This year, the center appointed 11 CAS Associates, one CAS Fellow, and four CAS Beckman Fellows—the distinction as a CAS Beckman Fellow recognizes outstanding younger fellow candidates who have made distinctive scholarly contributions. The appointment grants faculty one semester of teaching release time to pursue an individual scholarly or creative project. Fellows also participate in a yearly roundtable discussion of research interests and are invited to offer a future CAS presentation.
Su will work on a project called “Conversational Agents for Correction of Health Misinformation.”
She plans to build a comprehensive knowledge base on the debunking mechanisms and efficacy of digital-messaging tools known as conversational agents. Conversational agents, such as chatbots, are increasingly prevalent in misinformation-correction efforts.
Based on the project’s findings, Su’s goal is to support the development and refinement of new digital technologies that can effectively correct health misinformation—”a task with strong practical and scientific importance in this age of digital misinformation,” she said.
Su’s research examines the interplay between media and society, with a particular focus on how social media and new technologies influence human communication and social behaviors in the context of scientific and health topics, as well as brand communication. Her recent research examines the effects of humor, social media, and new technologies on science communication.
The Institute of Communications Research congratulates the degree candidates for a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in communications and media! For 2021-2022, the degree candidates, their dissertations, and their advisors are:
Susmita Das
“Speaking the International Language: A Transnational History of the Indian Advertising Industry, 1955-1969” Advisor: Professor Amanda Ciafone
Xiaohan Hu
“Exploring the role of control in digital advertising effectiveness” Advisor: Professor Kevin Wise
Morten Stinus Kristensen
“Discourse, Platforms, and Racialization: Danish Muslims Navigating Hegemonic Danishness on Social Media” Advisor: Professor Angharad Valdivia
Giang Vu Hang Pham
“The Cognitive, Motivational, and Affective Cost of Flow Experiences in Media Use” Advisor: Professor Brittany Duff
Yilin Ren
“How Do Tactile Interactions and Movement Orientations Affect Information Processing of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) on Mobile Devices” Advisor: Professor Kevin Wise
Ann Elisabeth Strahle
“Flag Waving Doesn’t Help when the Bullets are Coming Down the Line: Dialectical Tensions of Religious Communication in the National Guard Chaplaincy” Advisor: Professor EmeritusClifford Christians
Yanyun Wang
“Effects of Augmented Reality on Risk Perception of E-cigarettes for Young Adults: From the Perspective of Construal Level Theory” Advisor: Professor Mike Yao
Kerry Bernice Wilson
“Black Moms Matter: Competing Discourses of Black Motherhood in the Age of Black Lives Matter” Advisor: Professor Isabel Molina-Guzmán
University of Illinois alum Eli Murray (BS ’15, journalism), investigative reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting, along with fellow reporters Corey G. Johnson and Rebecca Woolington. (Photo by Boyzell Hosey | Tampa Bay Times.)
While meeting with the family of a former battery recycling plant manager whose son had lead poisoning, a Pulitzer Prize-winning story crystallized for Eli Murray (BS ’15, journalism), investigative reporter at the Tampa Bay Times.
The family had been suffering because their son was born with a lead level that creeped higher each year.
“The lead could only be coming from the factory where [the] husband worked and it had driven a wedge into their family and put them at odds with each other,” Murray said. “I could see what was at stake for this family and the hundreds of other workers’ families.”
Murray, and fellow investigative reporters Corey G. Johnson and Rebecca Woolington, received the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for their series “Poisoned,” described as “a compelling exposé of highly toxic hazards inside Florida’s only battery recycling plant that forced the implementation of safety measures to adequately protect workers and nearby residents.”
“The investigation by the Tampa Bay Times into dangerous conditions at a lead smelter spurred immediate improvements for health and safety,” said Pulitzer Prize Board member Nicole Caroll. “This newsroom changed workers’ lives, and its reporting shows the critical importance and impact of strong local journalism.”
Murray said he’ll never forget visiting that family: “Every day since it has been a driving source of motivation to shine light into these dark corners to tell these workers’ stories and hopefully effect change.”
The investigative team had spent almost two years gathering data and reporting before the first article in the series was published in 2021. Murray spent months building a database from thousands of pages of PDFs and analyzing the results.
After their Pulitzer Prize was announced on May 9, the Tampa Bay Times reporters shared remarks. Murray acknowledged some University of Illinois journalism faculty members for helping him on his career path. (See video.)
“I wanted to thank a few of my other mentors: Brant Houston, Stretch Ledford, and Jennifer Follis, who encouraged me to follow the data and the programming side of things and to find a way to make that work in journalism and in telling great stories,” Murray said.
Murray was drawn to data journalism because of the ability to tell a story visually that resonates with audiences.
“Eli was an excellent, dedicated student who was a natural at data journalism and great to work with,” said Brant Houston, Knight Chair of Investigative Reporting and professor of journalism. “I am so pleased, but not too surprised, with all his accomplishments and the recognition he has received. I expect there will be much more to come.”
“Beyond Eli’s obvious and prodigious talents as an investigative reporter and data journalist, I think it’s important to recognize that talent can take one only so far down the road to success,” said Charles “Stretch” Ledford, associate professor of journalism. “What brought Eli to this place of international recognition are the same humanistic qualities that made him an outstanding student and vital collaborator here at Illinois—a thirst for knowledge, a restless mind, an unflinching commitment to the truth, and—I don’t know a better way to say it—a heart of gold. These qualities would have carried Eli to great things no matter his chosen field. The people of Tampa Bay, and beyond, are indeed fortunate that he found his calling in journalism.”
Murray was hired at the Tampa Bay Times as a data reporter following an internship there in 2015. As a journalism student at Illinois, he received the Glenn Hanson Scholarship in Visual Communications from the College of Media. He also worked at The Daily Illini as a reporter covering Urbana city government during his junior year, and became a web developer in charge of building the Salary Guide during his senior year.
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
The University of Illinois Archives has acquired and is preserving the website of FairWarning.org, a nonprofit investigative news organization founded and edited by Myron Levin. Brant Houston (pictured at right), Knight Chair Professor of Investigative Reporting in the Department of Journalism, helped arrange the archiving of FairWarning’s content.
FairWarning produced and published the work of staff writers and independent journalists, and its archives are being added to a rich collection of communication materials preserved by the University of Illinois Archives.
FairWarning issued watchdog reports with an emphasis on public health, consumer, labor, and environmental issues, and related topics of government and business accountability. Over 11 years of operation (2010-2021), its stories were published on its website and were also co-published by nearly 200 online, print, and broadcast news organizations across the country.
“I am pleased that the wonderful work of FairWarning has found a home at the University Archives,” Houston said. “It will now be a valuable and preserved resource for all journalists, especially investigative reporters. We thank the staff at the archives for all the work they put into this project.”
Levin, the site’s founder, said he was happy to see the work has found a permanent home.
“When we knew that FairWarning would be closing, it was our overriding goal to ensure that our deeply reported stories would be accessible to journalists, researchers, students, and others,” he said. “For that reason, we’re thrilled to know that our watchdog journalism will be preserved in the University of Illinois Library Archives.”
The Illini Media Company, which oversees The Daily Illini studentnewspaper, WPGU 107.1 FM radio station, and the Illio yearbook, inducted 20 people into its Class of 2022 Hall of Fame at a ceremony on April 9, 2022. Fourteen were College of Media alumni, including:
Pat Wingert (BS ’77, journalism), reporter at Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, former correspondent at Newsweek
The members were recognized for “their distinguished professional careers and contributions to Illini Media as students, professional staff, and alumni,” according to the Illini Media website.
Get to know some of our College of Media faculty! Patrick Vargas is a professor of advertising. He currently teaches Advertising Research Methods (ADV 281), Psychology of Advertising (ADV 478), and sometimes a graduate-level research or seminar class.
What is your research interest? I study attitudes and persuasion. I also have an interest in stereotyping and prejudice. Generally, in social caution.
What are some of your hobbies? I like to read, and I have started working out on a rowing machine. I am weirdly competitive with myself, so I am always trying to row faster than I have the day before. My row machine has a tracker that tells me how fast I am rowing, the amount of energy I am using, and other cool statistics, which ties in with my nerdy love of numbers. Also, I enjoy playing around with my two cats.
What is your favorite movie or TV show? One of my favorite movies is 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Stanley Kubrick movie. I love how it is ambiguous and most of the special effects still hold up even though it’s been more than 50 years since it was released.
What is your favorite genre of music or favorite band? My favorite genre of music would be reggae music that was produced by Lee Perry roughly between 1970 and 1977. There were about seven or eight years where he was doing really amazing work and I like to listen to that!
What advice do you have for a student graduating from the College of Media? I feel like there is a whole world out there and you should go out and see the rest of the world. If you want to go to Chicago after, great! But try to spend time somewhere else, like live in Australia or Belgium and experience the world. It is pretty neat!
Mike Vainisi (BS ’08, journalism) is head of original content at ATTN:. In Spring 2022, he was part of a Media Career Night alumni panel that discussed working in entertainment and Hollywood. (Watch the recording.)
How did you go about picking journalism as your major? As someone who loved writing in high school, journalism was a great way of turning that interest and passion into a career. It is a very versatile major and you come out of it with a very strong writing background. At first, I saw myself becoming a journalist or reporter, but as time went on, I developed an interest in politics. At a certain point, I decided I wanted to work on political campaigns, which I ended up doing after graduation. Working on political campaigns, I utilized the same skill sets I learned as a journalism major such as communication, writing, and social media. Majoring in journalism ended up being a great background for this career.
What are some of your career highlights so far? Right now, I oversee media content at a media company called ATTN: in California. We are a combination of a publisher and production company, so we program to social media companies but also make original content, like TV shows, which we then sell to streaming services. I have worked on specials in 2020 to promote voting in the election, featuring three presidents including former President Obama. At this job, I’ve been able to merge my interests in journalism, content creation in media, and politics, which has been a very fun experience.
How do you think the College of Media prepared you for your successful career? I think the hard skills that you develop are one of the most important skills to have. As someone who hires people, it is super helpful to know that a potential hire has strong writing skills. The same applies to editing, broadcasting, and design. When you’re in school you may not think about it as much, but you begin the process of developing these core skills. I still use the skills that I learned in my editing classes 13 years ago, which is an aspect of my education that was very helpful.
What advice do you have for current journalism students or Media students? What would you have done differently? Be very flexible in terms of how you want to apply your skills from a career point-of-view. A good way to maintain your flexibility is by maintaining an array of skills. For example, if you are majoring in journalism, then learn how to video edit. A lot of publishers or journalism outlets want to hire writers who can also be, in a way, their own producers. Being able to have those skills to successfully tell a story with the different aspects of media you have learned is incredibly useful. Overall, trying to be as dynamic as you can and maintaining the ability to tell stories no matter what the format is, I’ve found to be vital.
Congratulations to all of the College of Media faculty, instructors, 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 Fall 2021 semester and Winter 2021-2022. 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
The Illinois Student Government Teaching Excellence Award recognizes instructors for outstanding performance both in and out of the classroom. Honorees have demonstrated a commitment to teaching and to students in every capacity of their experience at Illinois. Marisa Peacock, lecturer in advertising, was one of this year’s recipients.
Peacock “went above and beyond to make sure students had access to real-world opportunities, relevant and useful course material, in addition to being an incredibly empathetic professor,” her student nominator wrote. “She is passionate about education in a sense where she wants her students to learn, not just for a grade or for a degree. Additionally, she has a deep sense of compassion for her students and always checks in with us mentally.”
Peacock is also program chair of internships and experiential learning in the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising, and teaches workshops to students in the Sandage Social Media Lab.
Leona Yi-Fan Su, assistant professor of advertising, was selected as a Center for Advanced Study Beckman Fellow for the 2022-23 academic year in an annual campuswide competition among faculty.
The University of Illinois Archives has acquired and is preserving the website of 
