Research

Data plans

Regan Widergren — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 22:03:01 +0000

Data plans Regan Widergren Tue, 11/18/2025 - 15:03

Hannah Stewart

Photos by Kimberly Coffin and Patrick Campbell

When Josie Mahoney’s best friend died in high school, his parents asked for her help with
heir son’s social media.

Of course, she said yes, but she didn’t know where to start. Should they delete his account, losing access to the photos he posted and was tagged in? Or archive it as a digital memorial?

“It was distressing,” said Mahoney (InfoSci’25). “I think a clinic would’ve been really great because at least there’s someone to talk to who knows what they’re doing.”

Now she’s one of those people: In her senior year, she joined CMDI’s Digital Legacy Clinic, led by Jed Brubaker, an associate professor of information science.

“The clinic is something you can’t bottle—there’s an energy there,” she said. “It’s the coolest class I’ve been a part of because of how it prepares us for the real world.”

Part of that is how the course is structured. Brubaker builds in collaborative, project-based assignments that mimic the workplaces Mahoney and her classmates will graduate into. But it also comes from the market need for a solution to what happens to our data when we die.

As an academic research collaborator at Facebook, Brubaker helped develop the platform’s memorial account practices, but saw a much larger problem than just social media—photos, videos, text messages, bank accounts and so on. Through a National Science Foundation CAREER Grant, he created a pro-bono, law school-style clinic to help people maintain their digital legacies.

“It felt like a really unique moment where my research, teaching missions and a desire to do public service perfectly overlapped,” he said.

‘Pre-mortem’ support

Many clients come to the Digital Legacy Clinic in search of what students call “pre-mortem” support—getting a handle on what to do with their data now, so their families don’t have as much stress later.

I appreciated the students’ compassion and that they’re thinking about ways to mitigate the overwhelm.”

Corinna Robbins

That was the case with Corinna Robbins.

“I wonder what will happen to all the digital detritus that feels meaningful to us, and I wonder how my family will handle mine, or how I should handle my parents’,” Robbins said. “My son is 16 right now. He may not be interested in my inner life at this moment, but I bet one
day he will be.”

Unlike her mother, who had a drawer or two full of family photos, Robbins said she had thousands of unorganized photos on about 25 hard drives. That alone felt daunting, but equally disappointing was losing a blog she kept as a young adult, filled with personal essays and photography.

With help from the students, she learned about different cloud solutions to organize her photo collection, as well as the Wayback Machine, an online archive where she was able to recover most of her blog.

“It was lovely to be reconnected with those artifacts of my younger, former self,” Robbins said. “I appreciated the students’ compassion and that they’re thinking about ways to mitigate the overwhelm.”

Students in the Digital Legacy Clinic provide client support while researching how different platforms treat user data after death.

‘A measly number’

Part of the clinic’s effort is dedicated to fieldwork, in which students review platforms’ policies for specifics on user accounts and data after death. They’ve found that only 13% of platforms offer functional support, “a measly number for something that will happen to 100% of us,” Brubaker said.

The rest of their time is spent on client cases and building out the clinic’s functionality. Jack Manning (CTD’24), an information science master’s student, built a chatbot to push students’ boundaries, ensuring they encounter a range of situations and build their confidence for working with clients who may be grieving.

“These are undergraduate students, not mental health professionals,” he said. “And there’s potential for harm in those sensitive communications.”

Manning, like Mahoney, joined the clinic in the fall and repeated the class last spring. While the first semester was spent developing the framework and assessing clients’ needs, the second focused on creating a knowledge base and onboarding system—like the chatbot—to benefit future students.

As part of her portfolio project last fall, Mahoney focused on leadership and outreach—so on top of helping clients, she also developed a mini knowledge base with resources to train future students to be sensitive in working with the public.

“Now I can say I was a team leader, a project manager and in charge of the timeline and what we were doing,” she said.

Students said that real-world emphasis shows up in other ways, too.

“I’ve learned how to work with people on different teams and bounce ideas off each other,” said Oliver Kochenderfer (InfoSci’25). “I’ve gotten so much teamwork experience, and it’s been cool to have a teacher who acts as a manager guiding us toward one big goal.”

Brubaker said it’s important to remember that although college is a time of exploration and experience, one of its main responsibilities is preparing students for life after graduation.

“I hope the clinic remains a place that has a public impact while also being a place for both my students and me to learn,” he said. “I love taking humanistic or social science issues and thinking about how to implement that in the code. We’re human-touch first. More than a solution, people need to be heard.”

Learn more about the clinic

The Digital Literacy Clinic

Hannah Stewart graduated from CMDI in 2019 with a degree in communication. She covers student news for the college.

Photographer Kimberly Coffin graduated from CMDI in 2018 with degrees in media production and strategic communication.

When Jed Brubaker established the Digital Legacy Clinic—to help people make a plan for their data after their deaths—he saw it as a perfect blend of teaching and public service.

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John Oliver segment on public media gets major assist from CMDI

Joe Arney — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 18:13:50 +0000

John Oliver segment on public media gets major assist from CMDI Joe Arney Tue, 11/18/2025 - 11:13

Joe Arney

Host John Oliver introduces his show while the cover of Josh Shepperd's book is shown onscreen. Shepperd's work on the history of public media helped inform an episode on the federal government's dramatic cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Photo courtesy HBO.

When Josh Shepperd first discovered his research interest—the historical connection between the origins of communications research and public broadcasting—he was a University of Wisconsin graduate student eager to find his voice in the academic community

Today, that voice is carrying in directions he never could have imagined, with his work prominently featured in the season finale of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, on Sunday night.

“My work is explicitly focused on democracy and media,” said Shepperd, associate professor of media studies at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s College of Communication, Media, Design and Information. “The idea that there is interest in preserving the different types of ways that institutions, agencies and people try to build and maintain infrastructure for access and recognition is core to my research.”

As far as late-night comedies go, Oliver’s show consistently scores high marks from critics for its humor, as well as the deep dives it does on controversial topics, which this season included sports betting, presidential libraries, A.I. slop and deportations.

Shepperd consulted with the Last Week Tonight team over the course of two months, culminating in a timely episode about the federal government’s drastic cuts to public media.

“You put in these long hours in the archives with the hope that people will consider the historical context of what you’re saying, and use that context to inform the decisions we make today.”

Josh Shepperd, associate professor, media studies

Oliver’s monologue was a thorough overview of topics raised by Shepperd’s work; the producers even used the cover of his book, Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting, as an on-screen graphic during the show.

“I think Oliver and his group learned about the book through the press I’ve been doing for the book, because a lot of folks at the show have close ties and sympathies with the public media sector,” Shepperd said.

Shadow of the New Deal is notable as the first academic attempt to present communication studies and public broadcasting as historically connected media reform enterprises. It was published in 2023, at a time when uncertainty about public media’s future—not to mention poisonous criticism of journalism in general—was growing. Shadow has since won the Book Award from the Broadcast Education Association and has been a finalist or runner up for prizes from four other organizations, including the American Journalism Historians Association and Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

The book led to press at close to 50 media outlets, including an interview with the influential NPR show On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti, a Q&A with The Chicago Tribune, as well as a feature by Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab over the past several months.

“What I like about the book being continually recognized is that it gives this research the opportunity to resonate beyond historians,” Shepperd said. “You put in these long hours in the archives with the hope that people will consider the historical context of what you’re saying, and use that context to inform the decisions we make today.”

Since he provided so much context for the show’s team, Shepperd was asked to recommend the names of other influential voices working in this space. Among those he listed was Willard Rowland, dean emeritus of the former School of Journalism and Mass Communication, which became CMDI a decade ago.

“I appreciate that CMDI is willing to steward humanistic work that explores democracy and media questions from a historical lens,” he said. “Historical research reveals a lot—but it takes a lot of time to do, and few communication schools have historians who ask these questions from that perspective.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

When Last Week Tonight wanted to talk about cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, its researchers called communication historian Josh Shepperd.

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10 for 10: Notable newsmakers

Amanda J. McManus — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 06:11:51 +0000

10 for 10: Notable newsmakers Amanda J. McManus Thu, 11/13/2025 - 23:11

Because of the multidisciplinary nature of their work—and their fearlessness in confronting the biggest problems—CMDI faculty are regularly featured in local and national media. Here are 10 times over the past decade when major news outlets have featured our faculty.

The New Republic: Nathan Schneider wrote an essay on the Slow Food movement, arguing a slow computing approach could repair our experiences with technology. May 19, 2015.
The Denver Post: Chris Vargo studied Twitter data to see how vaccine misinformation spread and took hold in particular American communities. Sept. 27, 2017.
The Washington Post: Angie Chuang wrote an op-ed on the problems her race and journalism class tries to solve, and the struggle businesses like Starbucks have faced in confronting them. June 13, 2018.
Forbes: Casey Fiesler sat for a Q&A on the need for ethics in the technology industry, particularly social media. Jan. 14, 2021.
The Guardian: Elizabeth Skewes talked about her research on whether news media covering school shootings influences future acts of violence. May 12, 2023.
Scientific American: Leysia Palen talked about the dangers of information isolation during disasters that knock out telecommunications services. Sept. 11, 2023.
KUNC/NPR: Josh Shepperd talked about the history and influence of public media, especially amid great economic change in the journalism industry. April 10, 2024.
The New York Times: Following the publication of her most recent book, on romance writing, Chris Larson explained the circumstances behind the breakup of Romance Writers of America. July 24, 2024.
The Associated Press: Erin Willis was interviewed about her work on patient influencers and the language used in pharmaceuticals advertising. Nov. 14, 2024.
Denver7 (ABC): Jed Brubaker discussed the launch of the Digital Legacy Clinic and the need to proactively manage our digital footprints before we die. Dec. 11, 2024.

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Band together

Amanda J. McManus — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 22:14:09 +0000

Band together Amanda J. McManus Tue, 11/11/2025 - 15:14

Joe Arney

What role does CMDI play in the university chancellor’s vision for an institution that leads on sustainability? From left, faculty experts Phaedra C. Pezzullo, Caitlin Charlet, Hong Tien Vu and Morgan Young explored that question from their different areas of expertise. The group was photographed at the tree office, which was built by environmental design students and installed on the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder campus in 2016. Photos by Kimberly Coffin.

Phaedra C. Pezzullo is a professor of communication and director of the Sustainability and Storytelling Lab. She is an expert on communication’s role in shaping and influencing environmental and climate justice movements.

Caitlin Charlet is an associate teaching professor of environmental design, specializing in regenerative architecture and urban ecologies. Her research is situated at the experimental intersection of transformative design strategies, biogenic materials and the built environment.

Hong Tien Vu is the director of the Center for Environmental Journalism at CMDI. His work examines journalism and communication practices in addressing global challenges, from environmental degradation to societal inequalities.

Morgan Young has decades of experience in branding, strategy and creative execution—including managing campaigns about, and clients working in, sustainability. He is an associate teaching professor of advertising at the college.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Chancellor Justin Schwartz has been clear that he expects Colorado’s flagship university to be a leader in sustainability. But what does “sustainability” even mean? How do we get there without becoming discouraged? And in the current political and social moment, how do we advocate for the steps needed to advance sustainability?

At the time of this conversation, Hong Tien Vu—an associate professor of journalism and director of the Center for Environmental Journalism—was so new to the college that most of his belongings were still in boxes after relocating from the University of Kansas to CMDI. But he has a long track record of doing environmental journalism, so we threw him into the deep end with three faculty experts who have been doing sustainability long before it became a buzzword—whether directing ad campaigns, being mindful of building materials or podcasting about plastics.

This conversation was edited for length and clarity.

Vu: I’d like to start by asking each of you about sustainability, and how you define it.

Pezzullo: I’m a little nerdy about the definition of sustainability. There’s a new edition of my textbook out now, and we literally have a boldfaced definition I make my students memorize. So, for me, sustainability is the capacity to negotiate environmental, social and economic needs and desires for current and future generations.

Charlet: I rarely use the word “sustainability,” actually. There needs to be something regenerative—not just sustainable—in how we build and design. I’m interested in the long-term cultivation of regenerative relationships, in terms of materials, ecosystems and communities. For most of human history, we’ve built with what we’ve been able to grow locally, and it’s been able to go back into the earth. There was care for the environment, animals and humans. That changed with the Industrial Revolution.

Young: I come at this from a different perspective. Advertising and branding is both a leader and a follower in society. And at this moment, the industry is more of a follower, as people try to figure out what’s going on in this administration.

Pezzullo: I think, interestingly, that the ambiguity Caitlin was talking about, around the term “sustainability,” works well in this moment. It’s not a banned word, because we could be talking about anything. We could be talking about, for instance, economic sustainability.

There’s no reason why CMDI can’t be a leader in sustainability, particularly with the incorporation of environmental design."

Morgan Young, associate teaching professor

Vu: That’s an interesting point. I’d like to hear more from you all on what you’re seeing in the world as it relates to those organizations and sustainability.

Young: One example: I’ve done a lot of work with General Motors; in fact, I was the first person to make a commercial for an electric vehicle. It was the Chevy Volt, and it was their first ad talking about a sustainable future. And, in my classes, we do projects on how brands can create extensions to existing product lines. How can we use sustainability as a marketing tool to reach people who will respond positively to that information?

Pezzullo: I think it’s important to note that over the summer, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder transitioned away from all single-use plastics in beverage bottles on campus. It’s a great sustainability story, because it’s a tangible difference in our everyday lives that was made systemically, following the wisdom of the growing climate justice movement.

Charlet: I’ve been working on a documentary to collect the stories of how women have used collaboration as a foundation to run material science departments in academic settings, and work toward scalable alternative material solutions—and to show how they will have a major impact in changing our built environment.

Pezzullo: Collaboration is the only way to get things done for systemic change. Otherwise, you just have individuals, which isn’t enough to generate impact. In my work with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, we co-create story maps of the five most-polluted communities in Colorado. And working with those communities—instead of just about them or at them—creates better outcomes for public participation.

Charlet: Oh, I agree. Individual behavior won’t solve this problem. How do we educate a generation of architects and designers to choose better materials? That’s a radical notion for an architecture school. And the choices they make in building things will have a larger impact, because the construction sector is responsible for so much destabilization—humans, animals and topographies—and carbon emissions. There is no one solution, but biogenic and regenerative architecture and design is a basis for a scalable, forward-looking model.

Vu: We talked about how to define sustainability earlier, but Morgan, I wonder if you can talk about challenges you have faced in working with brands and avoiding overuse of the term, so they’re not accused of greenwashing.

Young: The reality is, even some of the brands we think of as being best for the environment are greenwashing. And as an advertising person, we’re not so deep into the business that we can look at their entire supply chain and influence that. If you hire someone like me, I’m going to focus on the best things to accentuate for a specific target audience—but what we’re missing is the rest of that chain that doesn’t have that positive impact. And in advertising, we have to be careful not to get in front of our skis and pretend a client is someone they’re not.

Vu: So that’s kind of mobilizing companies. Phaedra, I know you’ve done a lot in terms of initiatives that mobilize communities. Can you share some of the challenges you’ve faced there?

Pezzullo: Well, there’s a reason I use the word “sustainability” in my lab—I was launching it knowing the administration was going to ban words. I was set up to work with the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice office, and the week I was supposed to present to them, they sent me an email and said the department was being shut down. Part of what’s exciting about this campus and the Boulder community is that we’re not giving up on our values.

Young: To build on that, on this campus, we are different. I had 13 students with me in London for a month, and we were really struck by the complete absence of reusable water bottles there. They don’t have their Yetis or their Hydro Flasks like we do in Colorado. The point I’m trying to make is, much of the world is not there with us.

Vu: We’ve brought up current events a couple of times now. I wonder if we could talk about what the shift in public perception around sustainability has meant for your students, or the way you teach.

Young: A lot of my students are very business-minded. Some want to do advertising for the Environmental Working Group, the League of Conservation Voters or Earthjustice. But some would rather work for Chevron, Sephora or a fashion brand, like Kith. So, my goal is to create a student who can do external communications that show sustainability is good business.

Pezzullo: I think one of our biggest challenges, in communication, is A.I., which has radically changed our classrooms and what we understand labor to be—for creative content makers, for storytellers and for people just doing research. This generation is going to need to rise to the challenge of whether A.I. can become sustainable.

Charlet: I love this question. I’ve taught a design course where I challenge students to create a resilient ecological strategy for urban design with A.I. And the biggest thing that they learn is that it’s really hard to design with A.I.—it’s a tool like others already in use in architecture. It isn’t magic. In parallel to that, I ask them to consider the environmental detriment of using A.I.—not only the energy use, but the building facilities themselves. What impact do they have on communities? Where do the materials come from? Considering those two aspects of A.I. in parallel is really important for them to think about.

Vu: Caitlin, is that what students are looking for, from the standpoint of their career paths?

Charlet: Architecture is often seen as an exciting, but inherently safe, choice for students. It rests somewhere between the creativity of art and the challenges of engineering—so it’s a middle ground, and a respected profession. And I think the students come in with confidence, knowing they will be able to get a job. In terms of environmental design, there’s such a movement toward regenerative and biogenic architecture now, and the reuse and recycling of materials within buildings. There are a lot of firms with research departments that our students feel very comfortable and very prepared to go right into, and work on certifications like LEED, WELL and Passive House.

Young: I already mentioned advertising is more of a follower than a leader right now, but oftentimes, advertising is a reflection of society, as well. Right now, we see companies pulling back and hiding on sustainability issues. There are good companies—Patagonia, Outside magazine—that will continue to stand up and fight. But those that are more about their bottom line will let go of their sustainability programs to keep making money. This is where we have to work with our students, to show them these companies don’t have a moral high ground and will change with whatever the environment is in order to look good. But—is this important to all our students? I’m not sure, en masse, that they’re much more focused on sustainability than past generations were.

Pezzullo: There are lots of reasons to be alarmed and depressed, and I’m Italian American, so I can have, like, 100 emotions in five minutes. But I do have hope. You know, when South Park started—it was written by two �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder grads, you know—

Young: Yes! I went to college with them.

Pezzullo: That’s right, so you know they began South Park making fun of climate change, saying Al Gore believes in this thing called ManBearPig, and there’s no such thing. But South Park has, over time, recognized climate change does happen, and they even apologized to Al Gore. It’s important to remember that attitudes change, and we can shape public opinion in creative ways.

There needs to be something regenerative—not just sustainable—in how we build and design.”

Caitlin Charlet, associate teaching professor

Vu: Let me ask one final question. After listening to your colleagues, what’s one thing you’re inspired to explore?

Charlet: I’m inspired by and appreciate the chance to learn more about my colleagues’ work. Especially advertising—that’s a field I’ve never delved into. How might that impact the field I’m working in? Does it pertain to architecture firms and how they forefront buildings and construction ethics? Is there a measurable impact?

Pezzullo: That’s what I love about being part of a college like this—the opportunities to publish, edit, co-author or just talk to people in so many different disciplines. So, when we have a challenge like sustainability, we approach it from a more systemic, holistic perspective. We all bring different experiences from the institutions and companies and communities we’ve worked with.

Young: I think this college is in a rapid growth trajectory. We are very well positioned to have a big impact on the next generation—specifically, A.I. I’m inspired by people like Caitlin, who are already building A.I. into their syllabi, because I don’t have a handle on how A.I. will be incorporated into our academics. But I am worried about intellectual property rights around it—specifically related to advertising, but also areas like architecture, design and communication. Our college needs to tackle that—it’s a great opportunity for us to become a leader within that sector, because right now, nobody has a handle on it.

Vu: So, can CMDI be a leader in sustainability communication?

Young: Absolutely. I think our students are more concerned about this matter than those at other universities. There’s no reason why CMDI can’t be a leader in sustainability, particularly with the incorporation of environmental design.

Pezzullo: I absolutely agree with you, Morgan. It’s not that we don’t know the science, or what’s wrong, or what we could do to have a more sustainable future. It’s that we have to find ways to bridge differences, and that’s a strength of ours. With our expertise across a wide range of human expression, I really believe CMDI has a strong role to play in sustainability in the future.

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Photographer Kimberly Coffin graduated from CMDI in 2018 with degrees in media production and strategic communication.

When it comes to sustainability, individual actions aren’t enough. The same is true for how we look for solutions, so we asked a group of CMDI experts how collaboration might save the day.

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Illustration by Dana Heimes

Coloring outside the mines

Regan Widergren — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:27:14 +0000

Coloring outside the mines Regan Widergren Thu, 11/06/2025 - 17:27

Joe Arney

When you represent the interests of an industry like mining, you’re bound to make a few enemies.

In the case of PDAC—the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada—an increasingly sharp thorn in its side is a collective, Beyond Extraction, that finds creative ways to disrupt the mining group’s annual convention.

Its latest salvo? A coloring book that shows children a less-sanitized view of mining’s environmental impact than the industry acknowledges.

“All our projects seek to counter something PDAC is doing,” said Zannah Mae Matson, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at CMDI. A previous campaign, she said, involved creating an audio tour of the minerals exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto, that drew attention to mining’s labor and environmental calamities.

For the coloring book, Beyond Extraction took aim at PDAC’s educational wing, Mining Matters, which builds lesson plans to extend the industry’s ideology into Canadian schools. Mining Matters also creates coloring books featuring kid-friendly characters who show that when mining companies complete operations, “they remediate everything, and everybody’s happy—the water’s clean, the trees are fine,” Matson said. “Whatever.”

The title Beyond Extraction selected for its book, What It Takes, counters Mining Matters’ message—that mines give jobs, technology, bicycles and so on. The project argues that the industry doesn’t give those things without cost. It explains technical concepts like free-entry staking and labor exploitation in ways that allow teachers and caregivers to start conversations with kids about adverse impacts of mining.

Simplifying the message

“The biggest challenge was simplifying,” Matson said. “The illustrations had to be colorable and fun, and the message had to be approachable.”

The book is not about ending mining; rather, it offers a more complete picture of mining’s human and environmental impacts. That’s crucial as the industry positions itself as a champion of the sustainability movement, since the metals miners unearth help power alternatives to fossil fuels.

“We don’t live in a world where nothing needs to be taken out of the ground—but there is this false dichotomy that if you don’t like mining, then you love oil,” Matson said. “We can’t fall into this trap of believing we all bear the same responsibility for mining because we all use a laptop computer.”

Instead, she said, we need to introduce lower levels of consumption while holding companies accountable to higher standards.

We need to create higher levels of standards to hold companies accountable, and introduce lower levels of consumption.”

Zannah Mae Matson, assistant professor

The Beyond Extraction collective has released a coloring book, which Zannah Mae Matson co-illustrated, in five languages. Its message is designed to disrupt the work mining organizations do to influence curricula and position themselves as champions of sustainability. Photos by Kimberly Coffin.

“As someone who’s been researching mining for a long time, and seeing how these companies cover up the problems they cause, I have serious doubts they will be the heroes of a green, more just future,” she said.

Matson’s research investigates how infrastructure impacts communities and the environment. That might mean what a road system in Colombia indicates about its colonial history, or how mining operations create lasting damage to nearby communities. It’s work that takes her around the globe but is especially prevalent in her native Canada, which has worldwide mining operations.

That’s a key reason Beyond Extraction is translating the coloring book into different languages. It launched last year, but this spring, translations into American English, French, Spanish and Portuguese came online—countering Mining Matters’ multilingual approach, which also has editions in Indigenous languages, like Inuktitut.

“It’s so problematic that these materials are presented in the languages of people that the mining industry has dispossessed,” Matson said.

The collective hopes to translate its coloring book into Dene, Inuktitut and Cree, but for now, it’s too costly for Beyond Extraction’s budget activism. The book relied on volunteer members’ expertise in media studies, landscape architecture and beyond; Matson also was one of two illustrators.

Like many researchers, Matson is used to collaboration. Beyond Extraction, she said, is next level.

“When you’re facing such complex problems, you need collective ways of resisting them and finding answers,” she said. “It’s nice to know you’re not alone, and feel your work is rising to meet those challenges.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Photographer Kimberly Coffin graduated from CMDI in 2018 with degrees in media production and strategic communication.

Mining companies are positioning themselves as heroes in the transition to sustainability. A coloring book illustrated by a CMDI professor is throwing shade on the idea.

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Building a case for A.I.

Regan Widergren — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 23:42:53 +0000

Building a case for A.I. Regan Widergren Thu, 11/06/2025 - 16:42

Joe Arney

Sandra Ristovska in the Wolf Law courtroom. Ristovska is spending the academic year at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences as she fleshes out her research into visual evidence and the U.S. justice system. Photo by Kimberly Coffin.

I am surrounded by people who are at the top of their fields, working in areas like artificial intelligence, democracy and equality, immigration, the environment. It’s incredible.”

Sandra Ristovska

The first day of classes at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder this fall was also the day Sandra Ristovska got the keys to her office—or study, as such spaces are known at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Unsurprisingly, she sounds much like a new student herself, excited about having so much to look forward to and full of energy and enthusiasm about what awaits her. (Like a new �鶹��Ѱ��student, she’s quick to gush about the views, which in her case include forests, palm trees and dramatic overlooks of Silicon Valley.)

“I am surrounded by people who are at the top of their fields, working in areas like artificial intelligence, democracy and equality, immigration, the environment. It’s incredible,” said Ristovska, associate professor of media studies and director of the college’s Visual Evidence Lab.

Being selected as a fellow to the center is a high honor. Among its alumni, CASBS counts a host of Nobel, Pulitzer and MacArthur winners, along with such luminaries as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and George Shultz, U.S. secretary of state under Ronald Reagan.

Just being included in such company would be distinguished enough, but at the outset of the yearlong residency, Ristovska learned she was awarded the Leonore Annenberg and Wallis Annenberg Fellowship in Communication at CASBS.

It’s a full-circle moment for Ristovska, who earned her PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania; she said it was “very meaningful and very special” to get an endowed fellowship from the family.

CASBS is renowned for providing a home for scholars engaged in pioneering research into complex contemporary problems. The interdisciplinary nature of each class of fellows encourages the kinds of stimulating conversations that help push researchers outside their niches and make broader connections to major societal challenges.

Ristovska is counting on that cross-pollination to help her in drafting her next book, tentatively titled Deepfaking Images, which will offer a legal and social history of the use of technology to manipulate evidentiary media.

New twist on an old problem

Although the use of generative A.I. to distort real images, or cook up fake videos, is certainly a contemporary challenge—the Visual Evidence Lab is examining this topic in depth—it’s just the latest tool in a problem going back more than a century. For instance, video can be sped up or slowed to distort its meaning, while photo manipulation is as old as photography itself.

What interests Ristovska about the use of visual assets in court is what such evidence indicates about access to justice.

“Oftentimes, the best-resourced party has the language and ability to use or challenge this type of evidence when it’s presented against them—or to hire videographers or software experts to present such evidence in the first case,” she said. “In criminal cases, this tends to tilt the scales in the prosecution’s favor.”

Published works of CASBS fellows are permanently stored in the center’s Tyler Collection; when completed, Ristovska’s book will be among them. It’s fitting, since already her work is benefiting from interactions with other fellows.

“We have lunch every day with the other fellows, and of course we all ask each other what it is we do,” she said. “It’s invigorating to tell people about my work, hear their excitement about it and also listen to their ideas for how the different things they focus on might get me to think differently about my book.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Sandra Ristovska’s research into video evidence and deepfakes is getting further refined during a prestigious fellowship at Stanford.

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#Jailbreak

Regan Widergren — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 23:22:43 +0000

#Jailbreak Regan Widergren Thu, 11/06/2025 - 16:22

Joe Arney

Illustration by Dana Heimes

A decade ago, when Ian J. Alexander first became interested in studying the U.S. carceral system, imprisonment was a less visible, but by no means unimportant, field of research.

Since then, we’ve had “lock her up,” Alligator Alcatraz and National Guard deployments in American cities.

“Like many people who study systems of structural oppression, I wish my research was less relevant,” Alexander said. “But beyond just the massive expansion of ICE, there’s a larger question around what social and political function prisons serve—and what the state is saying about itself through its carceral system.”

Alexander is interested in studying the histories of media technologies to make sense of political dynamics in the present. Right now, that means looking at the moments these tools including radio, television, phones, smartphones and tablets, and video visitation—were introduced into U.S. prisons and jails.

“Media have never been introduced into prisons by accident,” Alexander said. “Instead, it is a very intentional, central aspect of carceral management and operation.”

Alexander, an assistant professor of media studies, joined CMDI in the fall from Carnegie Mellon University, where he was a visiting assistant professor. His research into media in prisons started while he was pursuing his PhD at New York University, and grew out of some of the advocacy work he was doing, such as tutoring people who were imprisoned and trying to stop the expansion of prisons in the city.

Media technologies, he said, “are different degrees of a kind of weaponry to isolate people. I look at these technologies as tools of struggle, oppression, isolation and manipulation—but also as tools of connection. For instance, the way people inside are using them to make radio shows or podcasts, produce literature, or build solidarity and community and raise political consciousness.”

Media have never been introduced into prisons by accident. Instead, it is a very intentional, central aspect of carceral management and operation.”

Ian J. Alexander, assistant professor, media studies

His research has included phone and video calls with imprisoned people, as well as digging into the archives of when these technologies were first introduced—and the circumstances surrounding them. For instance, you might expect a prison would use radio to allow guards to alert the community of an escape—and you’d be correct—but it also led to the formation of prison bands, including some that were escorted to radio stations to perform over the air.

In most cases, the technology has been dual edged. Video visitation, as one example, makes it easier for those who are imprisoned to see family members. But it also makes it easier for wardens to limit in-person connections to family and friends on the outside.

Ultimately, Alexander’s work into those media technologies aims to understand the social and political functions prisons serve, which is important at a time when government spending on incarceration has dramatically increased. He said limiting social connections, restricting reading and managing when people speak—all bedrocks of the U.S. penal system—each are kinds of media practices.

“They are managing channels of communication and meaning-building at the level of trying to manipulate a person’s sense of self, sense of belonging and community, and ultimately sense of guilt and shame and correction,” he said.

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

The histories of how media technologies have been introduced in U.S. prisons offer clues as to the government’s dramatic rise in spending on the carceral system.

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Deer in the spotlights: What Bambi tells us about animation and death

Joe Arney — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 15:45:51 +0000

Deer in the spotlights: What Bambi tells us about animation and death Joe Arney Thu, 11/06/2025 - 08:45

Joe Arney

When she asks her classes who remembers this scene from Bambi, Marissa Lammon says everyone's hand goes up. But while you probably can also recall this image, this isn't a scene from Bambi—it never appeared onscreen. A new paper from Lammon studies what this recollection teaches us about how we encounter and interpret violence and death as children.

You know that heartbreaking scene in Disney’s Bambi, in which the title character cuddles up to his mother’s lifeless body after she’s been shot by a hunter?

No, you don’t. It never happened.

“I show this image to my students all the time in class, and ask who remembers this scene,” said Marissa Lammon, a lecturer in the communication department at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder. “And everyone raises their hand, even though this is never shown onscreen.”

Lammon (PhDMediaSt’24) is an expert in popular culture and children’s media, especially as they relate to death. And, she said, the widespread misremembering of how Bambi’s mother dies is a testament to the impact her death has on audiences.

“The image represents collective trauma, and how the vast majority of people interpreted this death as traumatic,” Lammon said. “We talk about animated deaths that really stick with us, and Bambi’s mother is the one. And it actually changes the way we remember the film.”

In a new paper in Omega, Lammon looks at the story of Bambi’s mother dying and what it says about Western culture, which has made death taboo, and how children interpret the media they absorb.

“We tend to think about children as passive, blank slates,” she said. “My work suggests children are active agents who are creating and negotiating meaning from what they see and hear. And what’s fascinating is that, as a culture, we don’t talk about death, but we show it profusely in media.”

How children create meaning from media

“Children are active agents who are creating and negotiating meaning from what they see and hear.”

Marissa Lammon (PhDMediaSt’24), instructor, communication

Lammon’s interest in mediated death started while she was studying psychology as an undergraduate at UCCS, and evolved while she was doing her master’s work there.

“Children create meaning in ways different from how we do, but they’re still very social,” she said. “I wanted to bridge this gap between psychology and media and cultural studies to understand how children use media to reinforce or challenge ideology in ways that are significant to their development.”

It’s particularly important work at a time when our environment is becoming even more hypermediated.

“If we, as adults, are struggling to discern what is factual information and what is ‘fake news,’ then it’s more crucial than ever to encourage media literacy, critical thinking and reflection with children, so they can develop those skills,” she said.

CMDI advisory board member Christopher Bell (PhDMediaSt’09) advised Lammon’s master’s work, and gave her opportunities to consult in the industry. They have become close collaborators on researching popular culture.

“Marissa has fully embraced the idea of public scholarship—the idea that the knowledge generated at the academic level should belong to the public,” said Bell, president of Creativity Partners and a longtime consultant in animation. “When she goes to Pixar or Skydance and presents her work to people who make things, it changes how these companies produce media for children. It literally changes the world.”

That’s something she’s trying to do with Bemoaning Bambi: Visual Communication of Trauma From Witnessing One of Disney’s Saddest Character Deaths.

Marissa Lammon, right, presents work on animation and death at Fan Expo Denver. ‘Children’s media actually are the most violent out there, but when we think about animation, we tell ourselves it’s just fantasy, it’s just fun, it’s not actually harmful,’ she says. Photo by Kimberly Coffin.

“Children’s media actually are the most violent out there, but when we think about animation, we tell ourselves it’s just fantasy, it’s just fun, it’s not actually harmful,” Lammon said, adding that our culture uses violence to teach moral lessons. “In the case of Bambi’s mother, her death embodies traumatic frames in ways that make it so salient in our recollections of animated death.”

Those frames, she said, are homicide, gender coding—especially the theme of maternal sacrifice—and character development after the act of violence.

‘Completely shattered’

While most of us remember Bambi’s mother being shot in the early stages of the movie, “in fact, it happens about 40 minutes in,” Lammon said. “So for 40 minutes, you see this loving and nurturing relationship develop, and then Bambi’s world is completely shattered.”

That trauma changes how Bambi develops, “leaving you, as an audience member, thinking about how he has to completely change the way he exists,” she said.

And that goes for the children in the audience, as well.

“The conversations I have with children are so deep and intellectual,” she said. “If parents really talked with their children about what they’re seeing and how they’re interpreting it, they would be so surprised with what they’re picking up on and how they reflect on it.”

Lammon’s hope is that her findings change both how the industry communicates themes around death and how parents and caregivers have conversations about what their children absorb.

“There is a lot that the industry is doing well, but we need to change media texts to include death that is natural, not just murder, so we can prepare them for what bereavement will look like in their own lives,” she said. “Meanwhile, we need to make parents more comfortable about having these conversations with their children, instead of just ignoring what they’ve watched or prevent them from seeing it.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Children aren’t just blank slates—they create meaning from the media they experience. An expert says that’s a reason to think about how we show themes like violence and death.

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#American*

Regan Widergren — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 00:36:49 +0000

#American* Regan Widergren Wed, 11/05/2025 - 17:36

Hannah Stewart

As the daughter of immigrants, Angie Chuang saw how you could have it all and still not belong. Her father—a civil engineer—never felt truly included in this country, a struggle Chuang frequently reflected on, even as her own career has taken off.

“My father was an American success story—a civil engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Lab,” said Chuang, an associate professor of journalism. “But seeing his struggles as I grew up made me profoundly aware of what it meant to be American with an asterisk.”

Her personal and professional experience—including covering race and ethnic issues at The Oregonian and developing curricula around related topics at both American University and CMDI—has given her a unique perspective when it comes to the news media’s struggles in reporting on race. It’s a topic she explores thoroughly in a new book, American Otherness in Journalism: News Media Representations of Identity and Belonging.

The book would have been published years ago, but as she was completing her first draft in 2016, Donald Trump was riding a wave of white nationalism to the White House, requiring
important revisions.

“I didn’t feel it would be principled, as a researcher, to not consider the radical shift in thinking he represented,” she said.

There hasn't been equal access granted to who gets to say their unfiltered version of events to the press.”

Angie Chuang, associate professor, journalism

In its new iteration, half the book investigates how news media has historically represented people, while the second half looks at how the president has dominated that narrative, in many ways narrowing the definition of “American.”

It’s not a new problem—Chuang covers examples like the infamous “American beats out Kwan” headline from the 1990s and coverage of Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho—but Trump’s rhetoric intrigued her
as a researcher, because while he was clearly talking about race, he rarely used traditional code words.

For example, early reports after the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally used phrases like “alt-right,” “pro-white” and, sparingly, “white nationalism” because those were the terms those individuals used to describe themselves. When pressed, Trump referred to them as “very fine people.”

“Journalism’s fundamental flaw is that ‘objective journalism’ has taught people to get their sources’ perspectives and reproduce them in an unbiased, unfiltered way so the reader can decide,” Chuang said. “What we’ve learned is that there hasn’t been equal access granted to who gets to say their unfiltered version of events to the press.”

But she has hope. Thanks in part to public pushback challenging the “objective” earlier reporting, The Associated Press has directed journalists to use more definitive terms like “white supremacist” and even “racist.”

And as younger, diverse reporters emerge in the media landscape, bringing journalism to new places—like TikTok and Substack—Chuang sees the opportunity to make journalism better and more accessible by reflecting the stories and concerns of diverse communities.

“I don’t think we have to be precious about the word ‘journalism.’ And journalism does check itself; it’s not a monolith,” she said. “I’m interested in journalism having these debates and trying to do better, even in the face of attacks from the federal government. Journalism scholars and industry leaders need to continually push and advocate for free speech and responsible reporting.”

Hannah Stewart graduated from CMDI in 2019 with a degree in communication. She covers student news for the college.

A new book from a journalism expert examines the news media’s role in identity and belonging in a volatile moment of American history.

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#KnowYourMeme

Regan Widergren — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 00:17:50 +0000

#KnowYourMeme Regan Widergren Wed, 11/05/2025 - 17:17

Joe Arney

Illustration by Dana Heimes

Footage of “your” FBI agent bringing gifts when everyone forgets your birthday. A bride getting married on Friday because Saturdays are for the boys. The guy who spots a king, but is looking in a mirror.

You probably recognize those memes, but for Olga White, these media are less a laughing matter than an important window into how we communicate. She’s become an expert at creating “family trees” of memes, thinking critically about their origins to understand what they say about the cultures and creators who build them.

“On their own, we don’t remember these micro-content interactions—if you see a meme about kings, or the boys, and don’t see the topic for a few minutes, you don’t retain what you saw earlier,” said White, a PhD student in CMDI’s media studies department who researches surveillance and online identity. “Our social media feeds are so jumbled together that the narrative gets broken up, and it becomes difficult to see the underlying patterns.

“There needs to be a voice encouraging us to look at these as a group, and say, ‘Isn’t it
weird how all these memes are about someone watching what you’re doing?’”

A late-night doomscrolling session kicked off White’s scholarly interest in the topic. As she went through her Instagram feed, she saw an image of a text message setting up a hookup, helped along by an FBI agent.

“I just felt there was something there. And then I started coming across more memes related to the FBI agent,” she said. “So I essentially curated this family of memes around surveillance, and how this character is helping to hyper-normalize that.”

To illustrate the connections linking these media, White curated a gallery of memes in ATLAS earlier this year that highlight patterns related to surveillance. For the exhibit, she printed the images and put them in ostentatious frames, highlighting the ugly meme aesthetic while emphasizing that the media were being shown out of their element—“one way memes
have left the digital sphere,” as she put it.

There needs to be a voice encouraging us to look at these as a group, and say, ‘Isn’t it weird how all these memes are about someone watching what you’re doing?’”

Olga White, PhD student

Another example of this is when the language of memes creeps into our speech, something White sees in Generation Alpha’s adoption of “Ohio,” “sigma” and other terms into everyday speech.

“Now, to understand what a person is saying, we have to understand what a particular meme meant,” she said. “And that’s hard, because memes are rooted in the context of the culture that created them. It becomes a ‘you had to be there’ moment.”

She brought her classes to the exhibit, asking them to deliberately spend time with each meme, as they might in a museum, to understand the patterns on display.

“The most gratifying comment I got was from a student who said, ‘I want to tell my mom she was right—that when I spent a lot of time diving into gamer culture, I didn’t realize what I was taking out of it,’” White said. “Hearing students say things like that convinced me there was value to this work.

“And I hope he called his mom afterward.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Memes on their own are good entertainment. Studying them as a collection, and seeing some of the themes they share, is no laughing matter, a PhD student says.

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