In 2023, School of Communication faculty published 65 articles in peer-reviewed journals Seven of the school’s faculty ranked among Stanford University’s “World’s Top 2%” list of the most cited scientists in the world. Eight faculty members were named International Communication Association (ICA) Fellows in recognition of their exceptional records of scholarly contribution to the field. In June 2024, more than 50 Ohio State faculty and students presented research at the annual ICA Conference, and a number received awards. Due in no small part to its status as a research powerhouse, Shanghai Ranking named Ohio State’s School of Communication No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 2 globally in 2023.
This fall, the school welcomed three new tenured and tenure-track faculty members whose research represents a formidable contribution to our community. Professor Scott Campbell is a leading scholar of mobile and social media and their consequences for everyday communication. Professor Rob Potter does cutting-edge work examining the impact of sound on how people process information. And Assistant Professor Dominik Stecuła focuses on the intersection of political communication, political behavior and science communication in American and comparative contexts.
For a deeper dive into what School of Communication faculty are up to, check out the topic overviews below, which follow the School’s four main research areas: Mass Communication Uses and Effects, Communication Technology and Society, Health Communication and Social Influence, and Political Communication and Public Opinion.
Mass Communication Uses and Effects
The media landscape continues to evolve, along with media use. The typical American now spends 3-4 hours each day with their screens, whether watching TV, engaging with social media or playing video games.
Associate Professor James "Alex" Bonus is driven to understand children’s experiences of media use. For instance, science programs love to use talking animals to engage young audiences. But this may impede children’s understanding of the real-world relevance of science. James researches cognitive obstacles such as these in order to devise better strategies.
Meanwhile, Sara Grady, an assistant professor in the school, explores the roles entertainment media play for their audiences, particularly when life becomes stressful or complex. The goal is to understand how media integrates into people's daily lives and how people use it as a coping tool.
“Media is filling a space in our lives,” says Grady. “My work is trying to understand how your life and your experience interplay with the media to affect its outcomes.”
Communication Technology and Society
Many theories of communication are based on face-to-face interactions; however, the online environment has challenged researchers to understand whether and how interactions have been changed by this new medium of interchange.
School of Communication faculty are exploring this terrain in a range of exciting ways. Assistant Professor Miriam “Mimi” Brinberg is co-investigator on a $3.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to research the causes and consequences of teen digital dating abuse.
Assistant Professor Bingjie Liu seeks to understand how generative AI such as ChatGPT might be harnessed to enhance meaning in people’s lives and interpersonal relationships. And Assistant Professor Teresa Lynch’s study of female gamers in Communication Research recently hit the Reddit front page, in addition to being cited in PsyPost. (Her most provocative finding was that female gamers prefer to play as highly sexualized characters, despite disliking them.)
Our PhD students are also pursuing exciting work in this area. Charles Monge, for instance, studies online toxicity. “Despite the fact that we've been in these online spaces for decades, discrimination and targeted harassment is still happening, and on a mass scale,” said Monge. Recently he lead-authored a study in the Journal of Communication, together with faculty members Nic Matthews and David DeAndrea, examining how persistence—the relative durability or permanence of a message—affects the message’s harmfulness. The study found that persistence increased perceived harmfulness and motivated people to blame inactive/ineffective moderators for not intervening.
Health Communication and Social Influence
Communication is essential to both personal and public health. How our doctors communicate with us can directly impact our own health--and whether people trust public health messages can directly impact the health of the nation. Associate Professor Hillary Shulman works on these issues, and her recent article in Health Communication demonstrates that patients better understand and react to healthcare options when they are presented using simple language.
Meanwhile, Assistant Professor Dominik Stecuła combines health communication and political communication approaches to understand which health news sources people consider credible and why. “Ultimately what my co-authors and I try to do is identify a set of best practices for talking about vaccines, at the state and local level, in order to actually increase vaccine uptake in different communities,” said Stecuła.
Political Communication and Public Opinion
Associate Professor Jason Coronel uses eye tracking technology for research that has shown eye movements can accurately assess people’s memory for political information even when verbal reports fail to do so. He has also introduced the use of eye movements as real-time indicators of comprehension for political text and has leveraged this eye-movement data to predict real-world decisions on a broader scale.
Article produced with contributions by student Jen Kapcio
