Join us for research presentations from Annenberg School of Communication PhD students:

Caitlin Dobson
“I Can't Help But Tell the Truth About What They'd Done to Me”: Studying Media Representations of the Rape of Recy Taylor

Through my dissertation project titled Multiple Perpetrator Rape: A Critical Intersectional Study of Media and Sexual Violence, I focus on media representations of the rape of Recy Taylor, by multiple white men in 1944 Alabama; the wrongful conviction and incarceration of the now Exonerated Five, formerly known as the Central Park Five since 1989; and the rape and ultimate murder of both medical student Jyoti Singh in Delhi in 2012, and veterinarian Priyanka Reddy in Hyderabad in 2019. In this case study chapter I examine news media and social media discourse, secondary archival data, and the documentary titled The Rape of Recy Taylor to examine media representations of Recy, her perpetrators, and discourse surrounding both. Using critical discourse analysis and intersectionality as method, I examine how media representations and depictions of the phenomenon of multiple perpetrator rape shape narratives about this distinct form of sexual violence.

Joo-Wha Hong
Can AI Be My Personal Doctor? The Influence of Warmth and Competence in AI-Patient Communication

While AI is expected soon to take the labors and the role of physicians, how people come to genuinely perceive AI healthcare chatbots as physicians is still questionable. To answer this question, a study was conducted with a chatbot providing online medical information advice to its user using the Machines-As-Networked-Actors (MANA) model, particularly focusing on the influence of warmth and competence. 

Steffie Kim
Still afraid to socialize after COVID-19? The effects of social anxiety on (un)mediated communication and social connectedness in close relationships
Authors: Steffie Kim, Feixue Nan, Assistant Professor Lindsay Young, & Professor Lynn Miller

Recognizing that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way people connect, this study examines how social anxiety affects (un)mediated communication and social connectedness, and how close relationships play a role in the associations among them.

Ashley Phelps and Amber Lynn Scott
Understanding COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in U.S. military families
Presentation by Amber Lynn Scott

This study explores how American military families are navigating health behaviors and decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic and introduction of a COVID-19 vaccination effort in the United States. Through a series of in-depth interviews, we explore how military families perceive the COVID-19 pandemic, how various sources of information have influenced their behavior, and what beliefs and attitudes are driving their vaccine acceptance or hesitancy. 

Tyler Quick
Methodology on the Margins and Social Media Research

This paper discusses the methodological challenges of researching gay men’s social media usage and culture. Juxtaposing focus groups and other “bulk data” gathering operations with qualitative methods, this paper suggests that the hyper-subjective nature of social media experience can neither be replicated in an experimental setting nor adequately captured via “representative” samples of users. Because we already know that algorithmic technology contorts social media’s field of visibility to sate consumers’ scopophilic desires, we in the academy must think more creatively and critically about the scope of our claims about social media.

RSVP