, Taneja said that COVID-19 is different from past public health crises because of the influence of social media.

In terms of physical transmission, “COVID -19 is perhaps similar to several other bugs in the past in how far and fast it can spread,” he said. “And then you add social media, which is available to both increase the scale and the speed of transmission of information about it.”

In a state as diverse as Illinois, geographic differences also must be considered when analyzing public perceptions of COVID-19.

“We are very mindful of the fact that attitudes towards COVID, in general, downstate, tend to be very different from attitudes towards COVID, than, let’s say, in Chicago,” Taneja added.

Even though vaccine hesitancy has existed before COVID-19, Ng said that this pandemic was the first time every citizen needed to make a personal decision about vaccination in a relatively short period of time. While social media has become the main source of information, misinformation about vaccination is also widespread.

“With minimal restrictions on post content, misinformation easily becomes widespread on social media,” Ng said. “That’s why a study on the SHIELD health campaign will reveal the opportunities and challenges the effort encountered in the past two years.”

The last few years have given media scholars like Ng and her colleagues new research opportunities. The pandemic and other public health crises shouldn’t just be understood from a biological perspective, she argues.

“It really depends on the communication side—communication scholars have a very unique position to help make sure that society as a whole can get that benefit from vaccination,” Ng said. “And I’m very glad that we got the funding so that our media expertise can benefit the whole state at both a societal level and at an individual level.”

—Vivian La, Communications Intern

Political journalists from CNN, NPR, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune to speak on politics and elections

The Richard and Leslie Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will host four of the country’s top political journalists—David Chalian from CNN, Domenico Montanaro from NPR, Vivian Salama from the Wall Street Journal, and Alice Yin from the Chicago Tribune—for a panel discussion on what it’s like to cover politics and elections in 2022.

Titled “Reporting on Politics and Elections in 2022,” the panel will be held Thursday, Oct. 13, from 6-7 p.m., in the Knight Auditorium of Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory, Urbana.

The event is free and open to the public and will be broadcast live via Zoom; register to join via Zoom at https://go.illinois.edu/politics-elections-2022.

Panelists include:

David Chalian, CNN Political Director
Domenico Montanaro, NPR Senior Political Editor
Vivian Salama, Wall Street Journal National Security Reporter
Alice Yin, Chicago Tribune City Hall Reporter
Moderator: Colleen King, Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media Director and Clinical Assistant Professor of Journalism

The panelists will weigh in on the upcoming midterm elections and potential national outcomes, from the fate of President Joe Biden to the control of Congress, and more. Audience questions will be welcomed toward the end of the hour or may be submitted through the Zoom registration form.

David Chalian is CNN’s vice president of political coverage and political director. In his role, Chalian oversees CNN’s daily political coverage across all platforms, the polling and decision desk operations, and helps guide the editorial content for the network’s special event political programming.

Domenico Montanaro is NPR’s senior political editor/correspondent. Based in Washington, D.C., his work appears on air and online delivering analysis of the political climate in Washington and campaigns.

Vivian Salama covers national security for the Wall Street Journal, based in Washington. She has covered U.S. foreign policy and national security issues for nearly two decades, reporting from more than 75 countries. Most recently, she has reported extensively from Ukraine.

Alice Yin is a reporter for the Chicago Tribune’s metro desk, responsible for covering the ins and outs of Cook County government and the Obama Presidential Center.

This event is presented by the Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media at the University of Illinois College of Media.

Learn more at https://www.dev.collegeofmedia.cpp.web.illinois.edu/frankcenterpanel2022.

For more information, please contact Colleen King, director of the Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media and clinical assistant professor of journalism, at cck@illinois.edu.

Mark L. Brandt Public Engagement Fellows program funds eight fall projects in the College of Media

October 4, 2022 | Holly Rushakoff

Eight projects led by College of Media faculty and staff have been selected to receive funding as part of the Mark L. Brandt Public Engagement Fellows program, established this year to provide undergraduate Media students with professional experience in public engagement activities. It also provides opportunities for students to participate in programs that support first-generation college students, students from underrepresented groups, and/or students with significant financial need.

“We are delighted to be honoring Mark Brandt’s legacy through opportunities for our students to work with College of Media faculty and staff on projects that make a difference in our community, our state, and the nation,” said Dean Tracy Sulkin.

Brandt was a 1986 alumnus of Illinois who retired early from a career in finance at General Electric. After his death in 2021, the College of Media received an estate gift of just over $1 million to create the Brandt Public Engagement Fellows program. The trustee of his estate, Mary Leyendecker, chose to ensure that his legacy makes a positive impact on students and society. The funds will provide internships for up to 40 Media students annually, with opportunities announced in both fall and spring semesters.

Below is a list of the projects, activities, and programs that received funding for Brandt Public Engagement Fellows for Fall 2022. College of Media undergraduate students who wish to apply for these opportunities should check their email inbox for the October 3 Advising Newsletter for more details.

Mis/Disinformation in Asian and Asian American Communities Research Project
Led by Rachel Kuo, Assistant Professor of Media & Cinema Studies
The Brandt Fellow will support research on a project that studies the historical and political contexts of mis/disinformation in Asian and Asian American communities through the use of community education workshops, oral histories, and focus groups. Working closely with the PI, the Brandt Fellow will support data collection and analysis; facilitate community research workshops and skills-trainings; and co-write and produce resource guides on Asian and Asian American history and ethnic media; and meet different community partners.

Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies
Led by Julie Turnock, Associate Professor of Media & Cinema Studies
This academic year (2022-2023) is the inaugural year of the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies. The Brandt Fellow will primarily use their skills in web design, graphic design, and public relations, to build and update a public-facing website for the Ebert Center, and work with the College of Media’s Director of Communications to publicize Ebert Center events via social media. They will also play a key role to help make the activities of the Ebert Center available to the local community.

SHIELD Illinois Research Project
Led by:
Ewa Maslowska, Assistant Professor of Advertising
Margaret Ng, Assistant Professor of Journalism
Harsh Taneja, Associate Professor of Advertising
The Brandt Fellows will help with a project with SHIELD Illinois—the community COVID-19 saliva-based testing program of the State of Illinois. Our project aims to understand public attitudes, news framing, and diffusion networks related to SHIELD COVID-19 testing through social media discourse and news coverage. The Brandt Fellows will take part in the process of data gathering and analysis and develop visualizations.

IMEDIA
Led by:
Amanda Ciafone, Associate Professor of Media & Cinema Studies, Director of Graduate Studies for the Institute of Communications Research
CL Cole, Department Head, Professor of Media & Cinema Studies
Stephanie Craft, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Professor of Journalism
Michelle Nelson, Professor of Advertising
The Brandt Fellow will help develop the digital communications strategy of the Initiative for Media Education Inquiry and Action. IMEDIA is a collaboration between the College of Media and the College of Education to help fill high school teachers’ needs for media literacy training and curriculum development in light of new Illinois State mandates requiring a unit of “media literacy” in all public Illinois high schools.

New Voices Internship Program
Led by Daniel Almanza, Assistant Director of Media Career Services
The New Voices Internship Program provides first-generation college students with support and opportunities to grow their resume as soon as they join the College of Media. Students in the program are given opportunities for professional development through workshop-style meetings with the Assistant Director of Career Services, as well as other members of the campus community. In addition to interviews, students will participate in projects based on their interests, as they align with the content needs of the College of Media.

Brand Hub
Led by Susan Muirhead, Visiting Associate Director, Hub for Brand Innovation and Advertising Technology
The Brandt Fellow will work with the Brand Hub on further development of their community and outreach efforts primarily through the development of Fall and Spring Brand Hub Marketing Fairs, in partnership with the Champaign Public Library. This includes support with program development, event marketing materials, and with the recruitment of student volunteers at these events. They will also be instrumental in the implementation of a pipeline system for nonprofits to work with the Brand Hub and courses in the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising. The Brandt Fellow will also assist, where possible, with the development of the second year of the Impact Marketing and Fundraising Fellowship program, which is set to launch in early June 2023.

Illinois Community Media Project
Led by Angela Aguayo, Associate Professor of Media & Cinema Studies
The Illinois Community Media Project is a grant-funded project to bring media production, curation, and documentation to underserved communities. We begin with building connections with local service organizations and through collaborative identification of social problems, design a media production outreach program. Our Illinois Community Media team works hands-on with students to connect classroom knowledge with the community. The Brandt Fellows will assist in planning public-facing speaker visits, organizing, and assisting with community-based projects, creating documentation content of events, and building website and social media presence for the organization.

News, Brews & Beatz
Led by Moss Bresnahan, Executive Director of Illinois Public Media
Illinois Public Media produces a quarterly series called News, Brews & Beatz—a space for diverse voices to engage in breakthrough conversations on community issues and realistic solutions. Each quarter, News, Brews & Beatz focuses on a different topic in a way that elevates Black voices and shares what individuals and nonprofit groups are doing to build community. The Brandt Fellow will assist with this multiplatform initiative, which includes content airing on TV, radio, and social media. They will also create short videos for TikTok and other social media as part of the News, Brews & Beatz initiative.

Pictured at top: Media alumna Dora Valkanova (PhD ’20, ICR), Urbana High School student Halie Thompson, and sophomore in journalism Ashley Gilbert discussed ways in which students were audiences and creators of social media content at an IMEDIA media literacy workshop this summer for public school educators. IMEDIA is one of the funding recipients in the Mark L. Brandt Public Engagement Fellows program.

Wagner wins ‘Rising Star’ award from PRNEWS

Melissa Wagner (BS ’18, journalism), a public relations senior at Zebra Technologies, was recently recognized as a “Rising Star” in PRNEWS’ Top Women Awards program.

Some of her accomplishments at Zebra include launching the company’s first-ever Global Week of Service during the pandemic, which engaged nearly 150 employees who volunteered more than 1,000 hours in 11 countries with 45 organizations. Her contributions have also helped secure Zebra’s #25 spot on Newsweek’s inaugural list of America’s Most Loved Workplaces and #79 position on Forbes’ list of America’s 500 Best Midsize Employers.

Learn more.

Hill teaches sports reporting after decades-long career as journalist

After 43 years as a journalist, Bill Hill (BS ’75, journalism) teaches sports reporting to graduate students at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He previously served as assistant managing editor at MLB.com, directing coverage of 10 West division teams and coordinating MLB’s internship program.

Media faculty and TAs make list of teachers ranked as excellent

Congratulations to all of the College of Media faculty and teaching assistants who were ranked as excellent by their students!

This list is based on Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms completed by students during the Spring 2022 semester. Only those instructors who distributed ICES forms at least once during this time period and who released their data for publication are included in the list. View the complete list.

Note: * denotes that the instructor ratings were outstanding.

ADVERTISING

STEVE HALL – ADV 150

CHANG-DAE HAM – ADV 281 (Summer 2022)

* TERRY KASDAN – ADV 409

* AMANDA MABRY-FLYNN – ADV 283

* EWA MASLOWSKA – ADV 461

MICHELLE NELSON – ADV 582

* MARISA PEACOCK – ADV 491, ADV 498

SELA SAR – ADV 588

ALLISON VANCE – ADV 350

* STEPHEN WARREN – ADV 314

CARRIE WILSON-BROWN – ADV 290

* MIKE YAO – ADV 460

JOURNALISM

JOSH HEUMAN – JOUR 205

CAROL LOMBARDI – JOUR 220

MARGARET YEE MAN NG – JOUR 425

STEPHEN WARREN – JOUR 360, JOUR 361

MEDIA & CINEMA STUDIES

DEREK LONG – MACS 262

* JENNY OYALLON-KOLOSKI – MACS 504

TEACHING ASSISTANTS

* D. CARRILLO FUCHS – MACS 101

Y. GAO – MACS 100

J. GU – MACS 101

Y. KANG – MACS 100

A. MUKHOPADHYAY – MACS 101

J. PYO – MACS 100