Graduate Research Highlights

Emily Pfender​, doctoral student in the Department of Communication, and Scott Caplan, professor of communication, are authors of “Nonverbal immediacy cues and impression formation in video therapy,” published in Counselling Psychology Quarterly. The increased use of video-mediated communication (VMC) due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread acceptance of mediated healthcare appointments. Mental health care is one area in which researchers might examine the effects of VMC. This study employed an experiment to test the relative influence of video therapists’ eye contact and gesture on a patient. The results contribute to understanding how nonverbal cues impact health outcomes in VMC.​​

Ph.D. student James Bingaman received the Top Student Paper Award in the Sports Communication Interest Group at the 2022 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) conference. Read more about his paper, Information about his paper Incivility and Washington's NFL franchise: Exploring uncivil discourse in sports blog comment sections. 

Ph.D. students Wyatt Dawson, Ashley Paintsil, James Bingaman, and Communication Professor Paul Brewer, Ph.D., won the Top Paper Award for the Media Communication Division at the annual Eastern Communication Association (ECA) Convention in April 2022. Read their award-winning paper, which was published on March 8 in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society: CRISPR Images: Media Use and Public Opinion about Gene Editing.

Ph.D. student Gilbert Kipkoech won the graduate poster competition at the 2022 ECA Convention. The poster was entitled "The mediating role of political discussion and political knowledge in the media influence on political participation in Kenya." In January 2022, Sage Journals published Kipkoech's article, "Connections Between Internet, Social Media News Use, and Political Participation in Kenya."

​Communication Reports published research by Ph.D. students James Bingaman and Gilbert Kipkoech and Associate Professor John Crowley, Ph.D., about an experimental test of inoculation theory to ward off the persuasive appeal of greenwashing marketing campaigns. Read Inoculation & Greenwashing: Defending Against Misleading Sustainability Messaging, published on March 6.

In December 2021, the National Communication Association appointed Ph.D. student Emily Pfender as Vice Chair of the Student Section.

Huma Rasheed, Ph.D. student, co-authored an article on how relations between the United States and China may reshape the clean energy ecosystem. As the United States and China compete in countless arenas, companies in both countries have continued to collaborate on green technology. Published in CSIS Journalism Bootcamp on December 10, 2021.