Carsey-Wolf Center at UC Santa Barbara 
As part of its Media Industries – AI Research Initiative, the Carsey-Wolf Center is delighted to sponsor FAMST 55AI. This course focuses on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on all aspects of the media industries, from sports and social media to video games, animation, television, film, and talent representation. Each week, we will host esteemed industry guests and visiting scholars to address these vital topics and transformations in production, distribution, exhibition, labor, and marketing across numerous domains of media.
Distinguished guests for Spring 2026
Ian Krietzberg, AI Correspondent, Puck
Zack Kass, Global AI Advisor and Former Head of Go-To-Market, OpenAI
Sarah Fowler, General Counsel, SAG-AFTRA
Elliott Wolf, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Wolf Games
Elaine Low, Staff Writer (Hollywood Business), The Ankler
Michael Fisk, Chief Executive Officer, Callandor Group
Chris Jacquemin, Head of Digital Strategy, WME
Jennifer Porst, Associate Professor & Co-Director of Film and Media Management, Emory University
Greg Steirer, Professor (Media Industries and Creative Labor), Dickinson College
Joe Franzetta, Head of Sports, Roku Media
Alisa Perren, Professor and Director of Industry Relations, UT Austin
Jackie Brenneman, CEO and President, The Independent Film and Television Alliance
Jennifer Howell, Chief Creative Officer, Deep Voodoo
Kathleen Grace, Chief AI Officer, Lionsgate
Instructors
Jennifer Holt is Professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara and a former Fellow with the Center for Democracy & Technology. Her research focuses on media industries, infrastructures, and policy. She is the author of Empires of Entertainment (2011), and Cloud Policy: A History of Regulating Pipelines, Platforms, and Data (MIT Press, 2024). She is also co-editor of the SAGE Handbook of the Digital Media Economy (2022); Distribution Revolution (2014); Connected Viewing: Selling, Streaming & Sharing Media in the Digital Age (2013); and Media Industries: History, Theory, Method (2009). Her work has appeared in the Journal of Information Policy, Media Industries, Convergence, and International Journal of Communication, among others. Holt is also a co-founder and editorial collective member of the Media Industries journal.
Ross Melnick is Professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara and Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center. He was named an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Scholar and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow for his book Hollywood’s Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World (Columbia University Press, 2022), which was awarded the 2024 Culbert Family Book Prize from the International Association for Media and History and the 2023 Richard Wall Memorial Award from the Theatre Library Association. He is the author of American Showman: Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry (CUP, 2012), co-editor of Rediscovering U.S. Newsfilm: Cinema, Television, and the Archive (AFI/Routledge, 2018), and co-author of Cinema Treasures (MBI, 2004), inspired by the website (cinematreasures.org) that he co-founded 25 years ago.