Washington State University

Studies how media literacy helps children, adolescents, and adults make healthier decisions about health and civic affairs.

Studies discourse on digital platforms and message effects in health and politics, including misinformation correction and AI, using multi-method designs.

Studies media effects on youth sexual and romantic relationships and designs health messages to reduce sexual assault and alcohol abuse, including parent-child communication.

Studies health promotion, media literacy, and public affairs decision making in the digital era, with a focus on adolescents and communication campaign evaluation.

Studies international journalism, press freedom, and journalists' motivations, with a focus on Muslim-world perceptions of the U.S. and Islamophobia.

Studies journalism ethics and the sociology of news, examining how journalists make sense of change and how it affects journalism's role in democratic public life.

Develops and evaluates theory-based digital health communication interventions for adolescents and young adults on sexual health, substance misuse, and mental health.

Studies how interventions, media representations, and relationships shape the well-being of marginalized youth, especially LGBTQ+ youth, and audience attitudes.

Studies how news and immersive media portray refugees and vulnerable groups in humanitarian crises, using visual, semiotic, and discourse analysis plus framing experiments.

Studies how emotional appeals, visuals, and narratives in health crisis, risk, and public relations messages are processed, using eye-tracking, EDA, heart rate, and facial EMG.

Studies how consumers make sense of social issue, CSR, and mental health advertising and public service announcements, and race and ethnicity issues in health communication.

Studies message design for health, environmental, and risk campaigns, including how audiences engage with visual and entertaining messages, through community-engaged research.

Studies the role of emotions in health information processing, social support, and coping with risk and uncertainty, evaluating emotion-based communication interventions.

Studies how political information flows through digital communication ecologies and shapes public opinion, combining rhetoric and argumentation with computational social science.

Studies the state of journalism worldwide, including journalist safety and the cybersecurity and information-society challenges facing journalists.

Studies health message design and interpersonal communication to promote vaccination and other health behaviors, using quantitative and qualitative methods with underserved populations.

Studies the political economy of media and digital industries, including competition, speech, data and AI regulation, and media ownership concentration across countries.