September 9, 2026
Awards
Graduate student Nishat Tasnim received a Media Scholarship award from the Islamic Scholarship Fund. The organization funds scholars studying and working in fields with the greatest impact on public opinion and policy, including media studies, communications, and writing.
Grants
Assistant Professor Dominic Balog-Way, Co-PI (with A. Kaganer (PI), A. Fuller, B. Hanley & A. Hayden), received a $150,000 Academic Venture Fund grant from the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability to fund their research project, “Is Chronic Wasting Disease Spreading Like Wildfire? Or Is Wildfire Spreading CWD?” The project was featured in the Cornell Chronicle article “Cornell Atkinson Awards Drive Progress in Tech, Ag, Sustainability.”
This project investigates whether wildfire smoke could serve as a previously unrecognized pathway for spreading chronic wasting disease. Under controlled laboratory conditions, project researchers will test whether infectious prions can become airborne under wildfire-like conditions. Dominic’s role focuses on upstream risk and science communication, using longitudinal interviews with project scientists to examine how interpretations of an emerging risk evolve as evidence accumulates and how researchers communicate a potentially high-consequence but uncertain hypothesis. The work promises to generate new insights into how scientific risk judgments are formed, revised, and communicated during the earliest stages of knowledge production, while also helping the team communicate emerging findings and uncertainties more effectively.
Jobs
Graduate student Ashley Shea has been hired as the Inaugural Director for AI Literacy in Cornell’s Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Innovation.
Leadership
The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, under the executive direction of Professor Jon Schuldt, and Cornell University recently announced a 10-year agreement extending their partnership through 2036. The world’s oldest and largest archive of survey data, the Roper Center moved to Cornell in 2015 and has significantly expanded its collections and services since that time. The agreement was featured in the Cornell Chronicle article “Roper Center Renews Decade-Long Partnership with Cornell.” In the article, Jon remarks, “This renewal marks a significant milestone for the Roper Center and speaks volumes about its productive relationship with Cornell. The center has thrived here, and it’s hard to imagine a more supportive and invested host institution.”
Lectures
As part of the release of her new book, Geri Gay Professor danah boyd will present “Data Are Made, Not Found—Book Launch Discussion.” The event takes place on September 22, in B25 Warren Hall, 4:30–6:00 pm. Her lecture will highlight the behind-the-scenes political battles, structural gridlock, and the unsung civil servants who fought to save the 2020 US Census.
On September 23, Assistant Professor Wunpini Mohammed will deliver a lecture about her book, Media, Culture and Decolonization: Re-Righting the Subaltern Histories of Ghana. The event, sponsored by the Institute for Comparative Modernities, takes place in G22 Goldwin Smith Hall, 4:45–6:15 pm.
In her book, Wunpini invites us to look at media and culture from a decolonial perspective. Through Dagbaŋ epistemologies and knowledge systems, this book examines media by highlighting how African languages, cultures, and traditions can shift how we think of knowledge. It is an offering to anyone curious about the relationship between culture, language, and media. By focusing on African language media in Ghana such as film, television, and radio, the book emphasizes the importance of espousing decolonial politics and praxis in the process of co-creating knowledge with Indigenous communities. It connects the struggles of global majority countries and demonstrates the ways in which (neo)colonialism and imperialism impede the work toward liberatory futures.
In July, Wunpini delivered a book talk to the community of Tamale, Ghana. See pics below.
Media Mentions
Research Associate Sarah Gilbert was quoted on her expertise on erroneous erasures in the article “AI Isn’t Enough to Protect Social Media Communities from AI,” published on Ars Technica.
Publications
Graduate student Ria Gualano, G. Halegoua & S. Campbell, July 2026, “Disability and AI in Smart Cities: Centering Access, Agency, and Awareness in Hybrid Spaces,” Information, Communication & Society.
This article examines how dimensions of “hybrid space” (access, agency, and awareness) can be used as a framework to evaluate the design and politics of urban AI from a disability studies perspective. Its critique considers implications for perpetuating inequities in smart cities, as well as stakeholders’ capacities to address these inequities moving forward.
Graduate students Roxana Muenster and Margaret Foster, August 2026, “Breadwinner or Breadmaker: Analyzing Contradictions in Tradwife Creators’ Entrepreneurial Labor, Political Ideology, and Digital Self-Presentation,” Creator & Influencer Studies.
The article examines the tension between so-called tradwives’ professed beliefs and their creator labor. In examining tradwife creators’ online self-presentation, the authors find that they obscure their entrepreneurial labor and engage in a “soft sell” of their ideology rather than featuring explicit political discussions.
Graduate student Rosie Nguyen and Professor Brooke Duffy, July 2026, “’Creator Burnout Is Real’”: Risk, Responsibility, and Un/Speakability in the Creator Economy,” New Media & Society.
In this article, the authors examine how creator burnout is articulated across different communicative contexts and creators’ positionalities. Drawing on three data sources—creators’ self-authored content, news media accounts, and in-depth interviews—the findings reveal that creator burnout remains partially unspeakable, shaped by the structural conditions of platform labor, the privileged status of creative work, and entrenched markers of power and social identity. Together, these factors structure who can speak out, how, and to whom about creator burnout.
