Two College of Media faculty members affiliated with the Institute of Communications Research have been selected as James W. Carey Faculty Fellows for academic years 2022-2024. Both Angela Aguayo, associate professor of media and cinema studies, and Chang-Dae Ham, associate professor of advertising and director of graduate studies in advertising, will receive the honor and a stipend to support their research activities.
As a Carey Faculty Fellow, Aguayo will work on a book project called Collective Matters, which examines how traditions in the humanities, health care, law, and education manifest through documentary in non-theatrical spaces, addressing the rituals of media producing, screening, and circulating that bind communities across time. During his Carey Faculty Fellow tenure, Ham will conduct research on digital data literacy and privacy issues.
Established in 2021, the James W. Carey Fund for Faculty Excellence was endowed by Carey’s four sons to honor their father’s legacy at the College of Media and within the field of media. At ICR, Carey earned his doctoral degree, was a research professor, and served as director (1969-1976); he also served as dean of the college. The Carey Fund supports research activities of the outstanding faculty in ICR, the world’s oldest program for interdisciplinary research and doctoral education in communication and media studies.
To join Carey’s family, former students, colleagues, and friends in growing the endowment, please visit the College of Media giving page, click on the orange “Give Online Now” button, and select the Carey Fund under “Nurture Excellence in Media Faculty.”
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.
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.
Josh Heuman, a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Media & Cinema Studies and the Department of Journalism, has been appointed by College of Media Dean Tracy Sulkin as a Dean’s Fellow for the coming academic year. Heuman will work with department and college leadership teams to facilitate activities around the college’s 2022-2023 annual theme of media literacy.
The idea for an annual theme emerged from the College of Media strategic planning process in 2020. Each year, college faculty and students brainstorm about possible themes and then vote to select among them. Last year, the inaugural theme focused on social justice.
“This is a critically important time to be examining media literacy,” said Dean Tracy Sulkin. “We’re excited to bring together perspectives from advertising, journalism, and media and cinema studies through class projects, college events, and public engagement. I’m very pleased to have Professor Heuman join our leadership team this year to support these initiatives.”
Heuman sees the theme as particularly timely. As the pandemic has increased our time spent online, there are concerns about how to be an informed citizen amidst the spread of misinformation.
“We are at a moment where the ways that we engage with media have qualitatively changed,” he said. “It’s hard not to peek out into the scary world outside and see lots of ways that [media literacy] is very relevant, whether we’re talking about the field of politics or social media, and [the effect it has on] young people.”
As part of his duties, Heuman will engage with IMEDIA, a joint collaboration between faculty in the College of Media and College of Education that is helping Illinois public school educators learn how to teach media literacy to students and hosted a media literacy workshop this summer.
“I think it’s a really exciting time to think about these questions, maybe at a more abstract level, but also to recognize and engage with the people who are putting these ideas on the ground, in schools across the state and other states, too,” he said.
Heuman’s own 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—the place where stories are first introduced.
“What kind of an environment is this, in which the stories that we see on the screen come to be formed and come to be shaped?” Heuman asked. “We have a sense of struggles and tensions and what’s at stake in the stories that we end up seeing on screen.”
As media literacy events are announced, Heuman invites faculty, students, and alumni, within the college and beyond, to engage in the conversations.
August 5, 2022 | Tom Hanlon (College of Education) with Holly Rushakoff (College of Media)
Twenty-one Illinois public school educators learned how to incorporate media literacy into their curricula this summer through an IMEDIA media literacy workshop on campus, hosted by faculty from the College of Media and College of Education.
“Media literacy is especially important in light of the last presidential election and the amount of disinformation and misinformation that is pervasive in the U.S.,” said Professor Sarah McCarthey, head of the Department of Curriculum & Instruction in the College of Education. “It’s more and more critical that we equip students with the ability to discern what’s factual from what’s not.”
The workshop, attended by librarians and teachers from language arts, social studies, special education, and art, was developed by the College of Media and the College of Education. The two colleges recently jointly launched a program entitled “Initiative for Media Education Inquiry and Action (IMEDIA),” along with the cofounder of the Illinois Media Literacy Coalition, Michael Spikes of Northwestern University.
The workshop was designed to better equip teachers and students with media literacy skills to encourage mindful media consumption and production and to help teachers meet the needs of a state mandate requiring public high schools to teach media literacy beginning with the 2022-2023 school year.
“Many of us in the College of Media have been working on media literacy-related research and teaching in the last several years,” said Professor Stephanie Craft, head of the Department of Journalism. “When we heard about the new law, we wanted to be able to turn that work into action. Teaming up with curriculum and instruction experts in the College of Education seemed an ideal way to do that.”
The IMEDIA team introduced participants to key concepts in the framework for media literacy, with a focus on news media literacy. Educators were:
shown how to help students identify propaganda and see how the media have been used for social and political change throughout history,
instructed in how to use documentaries to increase media literacy, and
taught by a local Urbana High School student and undergraduate students from the College of Media how students are both creators and consumers of social media content.
The IMEDIA collaboration is working to build a robust critical media literacy curriculum in Illinois schools. Interested teachers will continue working with IMEDIA for follow up on media literacy implementation throughout the 2022-2023 school year.
“Preparing Illinois students to successfully navigate an increasingly complex media environment is vital to their well-being and ability to participate in democratic life,” Craft said.
“The end goal is quite simple,” McCarthey added. “We want all of our students to be prepared to be critical media consumers.”
IMEDIA team members include Professor Sarah McCarthey from the College of Education; Professor Amanda Ciafone from the College of Media; Michael Spikes from Northwestern University; doctoral student Sakshi Bhalla from the College of Media; Professor Michelle Nelson from the College of Media; Professor CL Cole from the College of Media; Professor Stephanie Craft from the College of Media; and Professor Jon Hale from the College of Education.Twenty-one public school educators attended the IMEDIA media literacy workshop held this summer at the Siebel Center for Design on campus.
“The College of Media is eager to celebrate Roger Ebert’s legacy through this new center that will engage scholars, students, and movie fans alike in robust conversations about film,” said Dean Tracy Sulkin. “I look forward to the energy and insight that Professor Turnock will bring to the director role.”
“I’m excited to help the center bring both more awareness of cinema and cinema studies to the campus, as well as the opportunity to bring more film-centered programming,” Turnock said.
As part of her appointment, Turnock will coordinate event programming, including the Ebert Symposium, Ebert Lecture, and a screening series; Ebert research grants and travel grants for film studies; and the Ebert Fellows Program for undergraduate students.
The first event Turnock is planning is the annual Ebert Lecture for mid-fall, which will feature a scholar of film studies.
“We will invite a prominent speaker and hopefully also have a screening, both of which will be open to the public,” she said.
Turnock’s research focuses on film, with an emphasis on special/visual effects, and she coordinates the film studies curriculum.
“I never met Roger Ebert, but like many people around my age, I watched the TV program Siskel and Ebert at the Movies religiously every week,” Turnock said. “Even though most of the films they reviewed weren’t playing in my northern Indiana town, it was an exposure to a wide variety of movies that I might eventually be able to rent at the video store.”
Turnock served as acting head of the Department of Media & Cinema Studies during academic year 2019-2020. At the 2019 Chaz & Roger Ebert Symposium, she moderated a panel discussion on diversity in film. She is the author of The Empire of Effects: Industrial Light and Magic and the Rendering of Realism (University of Texas Press, 2022) and Plastic Reality: Special Effects, Technology, and the Emergence of 1970s Blockbuster Aesthetics (Columbia University Press, 2015).
Students in MACS 150: Introduction to Digital Media Production, taught by Derek Long, assistant professor of media and cinema studies, celebrated their final work of the spring semester at an in-class awards ceremony called the “CORNIs,” where students received Camera Operators’ Registry of Note at Illinois certificates and small trophies, and watched the winning films.
In the course, which draws majors across campus, students learn photography, Photoshop, web design using HTML and CSS, and podcast production. They apply these skills to their final videos, which could be short fiction, documentary, or experimental films of about five minutes in teams of three or four. At the end of the course, Long wants students to learn what kind of media creator they are and to discover which part of the process they enjoy most.
“In the videos, students bring all the digital production skills they learn in MACS 150 to bear: framing and composition, storytelling structure, thinking about audiences, lighting and cinematography, sound recording, design, editing, and postproduction,” Long said. “They also need to make their videos in ways that accord with accepted practices of copyright and fair use, and they make cases for their use of copyrighted material in statements of attribution and fair use for each project. The assignment also serves as a culmination of students’ training in inclusive collaboration. They must draft and pitch a pre-production proposal that distributes labor equitably, and they write peer- and self-evaluations of their collaboration.”
Update on the winners of the 2022 UIUC Student Film Festival:
Jury Award: Joanna Raimo, for her film “A Tint of Red.” Among the jury’s comments was an appreciation of the film’s formal command and creative use of genre tropes.
Audience Award for favorite film: “Bodies of Water” by Ryan Leshock
World-Building Award for favorite film with a message of social justice: “Another Day” by Michael Leshock
Award for Favorite TikTok: “What Song” by Michael Leshock
Students in MACS 464: Film Festivals organized the first in-person festival since the pandemic caused the class to move the annual event online two years ago. The UIUC Student Film Festival, held April 30 in the Knight Auditorium at Spurlock Museum, drew 200+ attendees in person and 200+ views on the livestream channel.
Throughout Spring 2022, students organized, promoted, and produced this event featuring short films of all genres created by undergraduates, filmmaking clubs, and production classes across the University of Illinois campus. Watch the film fest recording here.
The UIUC Student Film Fest is sponsored by the Department of Media & Cinema Studies.
Below, see photos of the audience, production crew, and filmmakers. (Photos courtesy of Jon Knipp, lecturer in media and cinema studies, and instructor for this course.)
In Spring 2020, seniors in MACS 480: Advanced Filmmaking, taught by Victor Font, lecturer in media and cinema studies, collaborated with a Department of Theatre class (Acting for the Camera). Unfortunately, as the pandemic unfolded, students had to halt filming in their second day of production, leaving this movie unfinished. Below, watch their final project, featuring nine minutes of two scenes from the movie The Invitation.
What does it look like behind the scenes? Get a sneak peek here:
Congratulations to Ethan Grinberg, sophomore in computer science + advertising (pictured above), for winning the Undergraduate Research Symposium’s Outstanding Award in the category of Numbers, Data, and Computation for his poster presentation on “The Mechanisms of Misinformation: Clustering Diffusion Networks of Low Credibility Sources by Topology.” His research mentor was Jacob Fisher, assistant professor of advertising.
Students from each major in the College of Media are participating in the 15th annual University of Illinois Undergraduate Research Symposium, held Thursday, April 28, in the Illini Union. The symposium features presentations, posters, and performances from students across campus.
Media student poster presentations include:
“Virtual Reality and Its Immersive Capabilities: Can It Stimulate Pro-Environmental Behavior”
9–10:15 a.m., Illini Room A—Science and Technology Session
Justin Sun, Senior, Advertising
Minghao Sun, Junior, Advertising
Henry Rose, Senior, Advertising
Research Mentors: Chen (Crystal) Chen, ICR doctoral student/Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising, and Ewa Maslowska, Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising
“Analyzing the Relationship between Fear and Election Violence”
9–10:15 a.m., Illini Room C—Social Science and Behavior Session
Billy Wojcicki, Senior, Advertising
Research Mentor: Tolgahan Dilgin, Department of Political Science
“Analyzing Life Experiences through Oral History Methods”
1:30–2:45 p.m., Illini Room A—Health and Wellness Session
Vivian La, Sophomore, Journalism
Research Mentor: Sana Saboowala, Program in Ecology, Evolution, & Conservation Biology
“Investigating the Influence of Parenting Styles on Children’s Online Language Intensity in the Context of Celebrity Worship: Emotion Regulation as a Mediator”
1:30–2:45 p.m., Illini Room C—Social Science and Behavior Session
Sherry Zhang, Senior, Media & Cinema Studies
Research Mentor: Chen (Crystal) Chen, ICR doctoral student/Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising
“The Mechanisms of Misinformation: Clustering Diffusion Networks of Low Credibility Sources by Topology”
3:15–4:30 p.m., Illini Room South Lounge—Numbers, Data, and Computation Session
Research Mentor: Jacob Fisher, Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising
Ethan Grinberg, CS+advertising sophomore, was also a semi-finalist in the Image of Research competition with his submission “The Shape of Misinformation.” See his image and description.
Two Media students also participated in the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program to assist advanced graduate students with their research projects:
Billy Wojcicki, advertising senior, worked with research mentor Tolgahan Dilgin in the Department of Political Science
Vivian La, journalism sophomore, worked with research mentor Sana Saboowala in the Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology
Congratulations to all of the College of Media faculty and teaching assistants who were ranked as excellent by their students!
Josh Heuman,
