April 15, 2026
Conferences
Graduate student Rosie Nguyen presented a talk titled “Imaginaries of Vietnam: Dominant Narratives and Marginal Voices” at the Trans-Asia Graduate Student Conference at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In her presentation, Rosie examined how Vietnam has been represented across overlapping historical and ideological frameworks, from Cold War narratives and post-socialist reform to neoliberal integration. She highlighted marginalized perspectives while exploring how digital platforms are reshaping social and cultural practices beyond traditional state-society models. Rosie argued that understanding the digital transformation of cultural production in Vietnam requires moving beyond top-down or bottom-up frameworks to instead analyze lateral, platform-mediated relationships among cultural actors, intermediaries, and networked publics.
Events
Please join us for a special COMMColloquium Monday, April 27, 3:00 pm, where graduate students will preview their talks for the upcoming International Communication Association Annual Conference and undergraduate students will discuss their honors theses. The event takes place in 102 Mann Library Building and is followed by a reception, located in The Hub of the Department of Communication.
Lectures
On April 9, Professor Natalie Bazarova delivered a talk titled “Fostering Healthier Digital Ecosystems through Prosocial Design and Digital Literacy Interventions” at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology. In her talk, she explored how the concept of upstanding as a prosocial act has evolved alongside the rise of harassment in digital spaces. Drawing on multiple studies using realistic social media simulations, Natalie examined the factors that prompt individuals to move from inaction to upstanding online. She highlighted how prosocial, social, and technological dimensions intersect in digital environments, identifying key barriers, moderating influences, and leverage points for effective intervention. She also emphasized the growing role of AI as both a counterspeaker and a copilot in fostering more constructive and healthier digital ecosystems.
On March 27, Professor Neil Lewis, Jr. delivered a talk at the Hunsberger Memorial Lecture at Wilfrid Laurier University. In his talk, “Publicly Engaged Research in the 21st Century,” Neil discussed how scientific institutions have come under increasing scrutiny as public trust shifts and their societal value is questioned. He argued that one way to address this challenge is through more publicly engaged research that clearly demonstrates its benefits. Drawing on examples from his own research program, he outlined conceptual, methodological, and practical approaches to this work, as well as its implications for strengthening the relationship between science and society.
In March, Assistant Professor Wunpini Mohammed was the keynote speaker at the University of Miami’s School of Communication Conference. In her talk, “Re-righting Subaltern Narratives in Global Media Discourses,” Wunpini examined how, despite growing conversations around a decolonial reckoning in the field, limited attention has been given to the role of Indigenous Knowledge Systems in shaping liberatory futures. She highlighted Indigenous language media systems as a critical site for reconstructing and reimagining representational integrity in media work and argued that interrogating media “unhistories” requires disrupting theoretical silences that erase the experiences of marginalized communities.
Publications
Graduate student Sohinee Bera, C.S. De Leon & Professor Bruce Lewenstein, April 2026, “Insights for Inclusive Upstream Engagement with Migrant Farmworkers in Agriculture: A Case Study From the US–Mexico Border,” Ambio: A Journal of Environment and Society.
This article examines the authors’ work engaging migrant farmworkers in early-stage discussions about agricultural research and technology, a process known as upstream engagement. The authors highlight how structural conditions—such as precarious labor, legal vulnerabilities, language barriers, limited time and capacity, and power imbalances—both necessitate and complicate efforts to meaningfully include farmworkers’ perspectives in agricultural innovation.
J. Lukas Thürmer, Sean McCrae & Professor Poppy McLeod, March 2026, “Group Processes and Climate Change: Rejecting Intergroup Calls for Climate Action,” Journal of Environmental Psychology.
Finding solutions to major societal problems such as the climate crisis requires global cooperation. Yet, collaboration can be inhibited by tensions between people from different social identity groups. In this study, the authors demonstrate that openness to different views about climate change could be increased by broadening people’s perceptions of who belongs in their ingroup.
Graduate student Rosie Nguyen, Professor Lee Humphreys, Maria Goula et al., April 2026, “A Park for All: Layering Transgenerational, Translocal, and Parochial Experiences of Immigrant Communities in Los Angeles,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
In this study, the authors examine how immigrants in Los Angeles engage with public spaces, connecting their cultural identities with local spaces. Through a participatory project transforming a major landfill into a park, the study shows that immigrants view parks through translocal, transgenerational, and personal lenses, using them as spaces to connect with family, friends, and community, as well as with their past and homeland. The study foregrounds the role of public spaces as sites for constructing identity and fostering belonging amidst fears of surveillance and exclusion.
Graduate student Maggie Sardino, April 2026, book review of We Belong Here: Gentrification, White Spacemaking, and a Black Sense of Place (Shani Adia Evans), Cultural Studies.
In We Belong Here, the author draws on ethnographic fieldwork from Northeast Portland to argue that gentrification, which focuses primarily on class-based neighborhood change, is an insufficient framework for understanding racial transformation of neighborhoods. Maggie’s review examines the connections between race and class-based neighborhood change, how these processes are facilitated, and how communities resist such change. Her review concludes by considering the implications of Evans’ work for housing organizations looking to build multiracial coalitions.
Haesoo Kim, Nader Akoury, Graduate student Julia Sebastien, Lab Manager Isabelle McLeod Daphnis, Ryun Shim, Professor Natalie Bazarova, Qian Yang, April 2026, “Collaborative Upstanding: Exploring Conversational Strategies for Cyberbullying Upstanding Education,” CHI 2026.
Through two studies, the authors investigate collaborative upstanding, examining how a conversational partner (human or AI) can guide bystanders through these challenges in-situ. In a paired role-play study (n=24), they found that bystanders faced significant challenges in how to intervene. Even after deciding to act, how-to challenges often reignited doubts about their self-efficacy and responsibility. Using these insights, they designed ConCUR, a chatbot that (1) encourages bystanders to co-author an upstanding message, leading them to confront how-to challenges sooner, and (2) addresses how-to challenges simultaneously with other challenges that are introduced through a flexible process. Their second study (n=20) suggests such a chatbot is effective in promoting upstanding behavior in the lab setting. The authors discuss the implications of in-situ collaborative upstanding to upstanding education research, framing upstanding as an iterative and flexible process rather than sequential.
