Research

A new study from alumna Robin Stevens and senior research scientist Amy Bleakley surveyed black and Hispanic youth about their social media experiences, finding that as many as 84% report exposure to risk-related content but only a fifth actually post such material.

Over the past 30 years, violent conflicts have taken more than two million lives and caused millions more to become refugees. Often, this violence stems from unresolved intergroup conflict, between Turks and Kurds, Burmese and Rohingya, or Israelis and Palestinians.

Ozan Kuru, an Annenberg Public Policy Center postdoctoral fellow, is part of a team that has been awarded a misinformation and social science research grant from WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging platform which has 1.5 billion users.

At least 120 countries around the world require pictorial warning labels on cigarette packages — for example gangrene feet or a dead body — but the United States is notably missing from the list. Despite a 2009 congressional act instructing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to implement pictorial warning labels, American cigarette packs still contain text-only warning labels. A new court order issued in September 2018 says the FDA must speed up its timeline for the implementation of pictorial warning labels.

For two weeks this summer, six Annenberg doctoral students traveled to Berlin to immerse themselves in some of the most haunting episodes of modern German history: the Holocaust and the Cold War. 

Led by Barbie Zelizer, Raymond Williams Professor of Communication and Director of the Center for Media at Risk, SummerCulture is a two-week intensive research experience for Annenberg graduate students held in a different foreign country each year.

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 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 National Communication Association’s 104th annual convention, “Communication at Play,” will take place November 8-11 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Below are the presentations being contributed by Annenberg faculty and graduate students, organized by date and time. Most events will take place at the Salt Palace Convention Center, although a few sessions will meet at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center.

Thursday, November 8

8:00am – 9:15am

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.   

Social media networks, which often foster partisan antagonism, may also offer a solution to reducing political polarization, according to new findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from a team led by Professor Damon Centola.