Professor Hyunyi Cho conducts research in a variety of topics, including media literacy and racial justice, in addition to her most recent study analyzing the stigmatization of Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a racial ethnic minority, Cho said she felt there was no research more timely and justified than this and that her drive to solve the problem became the “undercurrent” for this work.
“I am providing a scientific explanation for a very important social phenomenon,” she said.
In her study about the stigmatization of Asian Americans, Cho examined the factors leading to the stigmatization, as well as the factors preventing ongoing stigmatization. She found that racial prejudice combined with the fear of the pandemic were the strongest predictors of stigmatization.
Cho’s research has been published by many journals such as Communication Research, New Media and Society, Communication Monographs, and Journal of Communication. She was also an editor of the SAGE Handbook of Risk Communication and Health Communication Message Design: Theory and Practice.
Cho teaches risk communication at the undergraduate level and health communication at the graduate level. Beyond teaching, Cho spends time helping graduate students with their own research.
Prior to teaching at Ohio State, Cho taught at Emerson College in Boston as well as Purdue University. She received her PhD from Michigan State University. Cho said she hopes her research will be used to create positive change.
“[I want to see] how communication [can] be used for promoting good and to better the society,” Cho said. “I think communication is so important, and these days even more important because of social media. It is so intimately intertwined with politics, health, how we see the world, and how we make decisions.”
Article by Student Gregory Greenblatt.
