Research

On April 13, Annenberg hosted its sixth annual Graduate Student Symposium. The event was organized by a student committee including Joshua Becker, Sean Fischer, Megan Genovese, Nour Halabi, Subhayan Mukerjee, and Prateekshit Pandey (pictured at left). The day featured presentations by 18 doctoral students and candidates.

Panel 1 — How to Win Trends and Influence People: Messaging and Its Effects

Joshua Becker — "Can Individuals Benefit from the Wisdom of Crowds"

More than 65 faculty, students, postdoctoral fellows, and research staff will present research at the International Communication Association’s 68th Annual Conference, to be held May 24-28 in Prague.

"Using Research in Digital Rights Advocacy: Understanding the Research Needs of the Internet Freedom Community," a new report from Annenberg's Internet Policy Observatory, is based on a 2017 survey of 79 organizations engaged in digital rights advocacy from around the world. The report seeks to provide clarity on how the community understands and utilizes research within current advocacy efforts and to identify the needs for future research and collaboration efforts.

People’s willingness to use a Zika vaccine when it’s available will be influenced by how they weigh the risks associated with the disease and the vaccine, but also by their misconceptions about other vaccines, a new study has found.

While a Zika vaccine is in development, the study by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania examined factors that will affect the eventual acceptance or rejection of such a vaccine.

One of the recurring media narratives about the nature of science today is that it is “broken” or “in crisis.” In the mainstream press, some stories about the failure to reproduce study results or the rising retraction rate or incidents of scientific fraud have been accompanied by assertions about a “systemic crisis” in areas of science — or in science itself.

Through the Senior Honors Thesis course, three Annenberg Communication majors received funding to study graffiti along the U.S./Mexico border, how the news portrays Latinx immigrants, and the virality of online video advertising. 

Leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, probabilistic forecasting — which presents polling data as the percentage likelihood that Candidate A will win over Candidate B — was mentioned an average of 16 times per day in cable news broadcasts. Instead of predicting Hillary Clinton would win 60% of the vote, the probabilistic forecasts said she had a 70-99% chance of winning the election.

Out this month, a special edition of Critical Studies in Media Communication examines the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and DAESH) and the discourses that help create and sustain its power and the fear it instills around the globe. The issue includes articles written by Annenberg School professors Barbie Zelizer and Marwan M. Kraidy.

Following the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, Emile Bruneau noticed a pattern: howls from the far right condemning all Muslims for the attack, followed by passionate counterarguments defending the vast majority of Muslims who are blameless. The tactics were all over the map: heartstring-tugging stories of Muslim refugees overcoming adversity, logical statistics detailing the miniscule percentage of Muslims who actually commit violent acts, interviews with stereotype-defying Muslims.

What characterizes effective messaging campaigns? What makes some people more likely to share ideas? How would we know if a campaign is working? This semester, Professor Emily Falk offered a new undergraduate course to arm an emerging generation of researchers with the skills to conduct rigorous quantitative research that would allow them to answer these questions and a wide range of others.