Newhouse School of Communications
Mass Communications PhD:
Doctoral students are taught by a wide variety of Newhouse faculty, depending on the student's chosen course of study. In addition, students work with faculty from across the several disciplines at the University as a whole, again in accordance with the student's area of specialty.
Sue Alessandri
Alessandri's work focuses on corporate and institutional brands, with an emphasis on how brand identities are projected, perceived and protected. Current projects include a look at the relationship among corporate identity promotion strategy, reputation and firm performance, and an exploration of the multiplicity of university identities and images and how they are both projected and perceived.
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Makana Chock
Chock's research interests are in media processes and effects and perceived realism. She is currently examining the ways that the structure and content of media messages about health and social risks, specifically safer-sex and anti-smoking PSAs, affect adults' and adolescents' attitudes and perceptions of the social norms relating to the message topics. She is also investigating the relationship between gender norms, attitudes about cosmetic surgery, and viewing reality television programs.
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George Comstock
Comstock’s interests include the art and science of research synthesis, the influence of media in the socialization of children, and the dynamics of public opinion. His most recent publication is The Psychology of Media and Politics (2005), (co-authored with Erica Scharrer), and forthcoming (2006) titles include "Media and Popular Culture" in Vol. IV of The Handbook of Child Psychology ; and "A Sociological Perspective on Television Violence and Aggression" in American Behavioral Scientist. A work in progress (forthcoming, 2007) is a 2nd Edition of his 1991 Television and the American Child (with Haejung Paik) under the new title, Media and the American Child, co-author Erica Scharrer.
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Bradley Gorham
Gorham is interested in how the psychological processing of media messages about race, gender and other social groupings work to support or challenge dominant ideology. He is also interested in how the motivations people have for consuming media influence the types of effects the media content will have. Recent research of his, which will be published in the Journal of Communication, looked at the linguistic intergroup bias and its relationship to media use.
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Carol Liebler
Liebler's primary research interests are in media and diversity, exploring such topics as the ethnicity of minority journalists; newsroom autonomy in relation to race and gender; and the impact of gender on news source selection. A 2004 book chapter examined disparities in news coverage of missing girls, in which she concluded that mediated images are constructed in relation to racial and class location, and appear to perpetuate societal hierarchies. Continuing this line of inquiry is a current project analyzing media coverage of children missing or displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Liebler is also working on a project with a former student examining media coverage of gay marriage before and after the 2004 election.
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Patricia Longstaff
Longstaff is currently interested in how communication operates in complex, unpredictable systems such as natural disasters. She was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for a multidisciplinary study the role of "resilience" in many systems (what makes them "bounce back" from disasters). She will study the role of communication systems in building resilience for local communities. She has also studied the communications industry as a complex system that adapts to changes in its environment and the implications this has for public policy. Her other research interests are international communications and its regulation.
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Pamela Shoemaker
Shoemaker's primary interest involves news content and the forces that shape it, including the gatekeeping process. Since 2000, she has studied mass media content internationally. News Around the World: Practitioners, Content and the Public (with A. Cohen, 2006) describes Shoemaker's theory that news cross-culturally can be defined according to the deviance and social significance of the events, people, or ideas covered.
In 2005, Shoemaker began a continuing study (with Y. Zhang) of how Chinese and U.S. newspapers cover international terrorism – events outside of either country. In late 2005 she began a series of experiments to investigate the causal link between viewing deviant images and the arousal or attention people pay to them. In 2006 she is studying the content of China's investigative television news program, News Probe, to assess how changes in the country’s culture may be reflected in the weekly program. In addition, she has an ongoing interest in the structure of theories and how they can be improved. She has been co-editor of Communication Research since 1997.
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Brenda Wrigley
Wrigley is conducting a case study of a college's transition to coed education with her colleague, Carla Lloyd, and two graduate students. This study involves change management theory. In addition, she is analyzing data and writing up several studies on gender discrimination conducted in the U.S. auto industry with women working in Public Relations and Communications Management. She is also revising articles on gender discrimination in working environments in Korea, Japan and Singapore. Wrigley's primary research area is in gender issues in the workplace, with other issues of diversity as a major focus. She also has done work in crisis communication, crisis preparedness for bioterrorism incidents, and Public Relations ethics.
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Sean Yang
Yang is currently conducting a study on blog-mediated public relations. Based on theories in narrative psychology, interpersonal communication, and public relations, this study proposes a blog-mediated public relations model called a Micro Public Relations Model. The salience of narrative structure, dialogic disposition as a dialogical self, and perceived blogger credibility are assumed to lead to increased interactivity, which ultimately culminates in higher relational trust. Yang's other research interests include university-student relations, and the visual identity, branding and reputation of universities. Yang is also conducting experimental research which studies the effects corporate social responsibility messages.
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