August 20, 2025 | Sharita Forrest, University of Illinois News Bureau Teachers and high school students live in vastly different media worlds, and that’s one of several digital divides that undermine the efficacy of state-mandated media literacy instruction in Illinois high schools, a recent study suggests. The researchers—Institute of Communications Research doctoral student Sakshi Bhalla and Michelle Nelson, […]
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 […]
August 19, 2025 Faculty and graduate students from the College of Media co-presented various topics of research at the 108th annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication on August 7-10, 2025, in San Francisco, California. This year’s conference theme was “Leading in Times of Momentous Change: Individual and Collective Opportunities.” Presenters […]
July 31, 2025 Thanks to a $2.5M gift from Richard and Leslie Frank in 2024—who endowed the Richard and Leslie Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media in 2020 and enabled the renovation of Richmond Studio—exciting upgrades in the lower level of Gregory Hall began in Spring 2025. This will result in the creation of […]
July 1, 2025 | The News-Gazette I suspect AI will continue to be used to help political strategists in creating, testing and managing campaigns. This means we’ll probably receive even more personalized ads—I’m hopeful that we, as citizens, are able to know what is AI and what is not, and what is truthful and what […]
June 30, 2025 Faculty, graduate students, and recent alumni from the College of Media co-presented various topics of research at the 75th annual International Communication Association Conference—the largest academic conference for communication scholars—on June 12-16, 2025, in Denver, Colorado. The ICA aims to advance the scholarly study of human communication by encouraging and facilitating excellence in academic research worldwide. […]
April 15, 2025 Update May 29, 2025: Congratulations to the students who presented “Uman Tok: Tailoring Hope, Renewing Futures in Sierra Leone” for receiving an award for Outstanding Oral Presentation at the Undergraduate Research Symposium from the Office of Undergraduate Research! Some of these students previously won an award in 2024 for Outstanding Exhibit on this same research […]
March 21, 2025 Advertising faculty and graduate students in the MS advertising and ICR doctoral programs, as well as several alumni, participated in the 2025 annual conference of the American Academy of Advertising, held March 6-9 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Faculty and graduate students participated in eight paper presentations and three panels, discussing research and ideas […]
March 19, 2025 Helen Katz (MS ’86, advertising; PhD ’88, ICR), EVP of Research at Publicis Media, has been named the recipient of the prestigious 2025 Erwin Ephron Demystification Award. This lifetime achievement award honors industry leaders who are exceptional communicators and excel in making complex subjects accessible, embodying the spirit of legendary advertising research guru Erwin Ephron. […]
Email: youngin3@illinois.edu Research Interests I interrogate the politics of popular cultures hiding under the cloak of spectacular glitz, through interdisciplinary approaches within cultural studies. My work invites the readers to (re)visit the power relations of languages in contemporary cinema and the pop music industry or to explore a complicated ecosystem of female fandom. From Seoul, […]