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Get to know some of our College of Media students! Lauren Barjami is a Class of 2026 advertising major. What interests led you to choose advertising at the University of Illinois?Prior to coming to Illinois, I knew I wanted to pursue something in business that would also allow me to incorporate creativity. In high school, […]
Get to know some of our College of Media students! Emily Campos is a Class of 2026 advertising major. What inspired you to choose advertising as your major, and how did you decide that College of Media was the right fit for you?When I was about 12, I started exploring entrepreneurship by launching my own […]
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, […]
Email: jiwono2@illinois.edu Research Interests Jiwon’s research interests broadly encompass transnational and feminist STS, AI ethics and governance, Asian technocultures, and human-machine communication. Her current projects delve into AI governance and the shifting notions of intimacy and creativity shaped by AI in South Korea, as well as the dynamics of Western technological influence and forms of […]
Email: jc118@illinois.edu Research Interests Recent Publications/ Presentations “Them that Fabricate: Interpretations of Conservative Religions in Independent Film”, Console-ing Passions International Conference. Bloomington, IN. June, 2024 “Mapping Found Footage Tropes in the True Crime Genre”, Popular Culture Association National Conference. Chicago, IL. March, 2024. Courses Taught Academic Roles Awards and Honors
Email: sakshib3@illinois.edu Research Interests Recent Publications/Presentations R Ray, S Bhalla, H Taneja. (2025). Partisan news users in the United States and India on either side seldom use fact checkers. Journal of Communication, https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqaf018 Bhalla, S., Nelson, M. R., & Spikes, M. (2025). Classroom contexts: Teachers talk teaching media literacy. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 17(2), 37-52. https://doi.org/10.23860/JMLE-2025-17-2-3 […]
Email: namita2@illinois.edu Research Interests Namita is a PhD student at the Institute of Communications Research, with an interest in examining urban technologies and platform economies in South Asia. She is particularly interested in the everyday functioning of these technologies in relation to questions of class, gender and caste. She has a BA and MA in […]
Email: whelmke2@illinois.edu Research Interests I am interested in the intersection between games, culture, and the representation of physical space. Focusing primarily on games from Japan, I seek to make connections between games and culture while also considering how physical space is reproduced in the games’ virtual worlds. I am also interested in the role of […]
Email: yirang3@illinois.edu Research Interests Yiran Gao is a doctoral student at the Institute of Communications Research. 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 […]
Email: anirban3@illinois.edu Research Interests I am interested in the history of communication/media technologies; media and space, race and media, resistance and social movements; media policies and critical information studies. I am intrigued by how media affect cultural changes in the public sphere, build cultural citizenship and (re)produce frameworks of everyday life. I am driven by questions […]