Faculty

Among the most prestigious journals in the field of Communication, the Journal of Communication publishes the best Communication scholarship, including interdisciplinary research. Nine Annenberg alumni and one faculty member recently assumed editorial roles at the Journal of Communication, the flagship journal of the International Communication Association.

Despite the disruptions affecting journalism business models, shrinking newsroom resources, and growing local news deserts, Philadelphia residents say they are often overwhelmed with the amount of information that they get on a daily basis, according to a new report published today by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

The question of how Donald Trump won the 2016 election looms over his presidency. Were the 78,000 voters who gave him an Electoral College victory affected by the Russian trolls and hackers? Trump has denied it, and so, too, has Vladimir Putin. Others cast the answer as unknowable.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s new book, Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President—What We Don’t, Can’t, and Do Know, is the focus of an eight-page article in the New Yorker. The book focuses on whether Russian meddling had a decisive impact in the 2016 election.

A New York City school teacher reflects on the experience of teaching a boys-only class about feminism. A single-mother student uses poetry to discuss the hidden struggles many people face while working toward a college degree. Graduate students reckon with how to handle the scholarly work of people who committed violence against women.

These are just three of the 14 pieces included in a new zine on feminist pedagogy, co-organized by Jessa Lingel, Assistant Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication.

The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Rutgers University announced yesterday that they have received one of nine grants from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) new round of Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS). The grant is for five years and totals $18 million. As part of UPenn TCORS, Annenberg Professor Joseph N. Cappella will receive funding to study ways to correct misperceptions about the next generation of “reduced harm” tobacco products.

The Center for Media at Risk, directed by Professor Barbie Zelizer, is welcoming its inaugural visiting scholars this academic year: Wendy Chun (Simon Fraser University), Cherian George (Hong Kong Baptist University), and Ruth Ben-Ghiat (New York University).

Public health messages often tell people things they don’t want to hear: Smokers should stop smoking. Sedentary people need to get moving. Trade your pizza and hot dogs for a salad with lean protein.

For many people, these messages trigger our natural defenses. They make us feel bad about ourselves and our choices, leading our subconscious to reject the healthy encouragement.   

As the 2018-2019 school year begins, six new visiting scholars and 15 new postdoctoral fellows are joining the Annenberg School for Communication, the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and several other Annenberg research centers. These scholars will research alongside and collaborate with Annenberg faculty, staff, and students for anywhere from one semester to several years.

Southern Africa has some of the highest rates of sexual assault in the world, with 20 percent of adolescent girls and boys reporting that they have been forced to have sex. In many cases, they are also the perpetrators: in one survey, 12 percent of boys and 5 percent of girls admitted they have forced someone else into sex.

Given that forced sex experiences are linked to increased rates for HIV, depression, suicide, substance use, and early pregnancy — and it is a problem that spans the globe — it is an area ripe for public health interventions.