Comm Virtual Information Session - Register here!
2020-11-18 10:00 - 23:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Haines 39, Haines 39
Questions about the
UNDERGRADUATE MAJOR?
For more information about our program we invite you to attend our
INFORMATION SESSION
Wednesday, November 18 from 10am-11am
Please REGISTER for the event here to receive Zoom details.
We look forward to seeing you!
If you have any questions please contact Pia Svenson at psvenson@comm.ucla.edu

Chat with the Chair
2020-12-04 11:00 - 12:00
The Department of Communication is excited to invite our undergraduate majors to a special virtual event with Professor Kerri Johnson, Department Chair!

Comm Information Session
2021-11-10 10:00 - 11:00 | Haines 39, Haines 39
Questions about the UNDERGRADUATE COMMUNICATION MAJOR?
For more information about our program we invite you to attend our quarterly
** INFORMATION SESSION **
Wednesday, November 10 at 10am
in Rolfe 3126
We look forward to seeing you!

Brown Bag Speaker Series: C. Malik Boykin, Ph.D.
2021-12-02 11:00 - 12:00

Comm Brown Bag Talk: Seungbae Kim "Applied Machine Learning: Multi-Modal Graph Neural Network for Social Media Marketing"
2022-04-21 11:00 - 12:30 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Dear Faculty, Students, and Staff,
Please mark your calendars for our upcoming Brown Bag talk featuring Seungbae Kim!

When: Thursday, April 21, 11:00
Where: Rolfe 2303A

Dept. of Communication - Information Session
2022-05-11 11:00 - 12:00 | Haines 39, Haines 39

Comm Brown Bag Talk: Guadalupe (Lupita) Madrigal “We Won’t Give Amnesty to People with Kids”: The Effects of Integration, Family, and Community Cues in Immigration News
2022-05-12 11:00 - 12:30 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Thursday, May 12 @ 11:00

Comm Brown Bag Talk: Silvia Pagliarini
2022-05-19 11:00 - 12:30 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Thursday, May 19 @ 11:00

Censorship and the Visual Art in Los Angeles hosted by Professor Paul Von Blum
2022-05-23 18:30 - 20:30 | Rolfe 1200

Department of Communication Commencement
2022-06-12 10:30 - 13:30

Professor Shimon Edelman, Cornell University: Conscience, conditional cooperation, and the prospects of surviving capitalism
2022-06-23 11:00 - 12:30 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303

Winter 2023 Brown Bag series - Jennifer Whitson, UCLA Anderson School of Management
2023-01-19 11:00 - 12:15 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Jennifer Whitson
UCLA Anderson School of Management

Title: Conspiracy Theories and the Search for Structure
Abstract: Conspiracy theories cast disparate or unrelated entities as engaging in concerted, malevolent action. In this talk, I explore antecedents and consequences of beliefs in conspiracy theories. I first present evidence that individual characteristics (i.e., regulatory focus, political identity) and aspects about the environment (i.e., COVID-19 and social media) shape peoples’ receptiveness to conspiratorial beliefs. I then examine a timely consequence of conspiracy theories. Specifically, how COVID-19-related conspiratorial beliefs have had a significant negative impact on the perception of COVID-19 vaccine importance in the U.S.. Finally, I suggest a possible intervention that may help ameliorate the adverse effect of conspiratorial beliefs. In particular, interdependent self-construal may mitigate the relationship between the COVID-19-related conspiratorial beliefs and reduced vaccination rates by increasing the perceived health risks of going unvaccinated. Our intervention differs from previous efforts in that it does not rely on rational persuasion to dissuade people of conspiratorial notions. Instead, we focus on reducing the impact of conspiratorial beliefs by altering the way people think about their existing identities and groups.

Ritwika Vallomparambath Panikkassery Sugasree - Brown Bag Talk
2023-02-09

Jennifer Pan - Brown Bag Talk "Digital Repression"
2023-02-16 11:00 - 23:59 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Abstract: Repression research examines the causes and consequences of actions or policies that are meant to, or actually do, raise the costs of activism, protest, and/or social movement activity. The rise of digital and social media has brought substantial increases in attention to the repression of digital activists and movements and/or to the use of digital tools in repression, which is spread across many disciplines and areas of study. This paper organizes this growing welter of research under the concept of digital repression by expanding a typology that distinguishes actions based on actor type, whether actions are overt or covert, and whether behaviors are shaped by coercion or channeling. This delineation between broadly different forms of digital repression allows us to develop expectations about digital repression, better understand what is “new” about digital repression in terms of explanatory factors, and better understand the consequences of digital repression.

Measuring Media Accuracy workshop
2023-02-17 09:00 - 15:00
Colleagues,
The Measuring Media Accuracy workshop, funded by the Luskin Endowment for Thought Leadership at UCLA, is on Friday February 17th at the Luskin Conference Center. The details are attached in pdf. The program is as follows:
9:15 Welcome, by Stuart Soroka (UCLA, website)
9:30 Robert Bond (Ohio State University, website)
10:30 Amber Boydstun (UC Davis, website)
11:30 Christopher Wlezien (UT Austin, website)
12:30 Lunch
1:45 Kasper Welbers (VU University Amsterdam, website)
2:45 Leticia Bode (Georgetown, website)
The workshop is open to any interested faculty or students at UCLA. You are welcome to come to some or all of the day. (I recommend all!) An RSVP would be helpful so we can plan appropriately — and it’s especially useful if you think you’d like to join us for lunch as well. You can RSVP here: https://forms.gle/ezcaM9BTqUev4y6G8
If you’ve any questions, please do get in touch. And I’ll hope to see you on the 17th!

Comm Information Session
2023-02-22 10:00 - 11:00
Questions about the
UNDERGRADUATE MAJOR?
For more information about our program we invite you to attend our quarterly
***INFORMATION SESSION***
Wednesday, Feburary 22 at 10am
Rolfe 3126
We look forward to seeing you!

Norah Dunbar - Brown Bag Talk
2023-03-16

Jeff Hancock - Brown Bag Talk
2023-04-27

Dept of Communication - Undergraduate Information Session
2023-05-10 10:00 - 11:00 | Dodd 175

Ashley Martin, Ph.D. - Brown Bag Talk
2023-05-11 11:00 - 12:00 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Gendered Cognition: The Primacy of Gender in Seeing Human
What does it mean to be (seen as) human? In this talk, I explore this question and show that the attribution of gender is a critical component of seeing someone—or something—as human. Given gender’s primacy in social cognition, I propose that gender is linked to “seeing human” in a way that cannot be said of other social categories (i.e., race, age, sexual orientation, religion, or disability). I test this hypothesis in a number of studies that induce humanization (i.e., anthropomorphism) and measure social-category ascription, as well as those that include (versus remove) gendered information and measure humanization. I then present new work that explores gendered cognition using “non-binary” stimuli and among non-binary individuals. Finally, I explore the implications of gendered cognition for people’s preferences for, and attachment to, gendered technology. These findings underscore the importance of gender in humanization and have theoretical and practical implications for research on gender, (de)humanization, and social cognition, as well as for current discussions on gender neutrality.

Natalie Kahn Colloquium in Communication speaker Ashley Martin from the Stanford Graduate School of Business with Natalie Kahn and Roy Patience
2023-05-11 11:00 - 12:30

Department Speaker Series: Jimmy Calanchini (UCR, Psych)
2023-10-19 11:00 - 12:15 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Title: Putting the Environment Back in Person-Environment Fit

Abstract: Psychology scientists have recognized for decades that individual behavior is a function of both the person and the environment. However, due to a dominant focus on individual differences, psychological data on intergroup bias have historically been collected through small, controlled experiments with the individual as the unit of analysis – to the relative exclusion of the environment. Recent technological advancements facilitate massive amounts of data to be collected from diverse populations and locations. Capitalizing on these newly-available data, researchers can geolocate the responses of individuals to provide insight into regional variation in intergroup biases with a degree of ecological validity impossible in the laboratory. In this talk, I will present correlational evidence linking regional biases to outcomes of consequence, propose a novel theoretical perspective for understanding regional intergroup bias, and discuss future directions for this emerging line of research.

CPG: Christian Grose (USC, Political Science)
2023-11-03 12:30 - 14:00 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Title: Do Funding Communications Increase Election Officials’ Willingness to Open More Polling Places? A Field Experiment

Abstract: Can encouragement communications cause election officials to open more polling places? Does increasing spending on elections to open more polling places lead to higher voter turnout? Public officials who administer elections make decisions about the operation of elections, and these decisions are directly influenced by budgets available. However, scholars of elections have rarely examined the role of budgets on elite choices regarding making it easier to vote. I theorize that some election administrators are stewards of voter access while others are not. A field experiment was conducted during the 2020 US general election where local election officials randomly received direct communications encouraging them to apply for funding by a nonpartisan university institute; and a control group of local election officials were not. Results of the field experiment show that the randomized communication led to a 3.9%-point increase in local officials applying for and receiving the funding compared to control group officials. In a 2SLS causal model and in correlational analyses, there is evidence that exogenous increases to election budgets and exogenous increases in polling locations led to higher voter participation. The conclusions are that some public officials can be encouraged to increase voter access via budgetary or financial nudges and communications.

Department Speaker Series: Swabha Swayamdipta (USC, Computer Science)
2023-11-16 11:00 - 12:15 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Title: Understanding Online Discourse through Social Context and Structured Pragmatics
Abstract: In an increasingly online world, understanding discourse on social media is akin to understanding our society. However, when it comes to social media discourse, a disproportionate amount of focus has been laid on content moderation via hate speech detection. In this talk, I will address a key limitation of this application: existing hate speech detection systems are riddled with racial biases introduced during annotation, which are reinforced and propagated by models trained on such data. I will present the inadequacies of current methods for debiasing hate speech detection and show how the subjectivity of this task design leads to debiasing failures. Next, I will focus on uncovering the origin of bias in toxic language detection. I will demonstrate how annotators’ demographics and beliefs influence their toxicity ratings, and how ignoring such societal context can lead to biased outcomes. Finally, I will present some ongoing work on understanding online discourse on homelessness, which presents some unique challenges. Overall, I will argue for the value of rethinking traditional the hate speech classification task, and the need for richer context and nuance when considering online discourse.

CPG: Je Hoon Chae (UCLA, Communication)
2023-12-01 12:30 - 14:00 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Title:Robust Persuasive Effect of Political Fact-Checking and Remaining Challenges
Abstract:The proliferation of misinformation and the persistent gap in factual information among partisans represent significant concerns in contemporary U.S. politics. Fact-checking, a journalistic intervention aimed at verifying the accuracy of claims and information, is seen as a key strategy to address this issue. While early studies suggested a backfire effect, where strong partisans reinforce their existing beliefs when presented with counter-attitudinal corrections from fact-checkers, recent experimental evidence suggests this backfire effect is not replicable. Instead, fact-checking effectively updates the factual beliefs of even staunch partisans in line with fact-checked information. This presentation addresses two critical questions. First, to what extent is the persuasive effect of fact-checking effective across various scenarios? Through a series of randomized experimental designs, I demonstrate that the persuasive effect of fact-checking remains robust even when presented by an out-group source, when the credibility of fact-checkers is impaired, or when headlines are automatically tagged on social media posts. Second, how extensively do U.S. partisans consume fact-checking content, particularly cross-cutting fact-checking? By analyzing original articles from PolitiFact, their Twitter posts, and retweet patterns, I show that a disproportionate number of fact-checking articles written by PolitiFact, a major political fact-checking organization, are counter-attitudinal from the Republican standpoint. Furthermore, the sharing patterns of these fact-checking posts suggest that Republicans or conservatives rarely share such content amongst themselves, casting doubt on their exposure to cross-cutting fact-checking in their daily lives.

CPG: Marlon Twyman (USC, Communication & Computer Science)
2024-01-24 15:00 - 16:30 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Title: Metawisdom of the Crowd: How Choice Within Aided Decision Making Can Make Crowd Wisdom Robust

Abstract: Quality information can improve individual judgments but make group decisions less accurate; if individuals attend to the same information, the predictive diversity that underlies crowd wisdom may be lost. We explore this tension within the context of decision support systems that provide the choice of decision aids and before then primary judgments. We argue that whenever a set of decision aids induce diverse errors, this structure leads to higher group accuracy because aid choice will exhibit predictive diversity itself. In two experiments—the prediction of inflation (N=1907, pre-registered) and a tightly controlled bean-count estimation task (N=1198)—we find strong evidence for this.

Department Speaker Series: Scott Page (University of Michigan, Business, Political Science, Complex Systems, and Economics)
2024-01-25 11:00 - 12:15 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Speaker: Scott E. Page (University of Michigan, Santa Fe Institute). (website)
Title: Organizations and Cultural Coherence
Abstract: I construct a mathematical framework to elucidate and analyze the interdependence between structural features of an organization and some of its cultural attributes. By the structure of an organization, I mean whether individual actions are assigned hierarchically, agreed upon through a more equal democratic process, or encouraged through incentives. By culture, I will focus on standard measurable features such as tightness, individualism, trust, risk taking, and uncertainty avoidance. I show that congruence – the alignment of organization structure and culture – though an often articulated organizational goal does not, except in rare cases, imply efficiency. The creation of a healthy, constructive culture and not congruence should therefore be the goal of organizations.

Comm Undergraduate Information Session
2024-02-21 10:00 - 11:00 | Rolfe 3134

Department Speaker Series: Carolyn Parkinson (UCLA, Psychology)
2024-02-29 11:00 - 12:15 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Title: The brain in the social world: Integrating approaches from psychology, neuroscience, and social network analysis

Abstract: This talk will cover work integrating theory and methods from psychology, neuroscience, and social network analysis to examine how people track, encode, and are influenced by the social networks that they inhabit. One set of studies tests if, when, and how people retrieve knowledge of familiar others’ positions in their real-world social networks when encountering them. Related research tests how this knowledge, once retrieved, shapes downstream processing and behavior. A second set of studies tests if human social networks exhibit assortativity in how their members perceive, interpret, and respond to their environment. Consistent with this possibility, we find that proximity between people within their social networks is linked to similar neural responses to naturalistic stimuli, similar subjective construals of such stimuli, and similar patterns of brain connectivity. A final set of studies examines how shared understanding relates to overall levels of social connectedness within communities. We find that people who process the world in a manner that is more reflective of community norms have greater overall levels of subjective and objective social connection. All human cognition is embedded within social networks, but research on information processing within individuals has progressed largely separately from research on the social networks in which individuals are embedded. The set of findings to be reviewed in this talk suggests that integrating approaches from psychology, neuroscience, and social network analysis can provide new insights into how individuals perceive, shape, and are shaped by the structure of their social world.

CPG: Davin Phoenix (UCI, Political Science)
2024-03-06 15:00 - 16:30 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Title: Emotional Representation: Identifying the Characteristics and Consequences of Elected Officials Mirroring the Emotions of Their Constituents (with Christopher Stout, Gregory Leslie, and Elizabeth Schroeder)

Abstract: In this study, we identify a previously overlooked component of representation, which we label ‘emotional representation.’ Emotional representation occurs when elected officials mirror the dominant emotional state of a constituent group through their public outreach. First, to explore the existence of emotional representation, we examine the degree to which members of Congress mirrored Black people’s documented increase in expressions of anger following the murder of
George Floyd in the Summer of 2020. Using a regression discontinuity design and sentiment analysis including 305,358 tweets, 190,192 Facebook Posts, and 35,409 press releases, we show that descriptively representative MCs provide the highest levels of emotional representation. Second, to examine the impact of emotional representation, we deploy a two-stage experiment to 390 Black respondents. We find that Black people who increased in anger after being primed with images of police violence view elected officials who engage in emotional representation as more
favorable, empathetic, and trustworthy.
