faculty

Is beauty about looks—or views?

Joe Arney — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 15:06:15 +0000

Is beauty about looks—or views? Joe Arney Wed, 08/05/2026 - 09:06

The Asian baby girl trend—social media videos in which young Asian American women transform themselves with makeup, hair treatments, glasses, temporary tattoos and more—is all over social media. Researcher Seonah Kim says the trend tells us a lot about commodification and shifting dynamics of cultural representation online. Clockwise from top left, photos courtesy @maiphammy, @MishChoi, @stephaniewose, @RoxetteArisa, @ohnonina and @Lolwutjan via YouTube.

Joe Arney

Let’s get your first question out of the way: Seonah Kim is not interested in makeup.

“I’m like a film scholar who likes studying cinema more than watching movies,” Kim said. “I’m not into beauty, but I enjoy studying it—specifically, how Asian women’s bodies are racialized and gendered in media through beauty.”

Asian culture is enjoying a moment on screens and in streams across the United States, from Squid Game and Beef to K-pop. But most of Kim’s research looks at so-called “Asian baby girl” videos on YouTube, in which young Asian Americans dramatically transform their appearance with makeup, temporary tattoos, hair treatments and more.

Kim, an assistant teaching professor of media studies at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, began studying the Asian baby girl phenomenon as a part of a book project. But the real origin story of this research comes from interviews she did with South Korean women who darkened their skin as part of their beauty regime. Kim sought to understand why they did so when many of their contemporaries focused on making their skin lighter.

“They would tell me, ‘I know I cannot be Caucasian, but this is a way to experiment with a kind of American identity,’” Kim said.

Seonah Kim

She was especially interested in South Korean women who darkened their skin as part of their beauty regime.

In her extensive interviews with Korean women who darken their skin, Kim found a rebellious streak—people challenging the “model minority” stereotype and looking to stand out from the crowd. Many told Kim they chose to darken themselves to resist the narrative of people who want to be lighter.

That helped lead her to Asian Americans performing the Asian baby girl identity. In those videos, she saw influencers adopting a rebellious streak of Asian Americans from a generation ago, who challenged the “model minority” stereotype to stand out from the crowd.

Shifting dynamics on social

Now, with digital and social media, these transformations are a powerful source for attention. Just look at the virality of Asian baby girl videos, as Kim does.

“On social media, we see the commodification of an aesthetic that has a lot of historical context,” Kim said. “This idea of beauty was created by a few Asian American women who wanted to challenge deep-seated stereotypes in the United States. When the Asian baby girl becomes ahistorical, visually appealing and easily consumable, it tells us quite a bit about the shifting dynamics of cultural representation and the self-commodification of Asian American identity in digital media.”

The result of ABG videos—and heightened Asian visibility in current media—is a positive sign to Kim, though it’s not without its drawbacks.

“We’re seeing different types of Asian Americans—they’re outspoken, funny, angry, entertaining. But at the same time, we risk trading one set of tropes for another.”

Seonah Kim, assistant teaching professor

“We’re seeing different types of Asian Americans—they’re outspoken, funny, angry, entertaining,” she said. “But at the same time, we risk trading one set of tropes for another. I’m not saying whether it’s good or bad, just that we need to be more critical of the media we see and the story it’s telling.”

In a recent paper in Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, Kim explored how YouTube’s attention economy has commodified Asian femininity. Though Asian Americans of a generation ago used beauty as a way to express independence and establish a counterculture, creators on social media don’t have that same influence over Western media.

“TikTok and Instagram reward content that’s visually entertaining and sexualized,” she said, “and unfortunately, I don’t see the digital space encouraging those types of discourses.”

It’s a topic she gets to explore in some depth in her classes, as well. Kim teaches an introductory social media course, as well as classes in media literacy and digital culture, where students can observe the impact of the attention economy on culture. The questions she gets there, Kim said, tend to focus on the media panic being generated around digital platforms and artificial intelligence.

“They really want to understand how social media works, to better evaluate that panic narrative,” she said. “They want to be better consumers of media.”

Her focus on commodification in ABG videos can be read as negative, but Kim said she appreciates the Asian American creators trying to carve out their own cultural niche in the digital media landscape, and who are producing different narratives about representation.

It’s a consideration she’s keeping in mind as she continues to study themes around representational inequality in transnational contexts. She’s especially keen on the idea of how the performance of ABG can challenge what it means to be seen as American. In fact, Kim is now at work on a book project incorporating her work on skin darkening among Korean women and the ways these women embrace and perform “Americanness” through the Asian baby girl phenomenon—along with how those practices challenge racial constructs in Asian contexts.

“Until now, from an Asian standpoint, Americanness is closely tied to the representation of whiteness,” she said. “Could that be replaced with a more Asian American representation—and what are the risks in doing so?”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Asian Americans of a decade ago used beauty to establish a counterculture. A research expert says today's Asian baby girl trend doesn't possess the same influence.

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Coming to Mimesis: A different kind of box-office bomb

Jayden Fortner — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:39:01 +0000

Coming to Mimesis: A different kind of box-office bomb Jayden Fortner Tue, 08/04/2026 - 06:39

Jayden Fortner

In past years, visitors to the annual Mimesis Documentary Festival have had opportunities to appreciate the beauty of the nearby mountains when they arrive in Boulder.

But this year, the films they will watch will challenge the audience to imagine those mountains as potential sites for nuclear waste storage.

If you go:

What: Mimesis Documentary Festival

When: August 11 through 16

Where: Locations around Boulder

Who: Free tickets are available to �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder students for both in-person and virtual screenings. There are various types of passes for the public, starting with festival passes ($80), virtual passes ($30), 10-ticket passes ($50) and five-ticket passes ($30).

Visit mimesisfestival.org for tickets, locations, schedule and more.

As Mimesis returns to Boulder for its seventh year in a row, it will call to mind the atomic age right from the start with Casey Carter's first feature film, To Use a Mountain, which took him nearly seven years to complete.

"It's about six different sites across the country that were all candidates for a deep geologic repository for nuclear waste," Carter said.

Carter's inspiration came from Department of Energy reports on possible nuclear waste depository sites. To Use A Mountain aims to bring awareness to the longer-term impacts of nuclear waste on communities. It also shows the hidden connection between these communities through shared challenges and experiences.

What intrigued Carter was that many of the DOE reports overlooked the most important factor about the site locations.

“There were no human stories," Carter said. "That became the seed for the film."

On closing night, meanwhile, Mimesis will premiere Off Country, ending the festival with a long-awaited examination of the American West’s nuclear landscape by Taylor Dunne and Eric Stewart.

Eric Coombs Esmail, the faculty director of the Center for Documentary Media at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder's College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, said the festival’s focus on the atomic West emerged from a common theme in many submissions to this year’s event.

For the 2026 festival, Coombs Esmail said, Mimesis received more than 300 submissions, selecting about 50 for its showcase.

“We're becoming a selective festival," he said.

Mimesis showcases a full week of screenings, including Carter's film and many other talented filmmakers, along with community networking opportunities and artist workshops. This year, an audio hike at Rocky Flats—a former nuclear weapons manufacturing site outside Arvada—is part of the agenda, as well.

Dana Cavalina, a Ukrainian illustrator, animator and filmmaker, is the festival's artist of focus. Her work, which is renowned for its intense emotions, will be portrayed through a series of shorts using collage and stop-motion methods.

"She's doing a workshop on animation in documentary, how to use animation as a way of historical necromancy, bringing history back from the dead and reanimating it," Coombs Esmail said. "I think it will take people for quite a ride."

Mimesis isn't, of course, the only film festival in town—Sundance will formally arrive in January. Coombs Esmail said this event is notable because it has long offered direct connections between viewers and creators that benefit both people who attend and the artists showcasing their work.

"Everyone around you is a maker," he said, "Anyone you meet at Mimesis may become someone who makes or breaks your career."

It’s a sentiment Carter echoed.

"Building relationships with your peers who are interested in the same things that you're interested in—that's a huge part of being a filmmaker, being an artist," he said. "It's important to be part of a community and surround yourself with other people who are producing art that inspires you.”

Jayden Fortner is pursuing degrees in journalism and strategic communication at CMDI. She covers students and student news at the college.

The annual film festival will put a spotlight on the atomic age and its impact on the American West.

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Jail blazers: How reporters’ tenacity is changing laws around pregnancy behind bars

Ellie Chase — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 16:54:05 +0000

Jail blazers: How reporters’ tenacity is changing laws around pregnancy behind bars Ellie Chase Wed, 04/29/2026 - 10:54

Ellie Chase

When Mackenzie Mays stumbled across a lawsuit about a woman forced to give birth in jail, she had no idea the systemic failure and tragedy she was about to uncover.

In a yearlong investigation, Mays, a Bloomberg Law reporter, and NBC News journalist Jon Schuppe uncovered 54 lawsuits from women and their families alleging severe mistreatment or medical neglect in jails.

The response to their story was swift: Officials at the federal and state level—including lawmakers in eight states—have proposed laws or pledged legislation to prevent more cases of neglect and mistreatment.

“This is part of a system that does not work for women who are pregnant in jail, even though there are court rulings and standards of care that should be preventing it from happening,” Schuppe said.

Mackenzie Mays, left, and Jon Schuppe, right. Photos provided by Mays and Schuppe.

Mays and Schuppe’s in-depth research and tenacious investigative reporting was recognized this spring with the Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting, awarded by the journalism department of �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s College of Communication, Media, Design and Information and the Denver Press Club.

Luige del Puerto, editor of the Denver Gazette and this year’s guest judge, said the reporters made clear that no one should give birth in jail, without ignoring the choices that put these women behind bars.

“The women in this story are not portrayed as angels. They had problems—drugs, DUI or, in the case of Chasity Congious, a schizoaffective disorder along with developmental disabilities,” del Puerto said. “Whether she belonged in jail is the wrong question. For their sins, their babies paid the price.”

The babies survived in only 21 of the 54 cases examined by the reporters, and two mothers died. Most of the women had been arrested on low-level, nonviolent charges, and told the reporters their medical concerns were dismissed by correctional workers in emergency healthcare situations.

Reliving ‘the worst days of their lives’

The Nakkula judges were impressed by the reporters’ determination to ensure the women behind every case were able to tell their stories.

“We were asking them to relive the worst day of their lives,” Mays said. “It was very important to us to make sure we told every single woman’s story.”

Building that kind of trust took time: Mays accompanied one woman as she went through her daily routine, attending nail appointments and family meals. Schuppe sent handwritten letters to contact a woman who, in recovered body camera footage, writhed on the floor of a jail cell as her cries for help were ignored.

“I was so impressed with the resilience of women and mothers. The survival instincts of some of these women is incredible,” Mays said. “People chewed through umbilical cords. People found ways to survive and do CPR on their babies that were born into toilets.

“That’s what really stuck with me at the end of it—not only did they try to survive, they believed in that fight enough to sue, and then relive it to share it with us.”

As part of their reporting, Mays and Schuppe created a public database so readers and policymakers could learn more about each woman’s story and identify cases that happened in their own states.

The story was published in late November, but already there are signs of its potential impact. Lawmakers from California to Louisiana are exploring policies designed to protect mothers and infants, such as keeping pregnant women accused of nonviolent offenses out of jail during pretrial proceedings.

In 2023, Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove introduced the Pregnant Women in Custody Act in Congress. Mays and Schuppe said she plans to bring a new version of the bill to the floor following their story; the measure would require federal data collection on pregnancies in jails and teaching corrections staff about the risks faced by pregnant detainees.

“There are very few concrete aspects of impact that you can point to that are more important than having a law changed. It’s very rewarding to have that kind of work being done because of the journalism we do.”
Jon Schuppe, NBC News

Schuppe said the chance to see that impact, after a year spent chasing the story, has been gratifying.

“There are very few concrete aspects of impact that you can point to that are more important than having a law changed,” he said. “It’s very rewarding to have that kind of work being done because of the journalism we do.”

Their passion for change, and tenacious reporting, reflected the legacy of late Rocky Mountain News reporter Al Nakkula, whose legendary police reporting is honored through the award.

“He was a real dogged reporter, and so in the tradition of Al Nakkula, we really try to honor newsrooms or projects that are in his spirit—doing reporting that takes a lot of work,” said contest judge Chuck Plunkett, assistant teaching professor of journalism and director of �鶹��Ѱ��News Corps, the capstone journalism program at CMDI.

“We want to see really great journalism that has the potential to change things. We really value impact.”

That emphasis on impact can also be seen in this year’s runner up, which went to Richard Webster, of Verite News, in collaboration with ProPublica. Webster’s reporting helped nullify a first-degree murder conviction for a man accused of raping, biting and drowning a child; he had been found guilty nearly three decades ago based on expert testimony that was dismissed as junk science.

Each year, Nakkula contest judges look for stories that meet the highest journalistic standards, help readers understand complex issues and solutions, show a commitment to community, and bring about societal change. The award has been presented annually since 1991.

Ellie Chase is studying journalism at CMDI, with a minor in business. She covers students and student news at the college.

Following a yearlong investigation into healthcare for pregnant women in prison, reporting by Mackenzie Mays and Jon Schuppe is drawing attention from lawmakers—and judges for the Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting.

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Throwing shade

Joe Arney — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:05:36 +0000

Throwing shade Joe Arney Tue, 04/14/2026 - 10:05

Joe Arney

When you’re thinking about urban infrastructure, the first things that come to mind are probably related to transportation, utilities, communications and public services.

Shade is probably not on that list. But if you’re a mile closer to the sun, as Denver is, it should be, according to an expert in environmental health and urban greenness.

“As the climate changes, many cities have increased their focus on studying sun exposure,” said Sara Tabatabaie, an assistant teaching professor of environmental design. “But they’re doing so mainly from a heat mitigation standpoint, and not necessarily for skin cancer prevention.”

Earlier this year, Tabatabaie received a third grant to continue studying how Denver, and other cities, can engage in sun safety planning and shade design to make the outdoors a less hazardous place for your skin. Worldwide, skin cancer is the most common form of cancer; in Colorado, it is a rising problem, per the National Cancer Institute.

Creating novel guidelines

It’s such a novel consideration for designers and public health officials that Tabatabaie’s work really had to start at the beginning. In the early phases of this project—a partnership between the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Community Engagement, Design and Research Center—she developed an intensive methodology to assess ultraviolet exposure in different urban environments, or typologies. From there, she proposed design guidelines—customized for different public space typologies—to help neighborhoods hit appropriate sun safety thresholds.

“This work incorporates lived experiences of shade and place into real design guidelines,” she said. To do so effectively, she and student researchers from CEDaR completed extensive surveys—audits, observation, environmental modeling and parametric simulation—to establish design guidelines that could improve UV safety for each typology as the sun moves through the sky during the day.

Sara Tabatabaie’s research looks at sun mitigation from the standpoint of UV protection. Other research has mostly focused on heat prevention. Photo by Nathan Thompson.

Project visualizations illustrate the placement of shade structures related to play areas. This one shows shade at Scott Carpenter Park, in Boulder, in the afternoon.

The current phase of the project is translating her evidence-based findings into actionable strategies that can guide policy and transform neighborhoods for sun safety. Tabatabaie hopes that, through this work, CDPHE can craft stronger urban forestry initiatives, improve streetscape requirements and invest in neighborhoods that lack sun protection.

“In this next phase, I’ll be investigating the institutional and political pathways for shade interventions, so we understand how to integrate these findings into urban policies, regulatory codes and planning frameworks,” she said.

She also plans to perform a cost-benefit analysis of shade.

“We want to be able to share the cost of implementing shade against the health benefits that shade offers to residents,” she said. “We know cost will be an important consideration for helping people understand the value of introducing shade into these typologies.”

Jota Samper

In the first phase of the project, the team—Tabatabaie; Jota Samper, associate professor and co-director of CEDaR; and a team of environmental design students—surveyed six different neighborhoods throughout the city to assess shade and sun risk. The orientation of streets, walkability and sidewalk types were shown to directly affect the sun risk index; the survey also revealed neighborhoods with a higher percentage of children provided limited shade—problematic, as children are more susceptible to sun damage than adults.

“What I found fascinating about Sara is that she took tools that are used in other fields”—like Rhino, a versatile 3D modeling tool, and related applications like Grasshopper and Ladybug—“and applied them to her interest in research,” Samper said. “It was amazing to see how she implemented them not just to measure sun exposure, but to show how different modalities of design could have different impacts, and help us visualize and understand that in a more complex way.”

The work may seem simple on its face, but there are a number of quirks that become apparent the more you look at shade. Cover from trees, for instance, is variable on windy days and mostly disappears in the winter. Meanwhile, surfaces designed to reflect sunlight, and protect from heat, may reflect those UV rays back at people.

“Until now, shade thresholds have not been consistently defined across all typologies, which has made it more difficult to design sun-safe places,” Tabatabaie said.

“Community engagement, and using people’s lived experience, is so important in the design process. Because if people don’t believe in the design, they won’t use it.”

Sara Tabatabaie, assistant teaching professor, environmental design

All this is happening against the backdrop of cities embracing the outdoors and encouraging residents to spend time outside by investing in parks, multiuse trails and micromobility options. But based on average UV levels in Denver, more than 20 minutes of direct sun exposure is not recommended, especially for fair-skinned people.

Balancing more time outdoors with more awareness of sun risk is something Tabatabaie takes seriously in her work.

“Community engagement, and using people’s lived experience, is so important in the design process. Because if people don’t believe in the design, they won’t use it,” she said. “We can’t just design something that looks great. We have to observe how people behave and interact with a design to ensure we’re creating something people want to use.”

Student research impact

That’s a lesson she imparted to the students working alongside her on the project. Gabby Rodriguez, a senior majoring in landscape architecture, studied urban trail systems to help guide recommendations for that typology.

“Looking at the climate we live in today demonstrates that smart landscape architecture projects are more needed than ever—especially at a time when everything is changing so rapidly,” said Rodriguez, who hopes to do more public-oriented projects after graduating this spring. “But the challenging part is definitely putting the scientific processes and methodologies into terms that the general public can understand, so you can convey that importance to people.”

The work is especially important to Rodriguez, who—like many native Coloradans—never turns down an opportunity to be outdoors.

“It’s exciting to see a project like this come to the surface,” she said. “I loved the opportunity to work with Sara, who is one of the most intelligent people I’ve known and is focused on cultivating a good space to bring design solutions for important problems to light.”

Tabatabaie’s gift for encouraging her students to become passionate about these issues speaks to her teaching ability, Samper said.

“The rigor Sara brings to her research really rubs off on her students,” he said. “The students understood the stakes were high, that this was a real client with a serious issue, and that their research was really going to impact policy in Colorado. That elevated the whole output of the students, which was really wonderful.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

More cities are studying ways to mitigate heat from intensely sunny days. One expert is more focused on the dangers posed by UV exposure.

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An education in empathy

Joe Arney — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 07:00:00 +0000

An education in empathy Joe Arney Tue, 03/24/2026 - 01:00

Ross Taylor, left, runs an on-camera interview as part of his latest documentary project, A Refuge of Scouting. The film, which has been screened around the country and will be on PBS in the fall, draws on the strong sense of empathy Taylor, an associate professor of journalism, brings to his work and his classes. Photo by Pat Clark.

Joe Arney

By his own admission, Ross Taylor was not a very successful Boy Scout, having never advanced beyond second class.

“I went on one camping trip, and it rained a lot and I didn’t like that the weather was bad,” said Taylor, now an associate professor of journalism at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s College of Communication, Media, Design and Information. “So, I went home and complained to my parents and asked if I could stop.”

His own time with the Scouts may have been short lived, but he’s returned to the organization—not to tie knots or pitch a tent, but to tell the story of an all-refugee troop in Aurora.

“This film is about reframing how we see American identity through a traditional lens,” Taylor said. “Scouting brings with it a lot of traditional norms and preconceived ideas of identity in America. And this troop works within a lot of that framework, but helps expand our understanding of what it means to be an American.”

A Refuge of Scouting was accepted to, among others, the Maryland International Film Festival, which takes place this month, and, like Taylor’s other documentary work, will be shared via Public Broadcasting Service beginning in the fall.

The film, which Taylor co-directed with fellow CMDI professor Pat Clark, is a continuation of work he did with P.J. Parmar, a medical doctor who owns and operates Mango House, a shared space for refugees in the western United States. The property is run for, and by, refugees, and was the subject of Taylor’s 2021 documentary, Mango House.

“Parmar was a Boy Scout himself, and he often said scouting was a safe space from facing racism, and he wanted that experience for refugees,” Taylor said.

Building trust within refugee communities

“To engage in these spaces requires me to be a better person, a more empathetic person.”

Ross Taylor, assistant professor, journalism

Doing this kind of work, and immersing yourself in a community of refugees—especially children who have fled significant trauma—requires a special kind of personality. It’s an approach to work—and life—that Taylor brings to his projects and his classes from his nearly 20-year career as a photojournalist.

“Building trust within the populations I work with requires a high level of empathy—I’m working in spheres that involve traumatic events, or the aftereffects of trauma,” Taylor said. “To engage in these spaces requires me to be a better person, a more empathetic person.”

It’s a lesson he learned the hard way. As a photographer, Taylor was once scolded by a mother for taking a photo of a crying boy after striking out during a youth baseball game. He credits that experience with teaching him to bring a more empathetic perspective to what he’s capturing.

And in class, that means showing students they can be empathetic, but also confident in using their voices to tell important stories. It shows up even in the simplest acts, like opening classes by asking students to share something good in their lives.

“It really warms up a classroom environment, and it sets an example of how I conduct myself in the work that I do,” Taylor said. “I want them to see empathy in action and think about what it means for them when they become professionals and leaders.”

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Chancellor Justin Schwartz, right, recognized Ross Taylor with an End Zone Innovators Award at a Buffs home game in the fall. Photo by Vivenne Malone.

Ross Taylor credits his sense of empathy with helping him build trust among the people whose stories he tells in his work, including his most recent documentary about a Boy Scout troop made up of refugees.

In A Refuge of Scouting, Taylor shows how the values of scouting look through the eyes of young refugees from around the world. Early work on the film began before Donald Trump returned to the White House, but it’s hard not to see this project as a rebuke of the othering that the federal government has engaged in, from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, to sealed borders, to deportations and mass incarceration.

“We are all much more alike than we are different,” Taylor said. “When you spend time with a young kid who’s a refugee from another country, you begin to quickly realize, they’re a kid just like any other kid you would know.

“Working within the refugee community has given me a lot more respect, care and admiration for the people I’ve met and the contributions they make to our culture. My hope for this film is to help more people have the same experience I’ve had, so that we have more compassion for each other.”

Clark, an award-winning filmmaker and assistant professor of critical media practices, joined the college at the same time as Taylor, and they’ve taught and collaborated before—but said seeing up close the sense of empathy and connection his colleague brings to his projects was inspiring.

A model for authenticity

“Ross, the journalist, is able to unpack all these threads and find the people who help tell the story,” Clark said. “But it’s his personality that makes him so good at what he does. I talk about it in my classes a lot—the more you spend time with the folks you’re working with on the film, the more authentic they will be on camera. And that’s who Ross is. He gets people comfortable, he brings them in close and he makes everybody feel good about him being there. That’s how you really tell the story.”

For his part, Taylor said he appreciated Clark’s immense technical knowledge. It’s part of what makes CMDI special—the encouragement of authentic collaboration between separate, but related, disciplines to create meaningful impact.

“We are stronger as a unit than as individuals, because some projects require a substantial amount of expertise that crosses departments,” Taylor said. “This is definitely an example of that.”

Taylor is already thinking about his next documentary project, though his immediate plans are more centered on photography projects. He remains in awe of the medium’s power to make the world a better place; A Refuge of Scouting is his third documentary.

“Documentary—and, by extension, journalism—is a wonderful way to see a shared experience,” he said. “And it can help break down the preconceived notions we have about each other, and help us care for one another as we navigate the very real and challenging daily life we all experience.”

Ross Taylor and Pat Clark are no stranger to classroom collaboration, but A Refuge of Scouting is their first documentary together. Here, Taylor, left, and Clark are kneeling in the front row, off to the right, with the scouts in a theater.

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

A hard lesson from his days as a journalist has helped a CMDI professor tell moving stories through documentary.

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Prompt response

Joe Arney — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 15:24:09 +0000

Prompt response Joe Arney Tue, 03/10/2026 - 09:24

Courtesy Anthropic

Joe Arney

Pooja Iyer laughed when she saw the Anthropic Super Bowl ad about a skinny guy looking for tips to get stronger. When he asks his trainer—a chatbot—for help getting swole, he also gets sold an ad for shoe inserts.

Courtesy Anthropic

“Ads are coming to A.I.” the onscreen overlay reads. “But not to Claude.”

“I was one of the early adopters to ChatGPT, because I like to experiment with new technology,” said Iyer, an assistant professor of advertising at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information. “And I remember immediately thinking this was search on steroids—so, personalized ads on steroids.”

Iyer said advertising on generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT was “inevitable,” especially if you consider how services like Google and Facebook monetized personal data to enable targeted advertising as core components of their products. And a chatbot that claims it will never rely on advertising should probably encourage its marketing and accounting departments to talk.

“There’s the cost of building and training a large language model, building data centers, hiring advertising and software teams—all that money has to come from somewhere,” she said. “Subscriptions, which are already higher than most streaming services, only get you so far. Newspapers ran because they were supported by advertising. If it was just subscriber money, newspapers would be long dead.”

Practical and academic expertise

Iyer studies advertising from the standpoint of data and technology, especially the consequences to consumers, who must surrender their data and privacy to use popular platforms. Her perspective is rooted in the pragmatic, as Iyer worked as an associate media director before earning her PhD in advertising from the University of Texas at Austin.

Pooja Iyer

A major problem she’s trying to solve is a lack of clarity on what data consumers are comfortable sharing with advertisers. It’s important to get that right, because while consumers generally are supportive of targeted digital advertising—studies consistently find about three in four consumers prefer ads tailored to their interests—there are plenty of cases where companies went too far. For instance, the pro-life Veritas Society used cellphone location data to serve anti-abortion ads to women who visited Planned Parenthood clinics.

“We are really lacking in research in that area of what people want, or will tolerate,” Iyer said. “We have asked questions to help understand how much and to what extent people are willing to share, but a lot depends on who you are. If I am in a vulnerable part of the country, or an immigrant, or of a certain gender or race, my level of comfort sharing data is very different than how you may share your data.”

Those consequences, right now, are not part of the digital advertising playbook. The entry of A.I. into this space—OpenAI has already started serving ads to ChatGPT users—adds urgency to bring a more ethical approach to how companies serve up ads in the future.

Privacy in class

And it’s even more interesting in the context of Iyer’s classes, which often visit topics around digital advertising, ethical data use and A.I.

“I’ll say something like, ‘I can target the people in this room, if I want to,’ and while plenty of them are taken aback, a lot just shrug,” Iyer said. “Privacy is only a concern if you know that you had privacy once. But if you were born in a world where that didn’t exist, you may not care.”

Part of what concerns her about ChatGPT and advertising is how quickly the platform has been adopted. From its public launch in November 2022, it has grown to 900 million active weekly users. No other technology has been adopted so quickly, or broadly, so there’s some uncertainty as to what advertising on the platform will look like.

“How do we build this balance of being ethical and mindful about using consumer data? That’s the question the industry needs to answer.”

Pooja Iyer, assistant professor, APRD

“I think Chat will take all your data, synthesize it and show you ads that may not be related to your query,” Iyer said. “You might ask it to help you become fit, and instead of a sneaker ad, you get something based on other life issues or queries you’ve put in.

“Chat says you’ll get mindful, context-aware ads, but I don’t know what that means. If I’m using Chat as my therapist, will I see ads aimed at uplifting me in some way? Or will it tell me to go shopping, and try retail therapy?”

It’s too early to share findings on her research, but Iyer hopes her work helps companies advertise in ways that are informative without being intrusive.

“Like A.I., advertising is here to stay. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” she said. “But how do we build this balance of being ethical and mindful about using consumer data? That’s the question the industry needs to answer.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

How will advertisers operate on ChatGPT and other A.I. platforms? A CMDI expert is exploring the limits of data use in targeting customers.

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If you generate it…

Joe Arney — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 15:15:01 +0000

If you generate it… Joe Arney Mon, 03/09/2026 - 09:15

Joe Arney

Photos by Patrick Campbell, Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StComm’18), Nathan Thompson (Jour’24)

When Averie Dow tells the parents of prospective �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder students that she’s studying information science, one of the first questions she typically gets is around generative artificial intelligence.

“How A.I. is used in the classroom is their biggest concern, because they don’t want to send their kids here to just have them use A.I. for everything,” said Dow, a senior and university tour guide. “They tend to be grateful when I tell them our faculty acknowledge A.I., and that they have policies around when and how to use it. Because you can’t let it do your work for you, but you also can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, or you’ll graduate into a workplace where you’re the only one who can’t use it.”

“The way we learn about (A.I.) helps makes it a smaller problem. I’m seeing the advantages that comes from using it responsibly and ethically.”

Averie Dow

Finding that balance has been especially important to a discipline like information science, which incorporates ideas from computer science, social science and the humanities to reimagine how technology can unlock possibilities and better work for people.

A.I. is nothing new to faculty in the information science department of the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, but the proliferation of tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude—and the scramble by businesses to search for cost-saving innovations—have meant constant curricular course corrections to keep pace with shifts in the market: In February, the University of Colorado system announced a $2 million licensing deal with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to all students, staff and faculty.

But rather than focusing on particular tools, CMDI faculty teach students to think critically about the problem they’re trying to solve, as well as the benefits and limitations of the tools at their disposal.

Robin Burke

“Not every problem needs the biggest hammer,” said Robin Burke, a professor who studies recommender systems and teaches an undergraduate course on applied machine learning.

In that course, “we do talk about deep learning technologies, but we spend a lot of time on other machine learning techniques, because it’s important to know that range of possibilities,” he said. “You only get that if you understand what’s going on under the hood.”

Students who are technically oriented said they appreciate the real-world use cases where they can see what using A.I. looks like at work. Kaeden Stander is pursuing a master’s in information science to go with the bachelor’s degree he’s on track to earn in December. Thinking about how to use A.I. tools in the college’s Digital Legacy Clinic has helped him with his entrepreneurial aspirations; he’s the founder of PublishPoint, a content generation platform for WordPress sites.

‘A.I. is in every aspect of the workplace now’

“You input your information and the A.I. learns from your brand,” Stander said. “Then it’s able to make recommendations, generate blogs, social media captions, podcasts and even help create detailed data visualizations.”

His real-world experience using A.I. has helped him appreciate how to use it in class. In courses he takes for his philosophy minor, Stander said, no A.I. use is permitted, “so I don’t use it, but it’s not realistic—A.I. is in every aspect of the workplace now.”

“Why gatekeep something and put people behind when they should be ahead coming out of college? It’s something the information science program does well.”

Professor Jed Brubaker, center, of the Digital Legacy Clinic, which challenges students to help members of the community make plans for their digital estates. Photo by Patrick Campbell.

Burke’s research on recommender systems aims to enhance the fairness of algorithms by removing the biases that systems may inherit, whether from engineers’ design decisions or from the data used to train them. Right now, he’s interested in how to give users more control over what content or products the algorithm serves up.

You might expect him to be an A.I. evangelist, but Burke is more measured about the likely impact these tools will have.

“The hype is absurd,” he said. “I want students to focus on the proven capabilities of these technologies, as opposed to the claims people make about them.”

In fact, the critical perspective information science faculty bring to A.I. is one of the reasons students appreciate the degree. Dow, a self-described theater kid and art lover, said she came to college “as an A.I. hater, almost”; when she was given an assignment to use ChatGPT as part of an assignment, she was the only person in her class who hadn’t used it before.

“A.I. honestly scares me a little bit, when you think about it as this huge behemoth,” Dow said. “But the way we learn about it—here’s this tool, here’s what it can do, what do we think is wrong with it, what does it do poorly—helps make it a smaller problem. I’m seeing the advantages that come from using it responsibly and ethically.”

The ethical challenges A.I. poses are an important dimension for faculty, as well. That’s especially true at a college like CMDI, which prepares professionals for success in journalism, advertising, design and other creative fields. Because large language models have been trained on reams of copyrighted creative work, there is understandable hesitancy to adopt these tools.

Casey Fiesler

It’s why Casey Fiesler, the William R. Payden endowed professor in information science, leaves room for the “conscientious objectors” in her teaching; her public scholarship—which includes TikTok videos and standup comedy, as well as traditional thought leadership—is deeply concerned with the ethical dimensions of these tools.

She’s piloting a course this spring, A.I. and Society, that challenges students to examine broader societal implications around jobs, creativity, education and environmental impact as they relate to A.I.

“I don’t want students to not take this class because they have an ethical objection to using A.I.,” Fiesler said. “I wanted to create space for students who are really excited about A.I., and should think critically about it, and for those who need to learn how it works even if they’re critical of it.”

A counter to moving fast, breaking things

Chris Carruth approaches such challenges and perspectives from his artwork, which he calls “a slow, contemplative resistance” where he uses technology to “interrupt, interrogate and agitate conventional, normalized systems.”

That work, he said, is intended to run counter to the tech industry’s mantra of moving fast and breaking things.

“I get where Mark Zuckerberg was coming from when he said that, but that attitude incurs an ethical debt, which is what we’re trying to avoid,” said Carruth, an assistant teaching professor.

Rather than lecture at his students, Carruth challenges them to learn about topics like automation, policing and surveillance, and digital labor, and bring researched ideas to class for open discussion and debate. In doing so, he hopes to cultivate a sense of empathy among his charges.

“Ethics in computer science and computer science education should not be a feature. It should be the foundation.”

Chris Carruth, assistant teaching professor, information science

“I’m not saying we need to hit some big red stop button—and you’d probably get fired if you’re at work and pushing not to use A.I. at all,” he said. “To understand how this might actually work in your career, you need to bring a voice not of dissent, but of empathy, of nuance. So, be able to say, let’s not stop, but let’s pause, let’s think about impact before we roll these things out.

“Ethics in computer science and computer science education should not be a feature,” he said. “It should be the foundation.”

For Bryan Semaan, associate professor and chair of the information science department, the need for ethics in this space is expressed through the critical perspectives he studies in his research, which focuses on the interplay of race, media and technology. The Center for Race, Media and Technology that he manages has welcomed speakers like Ruha Benjamin, of Princeton University, and Timnit Gebru, formerly of Google, to encourage more critical thinking around the development of large language models and A.I.

Bringing their own identity, thinking

Bryan Semaan

In his class on race and technology, Semaan asks his students to write an essay reflecting on the benefits and harms of particular technologies. But before they start writing, they feed that prompt into ChatGPT.

“It’s a chance to think critically about what the A.I. returns to them,” he said. “What it’s written tends to not reflect the experiences my students have had. So, it becomes a way for them to see that it’s just giving them something, but they need to make sure their identity and thinking are infused in it.”

Something that makes information science at CMDI unique, he said, is that instead of rolling out countless new courses—which could quickly become dated by the speed of change in A.I.—the department has sought to integrate these tools into each course it offers.

“You won’t see A.I. in every course name, but we bring A.I. to every conversation we’re having, whether that’s data visualization, user-centered design or machine learning,” Semaan said.

As the technology becomes more integrated into students’ lives, those conversations are going deeper and deeper into their coursework.

“When I taught information ethics and policy at the graduate level, we started with a week on A.I. Then it was two weeks on A.I.,” she said. “Now, there’s no weeks on A.I., because it’s everywhere in that class and every other one. In almost everything we teach, A.I. is relevant to the topic.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

By integrating generative A.I. into each course, the information science department is attracting students who want to be challenged to use A.I. effectively—and ethically.

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Get politics out of sports? It’s in the game

Joe Arney — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 16:12:32 +0000

Get politics out of sports? It’s in the game Joe Arney Tue, 03/03/2026 - 09:12

Joe Arney

Professional sports have always attracted a certain kind of fan for whom the game is an escape from politics and the news of the day.

That fan probably did not have a great Olympics.

If you go

What: CMDI Sports Media Summit

When: Thursday, March 5, through Friday, March 6, Touchdown Club, Folsom Field.

Who: Alumni and industry professionals in sports media share perspectives on the changing industry landscape. Scheduled speakers include the X Games CEO, an executive vice president of Bleacher Report and an executive vice president at Fox Sports. Full lineup →

Why: An under-the-hood look at topics such as NIL, A.I., streaming and career success. Plus, unbeatable networking opportunities.

Whether it was Kash Patel and Donald Trump inserting themselves into the aftermath of Jack Hughes’ golden goal for the U.S. men’s hockey team, or Ukrainian skeleton pilot Vladyslav Heraskevych being disqualified for a helmet paying tribute to fellow athletes killed during his country’s invasion by Russia, politics was like an icy layer just beneath the snow at the Milan Cortina Games.

“I think people are paying attention to it more because of the contemporary American political moment, but politics has always been an element of sport,” said Ever Figueroa, an assistant professor of journalism at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information. “And the Olympics, in particular, have always been a platform for that.”

Figueroa studies how race and gender matter within social and cultural systems, especially the political undertone running through sports. He mentioned 1968, which featured the Black Power salute from Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and the 1980 Miracle on Ice as Olympic moments with strong political subtext that made the events memorable and interesting.

“All forms of art are more interesting when they have something to say,” Figueroa said. “Sports are able to communicate cultural values and reflect back on people. And a lot of people care more about the storylines within sports than maybe the actual competition.

‘Kind of boring’

“It’s kind of boring to want to separate sports and politics. It’s far more interesting when they’re together, and we can unpack all the nuances we see.”

That’s a perspective that comes up with some frequency in the courses he teaches, especially Sports, Media and Society, where students will ask about the cultural issues that play out in sport, especially when it comes to how they’re covered by the media. Figueroa asks students to study, for example, the rivalry between the Lakers and Celtics that dominated the NBA in the 1980s, as well as how the Kansas City Chiefs have gone from hero to villain amid the team’s success.

“In Lakers-Celtics, you had a team from LA and a team from Boston, playing two styles that were different from each other. So, it was not just two teams competing against each other, it was two ideas of America competing against each other,” he said. “I think that greater cultural reflection was what brought so many people to the television set to watch them.”

The Chiefs, meanwhile, are a villain story like any other—they’re so good that the league and officials must be rigging the game to help them win. And despite this one being debunked, “I told my class that sports cultivate myths,” Figueroa said. “Myths are more powerful if they feel real—they don’t need to have been drawn from reality or truth.”

Heroic values, but a villain

Ever Figueroa

What about when the game is scripted? One of Figueroa’s research interests is pro wrestling, which offers a nuanced, complex assessment of societal and political issues in its character development. A recent paper published in Communication & Sport examined World Wrestling Entertainment performer Daniel Bryan, who was the league’s champion from November 2018 through the following April.

Bryan’s character, Figueroa said, was that of an eco-friendly environmentalist who railed against greed, consumerism, capitalism, climate change and animal cruelty—which would seem to make him a champion of a lot of values gaining traction in the United States. But, in fact, he plays a heel—wrestling parlance for an antagonist.

“The reason he worked as a villain is because he violates neoliberal meritocracy. He cheats to win the title and to retain the belt,” Figueroa said. “His character espouses these progressive values, but he’s violating the rules of competition. So it becomes bad to be anti-capitalist, or an environmentalist, because it’s attached to his actions as a wrestler who cheats.”

The paper also looked at the case of Kofi Kingston, a Black wrestler who succeeded Bryan as champion. Both Bryan and then-chairman and CEO Vince McMahon said Kingston was a B-level wrestler “who failed to take the opportunities given to him by WWE’s free market—a common tactic used to discriminate against people of color,” Figueroa said.

“One of the big concepts in our paper was this idea of using neoliberalism and colorblind ideology in tandem to gaslight a Black man who had legitimate grievances that he was being discriminated against because of his race, in order to not make that political subtext visible to the audience.”

Pro wrestling, Figueroa said, is understudied by researchers, which may help explain why certain tropes around the sport—like having a rabidly right-leaning fanbase or repeating the same formulaic story arcs—have persisted. In fact, fans of a competing wrestling promotion, All Elite Wrestling, started the anti-ICE chants that have become viral moments at its recent matches. AEW storylines also touch on progressive themes that eschew toxic masculinity.

“For decades, WWE has been really effectively appropriating contemporary political moments,” Figueroa said. “I use wrestling as an example to show how political sports really are—the narratives, the construction of heroes and villains, and so on. Those are all things we respond to as a culture and society.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

A CMDI expert says without cultural and societal context—which includes politics—sports would be “kind of boring.”

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Nextdoor labor

Joe Arney — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 16:55:45 +0000

Nextdoor labor Joe Arney Mon, 02/23/2026 - 09:55

Joe Arney

If your window to the outdoor world is Nextdoor, you might believe your neighborhood is awash in porch pirates, pooch poop, poor drivers and problematic people.

But as more municipalities find themselves without local journalism outlets, your neighbors might be the best source of community news that you have—which is dangerous, said researchers at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

“You could say Nextdoor is increasingly serving a need that has been historically served by local news outlets that don’t exist anymore,” said Toby Hopp, an associate professor in the advertising, public relations and design department. “But Nextdoor’s business model is built around retaining audience attention and serving advertisements—it isn’t linked to journalistic norms like balance, fairness and verified reporting.”

In a new paper in New Media & Society, Hopp and Patrick Ferrucci, professor of journalism, found Nextdoor users are more concerned about crime—and more likely to support aggressive policing tactics, even as Americans demonstrate against the methods employed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

The authors—which include Hunter (Reeves) Krajewski, a PhD student in APRD—expected Nextdoor users who were less trustful of their neighbors would be more concerned about crime, but in fact, it was the users with high levels of social trust who had that worry.

“Because those folks trust their neighbors, they’re more likely to take reports of crime seriously, which is associated with enhanced concern and an openness to more aggressive policing,” Hopp said.

Notably, the researchers’ survey did not establish a causal link between people concerned about crime and Nextdoor use, meaning they couldn’t determine whether users signed up for the service because they were fearful of crime. But their work is still illuminating as the national conversation remains fixated on immigration, incarceration and technology.

Losing the context

Major crime in metropolitan areas has been in decline since rising in the early part of the decade. But with neighbors venting every grievance on Nextdoor, “it maybe gives people the idea that stolen packages, or loitering, are far more prevalent, and they’re not put in the context of policing,” Ferrucci said.

A missing Amazon package is not the same as seeing ICE agents execute demonstrators or separate children from their parents. But when we lose the context of understanding crime beyond our block, it becomes easier to imagine that more aggressive law enforcement is an answer. Hopp said he was surprised by respondents’ willingness to consider ideas like stop and frisk, vehicle searches during routine traffic stops, and equipping police with military-grade weapons.

“Each of these questions presents real constitutional concerns,” he said. “And if you think about what you’re willing to accept in your community, are you more willing to support these kinds of things in other communities?”

It’s not just ICE tactics or Fourth Amendment questions that are in the news—it’s the data gathered by companies that sell digitized surveillance. That’s not Nextdoor’s model, but it’s not a leap to see how increased concerns about crime could lead to adoption of camera technologies like Ring or Flock.

A collaboration between the companies—announced in a Super Bowl ad—was called off amid backlash that the new feature would create a dragnet to allow police to search for suspects, immigrants and others, instead of just missing pets.

“I think we’re finding these kinds of services, generally speaking, can’t be trusted,” Ferrucci said. “And there’s no appetite from a regulatory body to intervene and protect consumers, who have been slowly giving away their privacy for decades.”

Hopp and Ferrucci bring different research specialties to the problem, which offers them broader insights on topics like these. That’s a core value of CMDI, which was created to equip students and faculty to seek opportunities in areas where different fields intersect—especially as traditional disciplinary boundaries fall in the workplace.

“I don’t know that it makes sense to silo people as journalism researchers, or advertising researchers, and so on, because all institutions are producing and distributing information in a variety of ways,” Hopp said. “To parcel that off as just journalism, or just advertising, or just public relations, becomes increasingly difficult.

“We need to understand that we are researchers of the media—whatever the media might be at any given moment.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Does using Nextdoor make you more likely to support aggressive policing tactics? A new paper from two CMDI experts sheds interesting light on the platform.

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Heated Rivalry is melting the ice—and tropes around sexuality and sports

Joe Arney — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 19:33:14 +0000

Heated Rivalry is melting the ice—and tropes around sexuality and sports Joe Arney Thu, 02/05/2026 - 12:33

A CMDI professor praised Heated Rivalry for its willingness to defy the tropes associated with gay male characters, especially in a professional sports setting. Photo courtesy HBO.

Iris Serrano

A CMDI professor praised Heated Rivalry for its willingness to defy the tropes associated with gay male characters, especially in a professional sports setting. Photo courtesy HBO.

Weeks after the release of its season finale, audiences are still going wild for Heated Rivalry. And while fans have been closely tracking the on-screen romance between the two leads—professional hockey players on opposing teams—Jamie Skerski is watching that relationship from a more critical perspective.

Skerski, who studies how narratives are shaped and mediated by institutions, audiences and cultural norms, said the show’s popularity points to “the complete lack of nuanced gay representation” in mass media.

“The show defies the stereotypical ‘gay man as feminine sidekick’ trope, and depicts masculinity as simultaneously strong/athletic and vulnerable,” said Skerski, teaching professor of communication at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information.

While queer representation is more visible in the media than ever, Skerski said the show’s popularity points to what’s missing in that changing conversation. Of particular note, she said, is its setting against the hypermasculine culture of professional sports.

“The series destroys the logic of the hegemonic masculinity that says a real man is masculine, strong and heterosexual,” she said. “Here, we have strong, successful men who are clearly masculine despite their sexuality.”

A hot storyline ahead of Olympics

Jamie Skerski, right, says her students understand that representation in mass media is important—but so is the quality of what’s portrayed. Photo by Kimberly Coffin.

The story focuses on two professional hockey players on opposing teams whose relationship appears like a rivalry to fans, but is much more intimate behind closed doors. The show has generated fan edits on social media, its stars were chosen to be torch bearers for the 2026 Winter Olympics and NHL teams are selling merchandise featuring the characters.

While Heated Rivalry is upending traditional portrayals of masculinity, the show is doing so against one of the last places where homophobia is seen as acceptable—in the locker rooms and on the fields. Despite there being many women in major sports who have come out, the audience finds it intriguing to see a different narrative.

“Representation that falls into tired tropes and stereotypes doesn’t do anything to challenge the underlying value systems that benefit from the perpetuation of those stereotypes.”

Jamie Skerski, teaching professor, communication

Something Skerski especially appreciated about the series is how it portrayed coming out as a complex process, instead of a linear one. Over the course of the show, both male leads struggle to come out over fears of ruining their careers and public images. Still, they are visibly tired of keeping up the facade.

“The nuance and thoughtfulness of that story arc are quite impressive,” she said. “The characters are in a constant state of managing identity, relationships and disclosure. The series portrays that tension with care and tenderness.”

The conversations about the show have even been had in the classroom, where students are thinking about thoughtful storytelling in the media.

The story, and popularity, of Heated Rivalry have come up in the conversations Skerski leads in her Communication, Culture and Sport class, which challenges students to think critically about the communicative, historical and cultural aspects of sports society, including the intersections of power, gender and sexuality, race, and class.

“Students generally understand that representation matters—but this is a good lesson on the quality of that representation,” Skerski said. “Representation that falls into tired tropes and stereotypes doesn’t do anything to challenge the underlying value systems that benefit from the perpetuation of those stereotypes.”

Iris Serrano is studying strategic communication and journalism at CMDI. She covers student news and events for the college.

The hit HBO show has captivated audiences by challenging traditional tropes often seen in mass media.

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