College of Media News
Media and cinema studies professor Lisa Nakamura wins book award in cultural studies
Lisa Nakamura, professor of media and cinema studies, Asian American studies, and gender and women's studies, has won the 2010 Book Award in Cultural Studies from the Association for Asian American Studies for her book "Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet" (University of Minnesota Press, 2008). She will be honored at the at the Annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting
in Austin, Texas, April 10, 2010.
Advertising professor Michelle Nelson receives grant for projects in outreach and diplomacy on Nordic region
Michelle Nelson, associate professor of advertising, and Anna Westerstahl Stenport , assistant professor of Germanic languages and literatures and media and cinema studies, are recipients of a grant through the Norden-SNU Nordic Council project, a program that sponsors public diplomacy and outreach activities about the Nordic region. The grant will be used to bring Scandinavian guest speakers to campus in 2010-2011. Nelson is hoping to host a speaker related to IKEA to talk about advertising for the Scandinavian home furnishing products brand.
Knight Chair Brant Houston served as judge in 2009 Meyer Journalism Award program
Brant Houston, Knight Chair Professor in Investigative Reporting, was one of four Knight Chair judges in the 2009 Philip Meyer Journalism Award, an honor that recognizes the best uses of social science methods in journalism. The awards will be presented on March 13 in Phoenix at the 2010 Computer-Assisted Reporting Conference. In honor of Philip Meyer, professor emeritus and former Knight Chair of Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the award is administered by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (a joint program of Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Missouri School of Journalism) and the Knight Chair in Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Award winners include:
- First Place: USA Today with "The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America's Schools." Reporters Blake Morrison and Brad Heath spearheaded a project that examined the levels of air pollution at schools across the country and identified thousands of schools where the air was far more toxic than in other nearby neighborhoods.
- Second Place: The Seattle Times with "MRSA: Culture of Resistance." Reporters Michael J. Berens and Ken Armstrong exposed a huge increase in Washington hospitals of the cases of the drug resistant germ MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphloccus aureus) - and the state inspection system that allowed it to happen.
- Third Place: The Chicago Tribune with "Compromised Care." A team that included reporters David Jackson, Gary Marx and Sam Roe, and Web applications and data management by Brian Boyer, Joe Germuska and Ryan Mark revealed failures to protect elderly patients in Illinois nursing homes that have been used increasingly to house mentally ill younger residents, including murderers and sex offenders.
- Honorable Mention: Arizona Republic with "Perfectly Legal." Robert Anglen, Ryan Konig, Andrew Long and David Fritze used social network analysis tools to examine a system in which 22 charities and dozens of affiliates moved millions of dollars among themselves while often performing little charitable work.
ICR alumni and scholars to host reunion and conference, February 12-13
The Institute of Communications Research invites alumni to attend the
2010 Alumni and Friends Reunion Conference: Communication Research: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, February 12-13, 2010, on the Urbana campus. Keynote Speaker Janet Wasko '80 PhD COMM, Knight Chair in Communications at University of Oregon, will speak on the topic "What is Film? Changes and Continuity in the 21st Century." This conference brings together alumni, faculty, friends, and current students to discuss, reflect, and celebrate ICR and its contributions to communications research. The conference will consist of short presentations, panels, and roundtable sessions. Possible topics include ICR and interdisciplinary research, current questions and trends in the field, the ICR tradition, and new directions for communication research. Register online...
Knight professor Brant Houston leads journalism ethics workshop at UW-Madison
Brant Houston, Knight Chair Professor in Investigative Reporting, teamed with the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism to stage a ground-breaking roundtable on emerging ethical issues for new investigative newsrooms January 29 in Madison, Wis. The workshop looked at the ethics of new investigative newsrooms and questions about agenda-setting, conflicts of interest, fundraising and new technologies. Stephen J. Ward, James E. Burgess Professor of Journalism Ethics and director of the Center for Journalism Ethics, and Houston led the workshop.
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Journalism professors launch Web site for CU-Citizen Access poverty project
Journalism professors Rich Martin and Brant Houston announce the launch of CU-CitizenAccess.org, a new Web site that focuses on poverty and related issues in Champaign County, Ill.
An integral part of the larger CU-Citizen Access project, the Web site offers a place for citizens, journalists, and university students to share news, raise and discuss issues, find assistance, and suggest solutions.
Backed with funding from the Marajen Stevick Foundation and the University of Illinois with a matching grant from the John S. Knight and James L. Knight Foundation, the project is intended to bring together all parts of the community to disclose and deal with the issues associated with citizens living in poverty or on low wages. The CU-Citizen Access project also is intended to create as many avenues as possible for citizens to address these issues, whether through this Web site, in-person or through email, social networks like Twitter, cell phones, photos, and news stories.
The News-Gazette is a project collaborator, along with contributions from the faculty and students from the Journalism Department in the College of Media. Mike Howie, city editor and online editor of The News-Gazette, coordinates the newspaper's participation in stories and reporting, while Journalism Department instructors and project reporters Pam Dempsey and Shelley Smithson develop stories and content for the project. Acton Gorton, a Journalism Department graduate, is the Web administrator, and the local firm, OJC Technologies, helped create the site. Visit CU-CitizenAccess.org...
Media and Cinema Studies welcomes new faculty member Assistant Professor Julie Turnock
Julie Turnock will join the Media and Cinema Studies faculty as an Assistant Professor beginning in Fall 2010. Professor Turnock is currently a Mellon Fellow in residence at the University of California, Davis. She is finishing a book entitled “Plastic Reality: Special Effects, Art and Technology in 1970s US Filmmaking.” She will teach courses on Global Cinema as well as her area of expertise. Read her Faculty Profile...
Advertising alumnus Bruce Miller '90 honored with 2010 Constituent Leadership Award by UI Alumni Association
Bruce Miller '90 MS ADV has been selected as a 2010 University of Illinois Alumni Association Constituent Leadership Award recipient, recognizing his hard work, exceptional loyalty, commitment, and service to the College of Media. This award is presented to an alumnus/a who demonstrates extraordinary leadership and/or special efforts in the organization, management, and support of a Constituent Alumni Association within the College of Media.
Miller has served on the College of Media Alumni Association since 1996 in various leadership positions, including as President of the Media Alumni Association Board, where he advanced the Board and its mission through a range of achievements. He staffed the Board by recruiting more active members that equally represented the three disciplines of the College and created new committees resulting in stronger programs and increased alumni engagement
Miller served as chairman of Advertising Career Night from 1996-2000, greatly enhancing the event through better marketing and a new format that better connects students with alumni. At the campus level, he has advised the Chancellor's Office and the UI Branding Committee on marketing and branding strategies.
Congratulations, Bruce!
Advertising young alumna brings local creatives together for Pecha Kucha Night in Champaign-Urbana
Madelin Woods '09 ADV, co-founder of the Champaign-Urbana Design Organization, is once again part of a team hosting a local Pecha Kucha Night in Champaign, on January 30. Pecha Kucha (pronounced "pe-chak-cha") is an international phenomenon that brings creatives together for an evening of quick-fire “show and tell”-type presentations, networking, and fun. The Pecha Kucha format—20 slides for 20 seconds each—allows 8-16 presenters only 6 minutes and 40 seconds to present. Woods and CUDO are excited about this second local Pecha Kucha evening. The first was held in September 2009.
"Being able to influence the entire community in a positive and inspiring way is extremely rewarding, and it's fun to meet a lot of extremely diverse and interesting people," she said. "We really just want people from the community to get involved and have fun with this event." More information...
Technology scholar Julian Dibbell joins College as Miller Visiting Professor for spring semester
Julian Dibbell joins the College of Media this month as the George A. Miller Visiting Professor for Spring 2010. His visiting professorship is sponsored by 44 units across the campus and is organized by the College of Media, including all of our academic departments. He will be teaching a special topics course this semester in Media and Cinema Studies.
Dibbell is an internationally recognized author, speaker, and technology journalist who specializes in information technology. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Le Monde (Paris), Folha de Sao Paulo (Brazil), TIME, Harper's, Rolling Stone, Details, The Independent (London), The Daily Telegraph (London), The Nation, and in many other publications. His work has been anthologized in venues such as Best American Science Writing (2002) and The Best of Technology Writing (2007, 2008, 2009). His 1993 article for the Village Voice, "A Rape in Cyberspace," is the most cited, reprinted, and assigned essay ever written on identity and the Internet. He is the author of the books My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World (1999), and Play Money: Or How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot (2006). He has published books, essays, and articles on virtual worlds, social media, online communities, hackers, bloggers, music pirates, computer viruses, encryption technologies, and the heady cultural, political, and philosophical questions that tie these and other digital-age phenomena together. He is a nonresident fellow of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. In 2004, he cofounded the game research collective Terra Nova. He is a contributing editor for Wired magazine. Read Dibbell's Faculty Profile...
UI-7, College of Media's cable television station, expands coverage area
UI-7 is now available on AT&T's new cable system, U-Verse. UI-7 can now be seen in Decatur and Springfield, in addition to Champaign and Vermilion Counties, where UI-7 can be seen on both Comcast and AT&T.
More information about UI-7...
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