communication and culture | Department of Communication

News

Racial, political cues on social media shape TV audiences’ choices

2026-03-10

Professor Stewart Coles posing in front of a word cloud

Social media users are more likely to watch TV programs that are endorsed by members of their political party, a recent study suggests. However, individuals’ racial identity and their perceptions of racial and political ingroup norms and the demographics of a program’s intended audience also...

New book edited by LLS faculty examines how the contemporary reboot craze perpetuates inequality

2026-03-04

Isabel Molina-Guzmán and Angharad N. Valdivia.

From Ghostbusters to Charmed, reboots, remakes, and revivals of TV shows and movies have flooded Hollywood over the last decade. A new collection of essays examines how the contemporary reboot craze perpetuates systemic biases around race, gender, and sexuality. Rebooting...

Graduate student research on abortion disclosure earns NCA’s top student paper award

2024-12-20

Emily Mendelson accepting the Donald P. Cushman Award

Doctoral students Emily Mendelson and Megan Jacobs Farnworth were awarded the Donald P. Cushman Memorial Award by the National Communication Association for their essay titled “Disclosure-Related Social Support and Reappraisals as a Result of Sharing Abortion Experiences with Close Others.” The...

Brilliant white male characters more believable, some viewers say in communication professor's study

2024-11-22

Mustafaj sits in front of a screen displaying films used in her study

Brilliant characters often play key roles in movies and TV shows. However, when these characters are played by women and people of color, some audience members dismiss them as unrealistic, even if they portray real people and events, a recent study found.University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign...

Afro-Latinidad in digital spaces and Hollywood reboots

2024-11-13

For most academics, sabbatical is a crucial time to focus on your research and a break from teaching duties. For administrators it’s especially essential, because their duties often leave little time to devote to their scholarship. For Isabel Molina-Guzmán, associate dean for student academic...

Blast from the past

2023-01-08

Trinity mushroom cloud in black and white

Fewer than 120,000 U.S. World War II veterans are still alive in 2023. People who lived through the war are relatively few. Why then, in an age of shortening attention spans and character limits, would a three-hour-long biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer interest the modern audience? Although...

Playing with gender roles

2023-01-08

A Ken and Barbie doll, placed in front of a pink background

Compared to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the head of a scientific revolution that ended the Second World War and caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, a toy might seem to be an inconsequential figure in history. However, such is Barbie’s influence that professor Grace Giorgio uses the...

Barbenheimer: The Internet sensation that stole headlines and made its way into the classroom

2023-01-08

A pink-toned image of the word Barbie in a stylized font behind a pink mushroom cloud explosion

Barbenheimer, the portmanteau for Barbie: The Movie and Oppenheimer, captured headlines this summer. But how did two films that were seemingly polar opposites get grouped into a suggested double-header and become so inextricably linked? At face value, the only thing they share is a premiere date:...