Conference Presentations
Graduate student Emma Cox presented “Effects of Cohesion with Teammates on Division-I Student-Athletes’ Mental Health: An Application of the Human Need to Belong and Transactional Stress Frameworks” at the National Communication Association’s annual conference. The paper is based on an article Emma recently published in Communication & Sport that examines the relationship between team cohesion and student athletes’ anxiety and depression.
Three graduate students presented research at the annual Society for Risk Analysis conference. (See photo below.)
Sohinee Bera presented “Migrant Farmworkers’ Perceptions of Emerging Plant Biotechnologies & Insights for Engaging Hardly Reached Populations.” Sohinee’s paper focused on the findings from Dia Del Campesino, an engagement event with migrant farmworkers at the U.S./Mexico border, which explored their risk perceptions of emerging plant biotechnologies. The paper also highlighted the methodological reflections of conducting upstream engagement with hardly reached communities.
Julia Goolsby presented “How Emotions Influence Resource Management Decision-Making at the National Park Service.” In this poster presentation, Julia presented findings from 80 interviews and nine focus groups with staff from four national parks about the challenges of responding to climate change in parks. She examined various ways emotions helped and hindered decision-making regarding natural resource management.
Xuan Qian presented “Addressing Health Risks: Effective Messaging for Weight Management Success.” Her paper investigated the relationship between message frames and weight management intentions. Xuan was a recipient of a Risk Communication Research Group Student Travel Award for this conference!
Events
On December 12 and 13, 2024, researchers, clinicians, and students from Ithaca, Cornell Tech, and Weill Cornell Medicine met in Willard Straight Hall for the Immersive Media in Medicine Symposium, which focused on translational research in augmented and virtual reality for use in medicine and healthcare education. Co-chaired by Weill Cornell Medicine’s Dr. JoAnn Difede, a pioneer in virtual reality treatments for PTSD, and Cornell University’s Associate Professor Andrea Stevenson Won, director of the Virtual Embodiment Lab, the symposium featured a rich agenda of short talks aimed at engaging audience participation in topics like VR for beginners, interventions for pain, and how to write a fundable grant proposal. (See photos below.)
Grants
Associate Professor Neil Lewis, Jr., and Professor Jeff Niederdeppe received a $150,000 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant for their project “Studying How Communities Name Themselves and Communicate within and about Various Social Groups to Inform Messaging on Health Equity and Social Policy.” When people and institutions find themselves in situations where there are gaps between community self-identification and institutional categorization of those communities, what should they do? The goal of this research is to explore these questions by studying how Americans and American institutions communicate about, and across, social group differences. The proposed project will build on work currently being conducted by the Collaborative on Media & Messaging for Health and Social Policy.
Publications
Professor Bruce Lewenstein & Ayelet Baram-Tsabari, contributors and inspiration for the special issue of International Journal of Science Education, Part B: Communication and Public Engagement entitled “Achieving Competence in Science communication: Further Explorations.”
In 2022, Bruce and Ayelet and Baram-Tsabari published “How Should We Organize Science Communication Trainings to Achieve Competencies” in International Journal of Science Education, Part B: Communication and Public Engagement. The journal editors called their framework “definitive” and invited responses from other scholars. In December 2024, the journal dedicated the special issue to those commentaries and further research. In the concluding article, “How Should We Update and Reorganize Science Communication Training? An Invitation to a Collaborative Action,” Bruce and Ayelet invited other scholars to collaboratively extend the framework, providing a link to a Google Doc for the collaboration.
Graduate students Kevin Martinez and Ria Gualano, Associate Professor Andrea Stevenson Won, December 2024, “How Do We Embody Our Narratives?” Newhouse Impact Journal.
This paper provides an overview of the role that user-generated content, such as virtual worlds and avatars, plays in the production and experience of narratives on social virtual reality platforms (e.g., VRChat, Meta Horizon Worlds). The authors emphasize the current limitations of avatar customization libraries, in particular highlighting the lack of available options regarding disability representations. They highlight ongoing research on disability inclusion between the Department of Communication’s Virtual Embodiment Lab and Cornell Tech’s Enhancing Ability Lab, encouraging scholars to expand work on representation in embodied narratives via immersive media.
Graduate student Roxana Muenster, Kai Gangi & Associate Professor Drew Margolin, September 2024, “Alternative Health and Conventional Medicine Discourse about Cancer on TikTok: Computer Vision Analysis of TikTok Videos,” Journal of Medical Internet Research.
Using a computer vision analysis to compare TikTok videos purporting alternative health treatments and those promoting conventional medicine treatments, the authors found that videos spreading alternative health falsehoods and supposed “cures” differ in their visual language from conventional medicine videos, with the former more likely to be cool-toned, in testimonial-style videos, and recorded outside.
Jeff Niederdeppe et al., December 2024, “Strategies for Effective Public Health Communication in a Complex Information Environment,” Annual Review of Public Health.
Research evidence, theory, and practical experience from within and beyond the interdisciplinary field of health communication are well-positioned to help public health authorities, researchers, and advocates navigate the complex societal challenges that influence health and well-being in global contexts. This article offers a broad overview of the field, considers what constitutes “effectiveness” versus “effects” in public health communication, and describes core concepts of public health communication as a process rather than a product. The authors review domains and dominant foci of public health communication research, articulate challenges for health communication to advance health and social equity and address mis-/disinformation, and offer practical guidance on message development, audience segmentation, multilevel intervention, and evaluation of communication programs.
Picture Time!
Following are photos from the Immersive Media in Medicine Symposium. Photography credit: Jonathan Segal.
