Margaret
L.
McLaughlin

Professor Emerita of Communication
Margaret McLaughlin is a social scientist whose work focuses on health information seeking and sharing by underserved, marginalized and stigmatized populations.
Academic Program Affiliation: 
Margaret McLaughlin is a social scientist whose work focuses on health information seeking and sharing by underserved, marginalized and stigmatized populations.
Expertise: 
Computation and Informatics, Data and Coding, Digital Media, Diversity and Inclusion, Health, Social Media, Technology and Innovation

Margaret
L.
McLaughlin

Professor Emerita of Communication
Academic Program Affiliation: 

Tabs

Margaret L. McLaughlin is a professor of communication at USC Annenberg and former senior associate dean for faculty affairs. She has served as president of the International Communication Association, founding co-editor of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and editor of communication at Yearbook and Communication Monographs. She currently serves on the editorial boards of Discourse and Communication, Discourse Studies, and Wireless Engineering and Technology.

Her books include Conversation: How Talk is Organized; The Psychology of Tactical Communication (co-edited with M. Cody); Explaining One’s Self to Others: Reason-giving in a Social Context (co-edited with M. Cody and S. Read); Network and Net-play: Virtual Groups on the Internet (co-edited with F. Sudweeks and S. Rafaeli); and Touch in Virtual Environments: Haptics and the Design of Interactive Systems (co-edited with J. Hespanha and G. Sukhatme). Her work has appeared in top journals in the field including JCMC, Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Health Communication, Journal of Health Communication, Communication Research, Computers in Human Behavior, Journal of Communication, Journalism Studies, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Human Communication Research, and Communication Monographs.

She has won numerous top paper awards for her work presented at professional conferences, including meetings of the National Communication Association, HCI Virtual and Mixed Reality conference, and HCI Conference on Cross-Cultural Design. Funding for her research has been provided by Hitachi America, the USC Arts Initiative, TATRC, National Institutes of Health, the Zumberge Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Annenberg Trust. At USC she has chaired the Faculty Advisory Committee on Technology Enhanced Learning, served on the University Research Committee, and chaired the USC Task Force on Online Identification and Assessment Procedures.

Awards and honors:

Distinguished Visiting Research Scholar, School of Communication, Boston University (2019)
“An Integrated Approach to Creating Enriched Speech Translation Systems.” National Science Foundation (2013)
Top Paper Award, HCI Conference on Cross-Cultural Design (2013)
Top Paper Award, HCI Virtual and Mixed Reality Conference (2011)
Mellon Foundation Award for Excellence in Mentoring (2008)

Journal Articles

“Safe at home: Acceptance of surveillance technology among caregivers for persons with dementia,” co-author (2021, under review)

“Negative moral emotions Increase post sharing: Multivariate analyses of vaping-related discussions in online communities,” co-author (International Communication Association, 2021)

“Public responses regarding vape ban on Reddit: A longitudinal topic modeling approach,” co-author (Proceedings of HCI International, 2021).

“Exploring the relationship between familism and the intent to practice safe sex among Chinese women living in the United States: An Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction approach,” co-author (Journal of Communication for Healthcare, 2020)

“Social media propagation of content promoting risky health behavior,” co-author (Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 2017)

“Acculturation to both American and Chinese cultures predicts condom use intent among US-dwelling Chinese/Taiwanese men who have sex with men,” co-author (Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 2017)

“Exploring willingness to participate in clinical trials by ethnicity,” co-author (Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 2017) 

“A comparison between Caucasians and African Americans in willingness to participate in cancer clinical trials: The roles of knowledge, distrust, information sources and religiosity,” co-author (Journal of Health Communication, 2016)