University of Kentucky

Studies online and citizen journalism and journalists' role conceptions, along with how brands' humanlike social media presence drives consumer engagement, in US and South Korean contexts.

Studies college fraternity culture, nonprescribed stimulant use, and cigar smoking, including qualitative analyses of alcohol and persuasion in popular fraternity films.

Studies television and film through critical textual analysis of religion, gender, and sexuality, from Catholic horror and Mad Men to queer comedy.

Studies communication in medical decision making, from ICU family meetings and advance care planning to genetic risk disclosure and cancer survivorship, mainly through qualitative and mixed methods.

Studies advertising creativity, visual communication, and advertising careers and diversity, including content analysis of graphic and design elements.

Studies persuasive health message design and interventions, including sensation seeking, substance use prevention, and randomized trials of HIV/HCV screening messages in emergency departments.

Studies and evaluates large-scale health communication campaigns on opioids, tobacco, and HPV vaccination, using formative focus groups and randomized message trials in Kentucky communities.

Studies instructional and risk communication, examining how hazard and weather warning messages shape risk perception and how students communicate in team-based and online learning.

Studies the uses and effects of video games, exergames, and sports media, including audience responses to portrayals of athlete intimate partner violence, including experimental and content-analytic work.

Studies media framing of LGBTQ+ issues, especially gay and trans athletes, and lifestyle advertorials, using framing and discourse analysis of US news and digital media.

Studies health and social marketing campaigns and inoculation messaging, testing message length and modality in experiments on vaccine uptake and college students' mental health.

Studies communication in healthcare organizations, linking hospital built environments, care teams, and patient safety through observation, behavior mapping, and focus groups.

Studies digital media use and mental health among Chinese students, including problematic smartphone use, gaming, and pandemic coping, mainly through surveys and mixed methods.

Studies language attitudes, accent bias, and linguistic stereotypes, examining how processing fluency and social categorization shape listeners' evaluations of speakers.

Studies the boundary between journalism and advertising, using ethnographic case studies of organizational conflict over advertorials in news organizations.

Studies labor, technology, ownership, and burnout in US local television newsrooms, including unionization and the working conditions of digital journalists.

Studies television, children's media, and fandom, analyzing gender representation and industrial intertextuality in franchises such as Disney, Barbie, and My Little Pony.

Studies corporate social responsibility, cause-related marketing, and green advertising, testing through experiments how messages drive consumers' and Gen Z's pro-environmental behavior.

Studies how consumers process branded content in digital spaces, including influencer marketing, native advertising, live-streaming commerce, and AI influencers, using mixed methods.

Studies photojournalism and visual journalism, examining ethical dilemmas, professional versus citizen roles, and framing through content analysis of news images and television.

Studies cause-related marketing, CSR, and digital consumer engagement, including virtual influencers, ChatGPT adoption, and Korean media-driven tourism.

Studies how people manage difficult conversations, including romantic partners discussing relationship problems and families and peers talking about health, coping, and social support.

Designs and evaluates persuasive messages and interventions for complex or stigmatized health issues such as clinical trials, cancer screening, and mental health, across media and countries.

Studies communication and interorganizational networks with social network analysis and machine learning, including AI coding of small group interaction and corporate control networks.

Studies the dark side of interpersonal, health, and organizational communication, including workplace and online sexual harassment, burnout, and intimate partner violence, through qualitative methods.

Holds a faculty post in the School of Journalism and Media; the department profile gives no research description.

Studies cultural studies, modernism, typography, and rhetorical delivery, using critical and textual analysis of popular and literary texts such as self-help books.

Studies athlete and influencer self-branding and social media self-presentation, comparing Chinese and US sport audiences and examining how branding cues shape trust and authenticity.

Studies how people maintain friendships, family ties, and well-being through texting, group chats, memes, and chatbots, including queer friendships and loneliness.

Holds a faculty post in integrated strategic communication; the department profile gives no research description.

Studies organizational communication among foreign and migrant workers, including acculturation, stigma, upward dissent, defensive silence, and workplace gossip, with attention to Japan and the US.

Studies sport communication and athlete social media self-presentation across Chinese and US contexts, comparing cultural values in fan and audience responses.

Studies public interest communication and social marketing, designing campaigns on health and risk issues such as lung cancer screening and opioid abatement with community partners and focus groups.

Studies family communication under stress, such as bereavement, infertility, and political conflict, using longitudinal dyadic surveys to test relational turbulence and communal coping.

Holds a faculty post in the Department of Communication; the department profile gives no research description.

Holds a faculty post in integrated strategic communication; the department profile gives no research description.

Studies patient-provider communication and social support, especially international medical graduates' verbal and nonverbal strategies and migrants' coping, drawing on qualitative methods and scoping reviews.

Studies how organizational discourses shape employees' emotions, compassion, resilience, and dirty work, using interviews and ethnography to surface organizational contradictions.

Studies how US communication law and policy have shaped speech, press, assembly, and religious expression since the nineteenth century, using historical research on media law and surveillance.

Holds a faculty post in the School of Journalism and Media; the department profile gives no research description.

Studies team communication in high reliability organizations and the military, including grief and embodied trauma after organizational failure, using qualitative and content analysis.

Studies media law and public records, analyzing tensions between open records laws, privacy, and college athletes' name, image, and likeness agreements.

Studies visual communication, digital media, and health contexts, especially media messages about people living with dementia and their caregivers, plus medical tourism websites.

Holds a faculty post in the School of Journalism and Media; the department profile gives no research description.

Studies AI and human influencers, chatbots, and brand engagement on social media, using deep learning text analysis of platform data.

Studies intergroup prejudice, stereotypes, and identity in health and narrative messages, plus deception and neighborhood storytelling networks, using experiments, network analysis, and meta-analysis.