Advertising 15 | College of Media

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.

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

Brand Ambassador Program to assist Fighting Illini student-athletes in building personal brands

August 31, 2022

More than 30 student-athletes and student brand ambassadors, including 21 advertising students, are part of a new Brand Ambassador Program on campus.

A select group of students from the University of Illinois College of Media will be paired with individual Fighting Illini student-athletes as a part of the new Brand Ambassador Program, a project of the Hub for Brand Innovation and Advertising Technology and the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising.

“There is no question that many Illini student-athletes are among the most high-profile brands in the State of Illinois,” said Dr. Mike Yao, professor of digital media and head of the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising in the College of Media. “We could not be more excited for our outstanding students to grow alongside student-athletes and local businesses with whom they share the Illinois experience. Today’s personal branding opportunities are limitless, and I look forward to seeing the results.”

The Brand Ambassador Program requires a rigorous application process and provides students with a passion for brand marketing and social media with hands-on training to become effective, creative, and positive brand managers. Fighting Illini student-athletes along with Visit Champaign County, the City of Urbana, the Champaign Community Economic Development Corporation, and other organizations will be paired with individual brand ambassadors in order to establish and better develop their personal brand strategies.

Last year’s changes to state law and NCAA policy allow student-athletes to monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL), and this shift has created an incentive for student-athletes to increase their social media presences as they begin to play a prominent role in the marketing efforts of both regional and national corporations. Opendorse, a leading NIL technology platform, projects that the student-athlete NIL market could reach $1 billion annually, with a significant majority of NIL activity leveraging student-athletes’ social media presences.

NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championships individual qualifier Mia Takekawa is one student-athlete who will benefit from this new initiative.

“It’s amazing to consider that I will have a personal social media expert,” Takekawa said. “I’m always wondering how to increase my online presence, and I’m excited to see how this helps elevate my profile to get more NIL deals.”

The Brand Ambassador Program operates in parallel with the INFLUENCE Program, the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics educational approach to NIL, which emphasizes brand and strategy development along with business and financial concepts.

“The University of Illinois has some of the finest advertising students in the nation, and I am delighted that our student-athletes will get the benefit of this new program,” said Josh Whitman, director of Athletics. “I am grateful to the College of Media, Dr. Yao, and the many others who worked to include our student-athletes in this new endeavor.”

The Brand Ambassador Program will begin at the start of the Fall 2022 semester. The program currently has 21 advertising students and serves 10 student-athlete brands (two of whom are Media majors) and brands in the community.

View original press release from DIA.

Helping Students Be Wise Consumers of Media

August 5, 2022 | Tom Hanlon (College of Education) with Holly Rushakoff (College of Media)

Educators at the IMEDIA media literacy workshop

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.”

Learn more about IMEDIA.

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.

Klues receives 2022 College of Media Distinguished Alumni Award

May 31, 2022 | Vivian La, Communications Intern

(Jack and Beth Klues.)

Jack Klues (BS ’77, advertising), who has led some of the largest media companies over his 35-year career, has been selected to receive the 2022 College of Media Distinguished Alumni Award.

The award honors an alum whose career accomplishments and engagement with the College of Media are exemplary.

Klues has been a major supporter of the college. In 2015, the Klues Family Foundation donated $1 million to the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising to fund scholarships for underrepresented students with significant financial need, helping 60+ students since then. He has also participated on the James Webb Young Board, a professional advisory board for the Sandage Department of Advertising, taught an advanced media strategy class in the mid-1980s, and regularly recruited Illini talent.

“I’m just so impressed and gratified and honored to represent the college because it continues to be so forward-thinking, as it relates to instruction and education in the space,” Klues said. “That availability and that connection to the professional media industry is so powerful and yet unique to the University of Illinois.”

“Throughout his career, Jack Klues has been an advocate for the inclusion of a variety of voices and ideas, and his generous gift supports diversity in the industry by providing opportunities for advertising students in need, whether it’s financial scholarships, paid internships, or experiential learning experiences,” said Dean Tracy Sulkin. “Jack continues to drive the industry forward and we’re thankful for his commitment to higher education.”

Klues called his time at Illinois “a great launching pad for a professional career.” He began at Leo Burnett as an account executive in the media department, where he worked on planning and placement for companies like Pillsbury and Green Giant. By 1996, he was part of a management team that created a media services agency under Leo Burnett called Starcom, one of his career highlights.

“I have to put that high on my list of accomplishments—something I will always remember,” Klues said. “And it taught me that I have the right career path and choice.”

Leo Burnett merged with another media agency, DARCY, in 2000. Their media company, Mediavest, was part of a larger merger that resulted in the formation of the Starcom Mediavest Group, where Klues was the global CEO. When Starcom was acquired by Publicis Groupe in 2003, he became the global CEO for Publicis Groupe Media. From 2007 until his retirement in 2012, Klues was CEO at VivaKi, one of the first fully digitally-integrated agencies.

For more than two decades, Klues has served in a variety of leadership roles related to education. In his retirement, Klues established Mentridge, a mentoring program for college graduates entering the job market. He has been involved with Off the Street Club, Chicago’s oldest boys and girls club, for more than 25 years, including serving on the board of directors and acting as vice president of fundraising.

Learn more about Jack Klues’s career and his connection to the College of Media: Klues gift helps diversify advertising industry by opening doors for minority students

Advertising department collaborates with Amazon Ads to bring industry experience and certifications to students through new courses

May 16, 2022 | Holly Rushakoff

As the first advertising education program in the country, the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising continues to pioneer innovative learning experiences in the classroom.

This academic year, students not only worked on research-based ad campaigns for real brands, but they also learned resources and tools from Amazon Ads, gaining professional certification in addition to course credit.

Advertising - Amazon Ads class — At the end of fall semester, students in ADV 392 presented their ad campaign results to their real clients over Zoom as well as to an in-person team from Amazon Ads and Global Overview.

In Fall 2021, the Sandage Department of Advertising developed a new course, ADV 392: Industry Immersion Experiential Learning, in a collaborative relationship with Amazon Ads Education Alliance, Global Overview, and real-world clients. In the course taught by Steve Hall, senior lecturer in advertising, students learned ecommerce and Amazon advertising solutions and then put that into practice through integrated campaigns that were funded by Global Overview, which also provided the brand clients.

Throughout the process, students had access to Amazon Ads and Global Overview professionals, including account executives, account managers, campaign managers, creative managers, strategists, advertising managers, and operations officers. Students learned about their advertising responsibilities and got to ask questions at networking events. At the semester’s end, student teams pitched their presentations to their clients. The class has directly led to interviews and full-time employment at both companies.

The course will be offered again in Fall 2022, called ADV 392: Advertising Immersion—Amazon Advertising Certification and Global Overview Campaign Course.

“Our collaboration with the Amazon Ads Education Alliance has helped our students develop and strengthen valuable practical knowledge and skills in an experiential learning environment,” said Professor Mike Yao, head of the Sandage Department of Advertising. “We greatly appreciate the opportunity to work with Amazon Ads to discover talents and future leaders, and we look forward to expanding the relationship and future collaborations.”

Networking event — Amazon Ads and Global Overview employees discussed job roles and career opportunities, and answered students’ questions at an informational networking event last fall.

Ayesha Baweja, a sophomore in computer science + advertising, said it was exciting to work on a real campaign for a large skincare company.

“Working directly in the industry is an experience that people in other majors may not get to have in the classroom,” Baweja said.

“It’s crazy to think that, as a student, [I] was working with a real budget,” said Ethan Fazio, a junior in advertising. “Being able to execute that and put it into numerics and show the client back the return that they were getting on their ad spend—it really showed me how valuable it is to be working with a client.”

Due to the success of the pilot class, student interest, and the department’s ability to respond quickly as media evolves, two new courses have been created for Fall 2022—ADV 400: Amazon Advertising Experience, and ADV 490: Advanced Ecommerce Advertising.

In ADV 400: Amazon Advertising Experience, students will work with a local Amazon e-tailer to grow its business. Working in teams and supervised by a faculty member, students will gain hands-on experience in designing, planning, and executing advertising campaigns for an ecommerce enterprise.

In ADV 490: Advanced Ecommerce Advertising, students will explore conceptual and practical issues in ecommerce advertising and marketing. The course will analyze topics such as online shopping behavior, interface and consumer experience design, brand development and management for e-tailers, marketing and business analytics, and ecommerce advertising strategies.

The collaboration between the Sandage Department of Advertising and Amazon Ads Education Alliance was facilitated by the Hub for Brand Innovation and Advertising Technology.

Learn more about the new courses at https://brandhub.illinois.edu/amazon-ads-experience/.

Leona Su named CAS Beckman Fellow for 2022-23

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.

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.

Media students present at 2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium

Update May 10, 2022:

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 15^th 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

Ethan Grinberg, Sophomore, Computer Science + Advertising

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

View the Undergraduate Research Week program .

Alumni inducted into Illini Media Company’s Hall of Fame

The Illini Media Company, which oversees The Daily Illini student newspaper, 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:

the late Nelson Algren (BS ’31, journalism), winner of 1950 National Book Award for Fiction for The Man with the Golden Arm
Susan J. Smith Cornwell (BS ’77, journalism), retired congressional correspondent at Reuters
Amara Enyia (BS ’05, journalism), Chicago attorney and activist
Jon Hansen (BS ’06, journalism), Emmy Award-winning host of WGN’s “Your Money Matters”
Paula Kamen (BS ’89, journalism), author of the book Finding Iris Chang, about her friend and Illinois journalism classmate
John J. Kim (BS ’97, advertising), photographer at Chicago Tribune and winner of 2011 Pulitzer Prize with reporting team at Chicago Sun-Times
Natasha Korecki (BS ’96, journalism), senior national political reporter at NBC News
Will Leitch (BS ’98, journalism), contributing editor at New York Magazine, founder of Deadspin, MLB.com national correspondent, and author
the late Allan R. Loudell (BS ’77, radio & TV), National Association of Broadcasters Crystal Radio Award winner
Steve Osunsami (BS ’93, journalism), Emmy Award-winning senior national correspondent at ABC News
John Paul (BS ’77, radio & TV; MS ’10, journalism), retired TV broadcaster at WCIA-TV in Champaign and journalism instructor at UIUC
Rick Sallinger (BS ’71, MS ’72, advertising), Peabody Award-winning reporter at CBS4 in Denver, Colorado
Bernard Schoenburg (BS ’76, journalism), retired political journalist
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.

Photo courtesy of the Illini Media Company.

Row 1 (left to right): Bernard Schoenburg, Rick Sallinger, Susan J. Smith Cornwell, Pat Wingert Kelly, Paula Kamen

Row 2: Ralph Nozaki, Jon Hansen, Natasha Korecki, Will Leitch, John Paul, Sean Long

Row 3: Ann Dwyer, Steve Osunsami, Brad Fuhr, John J. Kim

Q&A with Patrick Vargas

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!

—Interview by Isabel Mercado, New Voices Intern