Research question
Do we see evidence of resilience in communities without local news?
Key finding
Community resilience—including social cohesion and flexibility—can help explain how residents respond to diminished local-news access.
Why it matters
Understanding the characteristics or qualities that enable some communities to sustain in the absence of traditional journalism may be useful for helping communities facing similar threats.
How we studied it
A survey of 1,006 residents of local news desert ZIP codes in the US
This research examines news deserts as community information environments rather than only as counts of newspapers or journalists.
Research question
How do people evaluate the quality of political information?
Key finding
People’s judgments are shaped by partisanship, polarization, platform use, labels, and the broader context in which information appears.
Why it matters
Information-quality judgments influence trust, political knowledge, and the ability to participate in democratic life.
How we studied it
National surveys and experiments testing beliefs, source cues, labels, and corrective information.
This program of research studies reliable and unreliable information without treating information quality as a single binary judgment.
Research question
How do visual cues shape political judgment?
Key finding
Visual features—from political memes to campaign typography—can communicate partisan identity and influence patterns of engagement.
Why it matters
Political communication is increasingly visual, yet design choices are often treated as decoration rather than meaningful signals.
How we studied it
Experiments, interviews with designers, and content analyses of campaign materials and social media posts.
The work considers how format, design, and visual rhetoric affect what people notice, share, and infer.
Research question
What encourages people to engage more deeply with journalism?
Key finding
Referral pathways, link design, subscription appeals, and audience needs can all shape whether people continue engaging with news.
Why it matters
Sustainable journalism depends not only on producing information but also on helping audiences find, use, and support it.
How we studied it
Field experiments, online experiments, click-behavior studies, and newsroom partnerships.
This work develops practical evidence for news organizations seeking deeper audience engagement.
Research question
Can AI help people become better listeners?
Key finding
Current work tests whether real-time and reflective AI feedback can improve listening, rapport, psychological safety, and deliberation outcomes.
Why it matters
AI systems may be most useful when they support the interpersonal processes needed for productive disagreement rather than simply generating arguments.
How we studied it
Repeated face-to-face deliberations comparing real-time coaching, post-conversation reflection, and no-intervention conditions.
This emerging research asks how AI-mediated feedback shapes difficult conversations over time.