UCLA Communication

Natalie Kahn Talk, Department Speaker Series: Muniba Saleem (UCSB, Communication)
2024-05-30 11:00 - 12:15 (America/Los_Angeles) | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Title: Media Representations and Their Broader Implications for Intergroup Relations

Abstract: This talk highlights the role of media as an ecosystem in cultivating societal divisions within multicultural contexts. Utilizing correlational, experimental, and longitudinal research methodologies, I provide a comprehensive analysis of the nuanced effects on both racial majority and minority audiences. The findings reveal three broader implications of media depictions of racial minorities. First, exposure to negative media portrayals of racial minorities adversely affects the attitudes and behaviors of racial majority members towards these groups. Second, such negative depictions harm racial minorities’ self-esteem and group esteem, while reinforcing their perceived disadvantaged status in mainstream society relative to other groups. Finally, mainstream media representations undermine the sense of belonging, inclusion, and integration of racial minority members within mainstream society, culture, and politics.

2024 UCLA Department of Communication Commencement Keynote Address
2024-06-25 08:00 - 17:00

The 2024 Presidential Election and the State of American Politics w/ Lynn Vavreck (UCLA)
2024-10-03 12:30 - 13:45 | Pritzker 3572

Citizens’ Perceptions on How Misinformation Distorts the News Environment w/ Toni Van der Meer (University of Amsterdam)
2024-10-10 11:00 - 12:15 | Rolfe 2303

Depression and Democratic Backsliding: Depression, Conspiracy Beliefs, and Support for Political Extremism w/ Matthew Baum (Harvard University)
2024-10-24 11:00 - 12:15 | Rolfe 2303

"Measuring Resilience to Misinformation: A Global Multilevel Framework" Peter Van Aelst (University of Antwerp)
2024-11-01 13:30 | Comm Project Room – 2310 Rolfe

"Generative AI and politics: what is next after the 2024 super election year" Claes de Vreese (University of Amsterdam)
2024-11-05 11:00 | Comm Project Room – 2310 Rolfe

Comm Information Session - Undergraduate Major
2024-11-13 10:00 - 11:00 | Royce 150

The Evolution of Social Paradoxes w/ David Pinsof (UCLA Social Minds Lab)
2024-11-14 11:00 - 12:15 | Rolfe 2303

"Adjusting the Margins: Political Communication Efforts by Marginalized Communities Over Time" Ben Epstein (DePaul University)
2024-11-18 14:00 | Comm Project Room – 2310 Rolfe

Building a shared infrastructure to study the internet: The National Internet Observatory, with David Lazer
2025-01-14 15:00 - 16:30 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Organized by the Communication and Politics Group…
ABSTRACT: The National Internet Observatory (NIO) is an NSF-funded project aimed to help researchers study online behavior. Participants install a browser extension and/or mobile apps to donate their online activity data along with comprehensive survey responses. The infrastructure, housed at Northeastern University, starting in 2025, will offer approved researchers access to a suite of structured, parsed content data for selected domains to enable analyses and understanding of Internet use in the US. This is all conducted within a robust research ethics framework, emphasizing ongoing informed consent, and multiple layers, technical and legal, of interventions to protect the values at stake in data collection, data access, and research. This talk will provide a brief overview of the NIO infrastructure, the data collected, the participants, and the researcher intake process.

"Stop Censorship, Collaborate, and Listen!" w/Cory Clark (University of Pennsylvania)
2025-01-16 11:00 - 12:15 | Rolfe 2303

Colloquium Speaker- Amir Ghasemian
2025-01-23 11:00 - 12:15 | Rolfe 2303

Comm Undergraduate Information Session
2025-02-19 10:00 - 11:00
Rolfe 3134

Colloquium Speaker- Mathilde Massenet
2025-02-27 11:00 - 12:15 | Rolfe 2303

CPS Speakers Series: Kevin Arceneaux (Sciences Po)
2025-04-09 10:30 - 12:00 | Rolfe 2125
The Political and Social Influence of Social Media: The Case of Facebook
Kevin Arceneaux, Sciences Po
Wednesday April 9, 10:30-12:00, Rolfe 2125
ABSTRACT: Popular discourse about social media presumes that social media platforms play an
outsized role in shaping public opinion and political behavior. The social nature of these
platforms allow people to learn about politics from a tailored set of trusted sources, making
them a potentially powerful influence, while also making them notoriously difficult to study.
Deactivation experiments, which incentivize users to forgo using social media, offer a blunt
instrument for estimating the overall impact of social media platforms. This talk will consider
what we have learned about the effects of Facebook from several deactivation experiments
conducted in the US and France. Despite its potential to shape public opinion and political
behavior, these experiments suggest that it has relatively modest effects.

“Spontaneous Coordination Through Intentional Commitment: How Adults and Children Resolve Conflicting Desires in Sequential Decision-Making” w/ Shaozhe Cheng (Duke University)
2025-04-10 11:00 - 12:15 | Rolfe 2303

“Fostering Connections Between Present and Future Selves, From the Lab to the Field” w/Hal Hershfield (UCLA Anderson)
2025-04-24 11:00 - 12:15 | Rolfe 2303

Comm Undergraduate Information Session
2025-05-14 14:00 - 15:00

“Friendship and the Supra-Dyadic Nature of Challenges in Close Relationships” w/ Jaimie Krems (UCLA Dept. of Psychology)
2025-05-15 11:00 - 12:15 | Rolfe 2303

Student Defense: Jun Luo
2025-05-16 13:15 - 14:15 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Ph.D. Candidate: Jun Luo
Date & Time: Friday, May 16, 2025, from 1:15p – 2:15p PT
Location: Rolfe 2303A
Advisor(s): Jungseock Joo, Stuart Soroka
Dissertation Title: Media Bias and Trust in the Generative AI Era: Examining AI-Generated News, Minority Representation, and the Impact on Public Trust and Radicalization.
Abstract: While a growing body of research has examined how algorithmic decision-making reinforces social inequality across various domains, less attention has been paid to the implications of AI in news production. This gap is critical, as large language models trained on news content may inherit and amplify long-standing media biases rooted in the structural forces that shape news coverage. This dissertation addresses these concerns by investigating three key questions: whether media ownership influences negative and dehumanizing portrayals in news and contributes to real-world extremist behavior; whether AI models fine-tuned to generate news reproduce similar biases; and how attributing news authorship to either humans or AI affects perceived credibility. The investigation reveals three key implications for media, politics, and society. First, biased portrayals of minority groups in conservative local news can contribute to extremism and hate. Second, while AI-generated news does not show greater bias than human-written content, its replication of dominant framings and positive tone raise concerns about its influence on audience perceptions of contested issues. Third, the inability of audiences to reliably distinguish between AI- and human-authored news signals the growing normalization of AI journalism and underscores the need for greater transparency and accountability in AI-powered journalism.
Biography: Jun Luo is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Communication at UCLA. Her research examines AI in journalism, media influence on radicalization and hate, and public trust in AI-generated news. She has received awards and research support from the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate, the UCLA Graduate Division, and the Luskin Graduate Fellowship. She is an incoming Assistant Professor in Computational Social Science and Intercultural Communication at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), starting Fall 2025.

Natalie Kahn Speaker Series: Seth Frey (UC Davis)- “Online Communities as Model Systems for Commons Governance”
2025-05-29 11:00 - 12:15 | Rolfe 2303

CPG Speaker: Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice
2025-10-02 14:00 - 15:30 | Rolfe 2125
Enemies of the (E)state: Examining the Role of Attacks on The Press and Media Content
Dan Haieshutter-Rice, Michigan State University
A healthy critique of the free press is vital in a democracy. Like the other pillars of a functional democratic system, the press performs its role best under a receptive but critical eye. Yet broad and sustained attacks by political elites can undermine a free and independent press. These attacks may pressure outlets to alter their content, potentially through defense of the press or pulling back their negative coverage. These responses may also vary based on the kind of news organizations. Certain outlets may be more susceptible than others; for example, publicly funded media could be especially responsive to accusations of bias given their reliance on government support and donor goodwill.
This paper examines how a wide range of news outlets—including local news organizations, public media, major broadcast networks, and cable news—have responded to public accusations of bias and threats of regulatory action over the past 20 years. Drawing on the Congressional Record and a database of political newsletters from members of Congress (DCInbox), it analyzes changes in tone, language, sourcing, and thematic emphasis in news coverage following political attacks. The findings will illuminate the extent to which critiques of the press translate into measurable shifts in coverage, and the conditions under which media outlets are most likely to alter their content in response to political pressure.
Part of the Communication and Politics Group speakers series.

Department Speaker Series: Kaiping Chen
2025-10-30 11:00 - 12:30 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
From Digital Portrayals to AI Refusals: Gendered Patterns in Science and Technology Communication
Kaiping Chen, Associate Professor in Computational Communication, Department of Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Part of the Department of Communication Speakers Series, and co-organized with the Communication and Politics Group.

Comm Undergraduate Information Session
2025-11-12 10:00 - 11:00 | Royce 162

CPG Speaker: Marc André Bodet
2025-11-12 15:00 - 16:30 | Rolfe 2125
Accent as a factor of differentiation in a pluralistic society
Marc André Bodet, Professor, Université Laval
Abstract. There exists substantial research on the impact of various characteristics on the definition of national identity. Factors such as skin color and other phenotypical characteristics associated with race and ethnicity have played a central role along cultural and religious symbols. Language acquisition has also been a strong indicator of integration. In this article, we focus on an understudied area that often signals otherness, namely the importance of accent as a factor of differentiation. We focus on the impact of standard versus nonstandard accents, alone and in combination with ethnic cues. Making use of a preregistered online experiment conducted in the Canadian province of Québec, we randomize the ethnicity and accent of a person making a political statement and test whether these two characteristics are associated with differentiated evaluations of two types of statements about diversity (one more intercultural and one more multicultural), as well as assessments of the speaker’s belonging to the majority group.
Part of the Communication and Politics Group speakers series.

Department Speaker Series: Eunji Kim - Columbia University
2025-11-13 11:00 - 12:30 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
How social media creators shape mass politics: A field experiment during the 2024 US elections
Eunji Kim, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Columbia University
Part of the Department of Communication Speaker Series, and co-organized with the Communication and Politics Group.

Department Speaker Series: Idan Blank - UCLA
2025-11-20 11:00 - 12:30 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Understanding ‘Understanding’ in Large Language Models
Idan Blank, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology and Linguistics, UCLA
Part of the Department of Communication Speaker Series.

Department Speaker Series: Safiya Noble - UCLA
2026-02-26 11:00 - 12:15 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
Data In Society, Not Data As Society
The landscape of information is rapidly shifting as new imperatives and demands push to the fore increasing investment in digital technologies. Yet, critical information scholars continue to demonstrate how digital technology and its narratives are shaped by and infused with values that are not impartial. Technologies consist of a set of social practices, situated within the dynamics of race, gender, class, and politics, and in the service of something — a position, a profit motive, a means to an end. In this talk, Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble will discuss her book, Algorithms of Oppression, and delve into issues ranging from marginalization and misrepresentation in commercial information platforms like Google search, to the profound power struggles that violate civil, human, and collective rights through AI and machine learning projects.
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Safiya U. Noble is the David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair of Social Sciences and Professor of Gender Studies, African American Studies, and Information Studies at UCLA.

Department Speaker Series: Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook - UC Merced
2026-04-09 11:00 - 12:15 | Comm Conference Room – Rolfe 2303
