Studying the role of communication in politics, adolescent behavior, child development, health care, civics, and mental health; helping policy-makers, journalists, scholars, constituent groups, and the general public understand the role that media play in their lives.
Research Centers
Collaborative research is common at the Annenberg School, often taking place through our established centers and labs. Learn more about them below.
An institute of advanced study that aims to produce world class, field-defining research, grounded in a vision of “inclusive globalization” that embraces bottom-up actors and the stunning diversity of global media, politics and culture.
The Center for Experimental Ethnography seeks to amplify discussions regarding the emerging forms scholarly research is taking in the humanities and social sciences, and to create institutional interventions related to nontraditional genres of research practice and dissemination.
The mission of the Center is to develop and evaluate theory-based, culturally sensitive, and developmentally appropriate strategies to reduce health-risk behaviors, and to identify ways to implement HIV risk reduction and health promotion interventions.
The Center for Media at Risk is devoted to fostering free and critical media practice and scholarship. The Center provides a hub for practical and scholarly discussions of the global media environment and how its practitioners work under threatening political conditions.
The Center on Digital Culture and Society supports critical, interdisciplinary scholarship and dialogue on all aspects of digital culture, technology, and society.
Taking an interdisciplinary communication neuroscience approach to link neural activity to behaviors at the individual, group, and population levels. Much of the work focuses on health communication and the design of better interventions, programs, and policies.
Engaging undergraduate students in a public service dialogue through a special program combining individual research opportunities with hands-on experiences in the public arena. Students meet with and learn from current and former public office holders, journalists, and public servants.
The Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics promotes research on the many ways citizens interact with the political world. Much of ISCAP’s research focuses on public opinion, political psychology, and political communication.
The MIC Center is a joint venture between Penn's Annenberg School and Rutgers University. It is committed to studying the political economy of social problems, media, and democracy, while engaging local activist projects and drawing connections with national and international social movements.
Using mathematical models and online empirical methods to study collective behavior, research in the group focuses on how social and institutional changes can have unexpected effects on collective political, social, and health outcomes.
The Peace and Conflict Neuroscience Lab aims to put science to work for peace by using the tools of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience to (1) characterize the processes driving conflict, such as empathy and dehumanization, and (2) empirically evaluate peacebuilding efforts.
Communication about tobacco products has been transformed by the digital marketing revolution and the rapid diffusion of emerging social media, leaving product information and misinformation readily available. Penn TCORS works to separate fact from fiction about tobacco products.