Start the Faculty Research Forum with a casual gathering over pizza. Connect with colleagues, meet fellow researchers, and get ready for an afternoon of insightful discussions and presentations.

Participants: Jan Fernback, Andrew Iliadis, Larisa Mann, Clemencia Rodriguez
Moderator: Clemencia Rodriguez

Based on their current research, Klein professors will discuss urgent questions around surveillance technology, identity authentication, algorithmic discrimination, and the need to develop strong governance frameworks to regulate the digital. How do emerging technologies—such as surveillance or identity authentication—disrupt everyday life? How does algorithmic discrimination impact certain communities more than others? Are surveillance technologies making our communities safer? Who designs these technologies and for what purposes? The panel will also consider current global attempts to re-think the governance, architecture, design, and applications of digital communication technologies.

Participants: Jill Bauer-Reese, Bruce Hardy, Lauren Kogen, Jennifer Midberry, Taxa Pixley
Moderator: Osei Alleyne

This informal roundtable discussion will focus on key issues surrounding the design and practice of community-engaged research. Participants will describe some of the community-engaged projects taking place within the Klein community, address the ethical and practical challenges and concerns that arise in the development and implementation of community-engaged work and offer suggestions for best practices.

Take a break, grab a coffee and continue the conversation with colleagues.

Participants: Sherri Hope Culver, Jessica Castonguay, Meghnaa Tallapragada, Laura Zaylea
Moderator: Deborah Cai

This panel brings together faculty address key issues in the evolving field of children’s media. Presentations will discuss the complexities of producing a web series with child actors, including ethical considerations, and the unique challenges of working with young talent; global research highlighting the importance of high-quality content in children’s media, emphasizing its role in cognitive and emotional development; and the impact of social media on the mental health of teens. Together, these presentations will provide insights on how academic and industry practices intersect in shaping content for young audiences.

Participants: Geoff Baym, Carolyn Kitch and Linn Washington
Moderator: Fab Darling-Wolf

This panel will feature the current projects of Klein faculty conducting historical research. Dr. Baym will share his deep dive into an old family story involving the radical Yiddish language press in Philadelphia and NYC and his great-grandparents' year-long odyssey through revolutionary Russia. Dr. Kitch will discuss the problems and possibilities of “ephemera,” seemingly miscellaneous media culture from the past, as well as archival evidence that doesn’t seem to make sense where it is. Drawing from examples she has encountered in her research, she will consider how such discoveries might invite us to rethink our assumptions about how we categorize and evaluate evidence in ways that shape, and limit, the story of media history. Finally, Professor Washington will draw from his decades-long investigative work on the 1985 MOVE bombing, to reflect on the lessons to be learned from the tragic event and its media coverage.

Moderator: Eric Kennedy

• Newspeople of the world: A transnational comparison of fictional newsrooms and female journalists in drama between Taiwan and the US - Darren Chan and Lexi Haskell
• Princesses, assassins, maids, and grand order: Portrayals of Chevalier d'Éon in video games - Viola Glubok
• You play, you want a revolution: Memory and education in videogames set in the American Revolution - Trystram Spiro-Costello and Nick Manolis

Moderator: Margarita Artoglou

• Seen but not seated: Women’s paradoxical perspectives on leadership and progress - Marian Grace Braccia 
• Political participation: Youth claim a seat at the table - Julia Longo
• Would you date a Republican? A secondary data analysis of the relationship between LGB people and political affiliation in the online dating arena - Yelena Dzhanova

Dr. Kun Xu, University of Florida

Moderator: Cindy Fang

Dr. Kun Xu is an associate professor of Emerging Technologies at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (UFCJC). Xu's research focuses on the intersection of human-computer interaction, computer-mediated communication and psychological processing of media. His work investigates how people perceive, process and respond to a range of AI-based technologies, including social robots, virtual agents and augmented characters. His lead-authored works have been published in journals such as Communication Theory, New Media & Society and the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Currently, he serves as the director of two labs: the Media Effects and Technology Lab (METL) and the UFCJC Research Lab.  

Moderator: Anyun Chatterjee

• The role of social media in fostering civic engagement: A diffusion of innovation perspective on Sub-Saharan Africa - Cleves Nkie Mongo
• The role of social media news preference in political polarization, science, and COVID-19 vaccination - Yujie Zhong
• The convergence of theories: The network audience and the public of the social media - Anu Olagunju
• From Actant to “AIctant”: The rise of material organization - Keyu Chen

Moderator: Zachary Rzicznek

• Rethinking Tarde’s model in the social media era and digital news: The moderating role of proximity - Cleves Nkie Mongo
• From panic to policy: Media’s role in the war on drugs - Joelle DelPrete
• Disparate news publics: Tracking news and conversation flow in the digital age - Yelena Dzhanova
• Online news exposure and voter turnout in congressional elections: A civic voluntarism perspective - Keyu Chen

Klein will announce the Top Paper Awards.

Dr. Teresa Thompson, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Dr. Teresa Thompson received her doctorate in Communication from Temple University in 1980 after completing her bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her master's at Purdue. Her doctoral advisor was Art Bochner. She has taught at the University of Delaware and the University of Dayton, from which she is now Professor Emeritus. She currently teaches Health Communication and Health Ethics at the University of Kansas. Her early work focused on communication and disability issues, which merged into the broader area of health communication as it was developing in the early 1980s. She has published 80-some articles and written or edited eight books, including all three editions of the Routledge Handbook of Health Communication. She was the founding and long-time editor-in-chief of the journal Health Communication; she stepped down from that position at the beginning of 2025. She is currently working on two additional books.