August 12, 2026
Faculty and graduate students from the College of Media co-presented various topics of research at the 109th annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication on August 5-8, 2026, in New Orleans, Louisiana.
This year’s conference theme was “Jazz & Jambalaya: Nurturing Harmony and Health in Higher Education.” Presenters included faculty in the Institute of Communications Research, the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising, and the Department of Journalism; and graduate students in ICR’s PhD program and the MS advertising program.
Two ICR doctoral students received awards at the conference including Anthea Xiaohua He, who received second place in the Washington Media Scholar Fund Graduate Research Scholarship competition, and Anna Liu, who received an honorable mention for the Webtoon Emerging Scholar Award. In addition, a Science Communication paper co-authored by Leona Yi-Fan Su and iSchool doctoral student Mobius Ziyang Gong (MS ’22, advertising) received the 2025 Article of the Year Award from AEJMC’s Communicating Science, Health, Environment and Risk Division.
The AEJMC aims to promote the highest possible standards for journalism and mass communication education, to cultivate the widest possible range of communication research, to encourage the implementation of a multi-cultural society in the classroom and curriculum, and to defend and maintain freedom of communication to achieve better professional practice and a better-informed public.
College of Media research presenters and presentations are listed below. (Please see the AEJMC conference program for complete listings and participants.)
Scholar-to-Scholar (Poster) Refereed Research Paper Session
Visual Communication Across Digital Contexts
“Visual Metaphor Complexity: Structural, Semantic, and Cognitive Dimensions”
- Aiman Kazybayeva, ICR doctoral student
- Kevin Wise
“Measuring Mulodal Nutrition Communication on TikTok: A Computational Framework”
- Jiaxi Liu, iSchool
- Leona Yi-Fan Su
- Rong Deng, MS Advertising student
- Yijun Lu, iSchool
Consumer Literacy & Persuasion Knowledge
“I Don’t Want Ads, I Just Want Information”: When and How Persuasion Knowledge is Activated During Product Search on AI and Online Platforms”
- Boram Cho, MS Advertising student
- Jiyeon Chang, ICR doctoral student
- Michelle Nelson
- Jiayi (Joy) Wang, (BA ’24, LAS; MS ’26, advertising)
“AI-Generated Images in Food Advertising: An Equity and Construal-Level Perspective on Disclosure and Appeal Effects”
- Junqi Shao, MS Advertising student
- Leona (Yi-Fan) Su
- Yi-Cheng Wang, ACES
Persuasion Message Design
“Exploring Contemporary Rich Media: Sound Off Viewing as a Double-Sided Coin for Advertising”
- Aiman Kazybayeva, ICR doctoral student
- Michelle Nelson
- Haochen Ji, ICR doctoral student
- Jiaxi Liu, iSchool
- Minrui Chen, iSchool
- Grace Shiyang Li, MS Advertising student
- Seon Kim, MS Advertising student
- Reina Deng, MS Advertising student
- Seo-Young (Selene) Kim, ICR doctoral student
- Nengi Divine Daminabo, MS Advertising student
- Qingyang Chen, MS Advertising student
- Anthea Xiaohua He, ICR doctoral student
- Rin Xu, MS Advertising student
Communicating Climate: Framing, Narratives & Environmental Risk
“Toward Circular Fashion: A Content Analysis of Fashion Brands’ U.S. Take-Back Programs”
- Guolan Yang
- Jennifer (Shiyue) Zhang, ICR doctoral student
- Cassandra L.C. Troy
- Pratiti Diddi, George Mason University
AI in Society: Media Frames, Bias, and Human Connection
“Understanding Attachment to Digital Media Accounts: The Role of Extended Self in Attachment and Digital Hoarding”
- Zixuan (Melodie) Zhao, ICR doctoral student
- Margaret Yee Man Ng
AI Transparency, Trust & Strategic Communication
“Legitimizing AI Through Environmental CSR: Effects on Public Attitudes and Intentions”
Media Management, Economics and Entrepreneurship Division
“When Stories Have Faces: The Effects of Narrative Framing and Anthropomorphic Cues on Purchase Intention toward Imperfect Produce”
- Rin Xu, MS Advertising student
- Minrui Chen, iSchool
- Leona (Yi-Fan) Su
AI Adoption and Cross-Cultural Perspectives
“AI-Powered Information Seeking on Social Media: A Computational Analysis and Cross-Cultural Comparison on Global Users’ @Grok Behaviors”
- Anna Yan Liu, ICR doctoral student
- Maggie Mengqing Zhang, ICR doctoral student
Award Panel Session
James W. Tankard Jr./AEJMC-Knudson Latin America Prize Book Awards
Moderating/Presiding
2026 AEJMC-Knudson Latin America Prize
The Patina of Distrust: What People Do with Misinformation [The MIT Press, 2025]
Discussant
Research Panel Session
From K-pop to AI: Emerging Perspective
“Too Agreeable to Trust? When and Why Corrective AI Can Be More Persuasive”
- Seo-Jeong Heo, ICR doctoral student
Refereed Research Paper Session
Digital Platforms, Media Markets, and Political Influence
“For Profits or for Prophets? Journalistic Legitimization of Political Prediction Markets as Predictive Public Opinion”
- Sakshi Bhalla, ICR doctoral student
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