Tingyu Chen | Media and Cinema

I am a researcher and practitioner of audio-visual media. Currently I am working towards a Ph.D in Communication with an emphasis on media and cinema studies at the Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My current research focus on motion and emotion in cinema, gender studies, and science and technology studies. I am also interested in how computer-assisted techniques can help us understand media and culture at large.

Before joining the ICR, I completed my BA in Journalism and MA in Communication at Renmin University of China. During my study there, I received professional practices in different realms of media production and distribution through my internship at Photographer’s Companion Magazine, CCTV, Tencent Video and IQIYI. Working with a wide range of industrial actors has granted me both familiarity with various production and distribution skills and a critical awareness of the different apparatuses behind the meaning-making of audio-visual languages. This practical-critical path shapes my way of thinking about and working with media.

Reading and writing in diaspora also makes me recognize the inequality behind knowledge production around the Globe, which leads to my interest in open(-source) academic practices. I am also interested in different possibilities of academic writings. One of my current explorations is videographic criticism, through which I experiment with the possibility of audio-visual language itself as an alternative for academic argumentation/evocation. See Videographic Work for some of my explorations.

Keywords

Media and Cinema Studies

Gender Studies

Science and Technology Studies

Videographic Criticism

Digital Humanities