Dr. Pauline Hope Cheong (Ph.D., University of Southern California, Annenberg School of Communication) researches the social implications of communication technologies for minority and marginalized populations. Her principal interests are the ways in which newer media are culturally embedded in users’ context and implicated in social participation, stratification processes and social capital relationships. Her research nodes include ethnic minorities, recent immigrants, youths, the medically vulnerable, faith communities and religious leaders.
She is leading various multidisciplinary research projects on digital faith and culture, including how religious communities are using communication technologies to shape their identities and sense of place, as well as how leaders strategically arbitrate their authority performances. She is also co-principal investigator of a grant on extremist communication, which investigates how extremist groups utilize new and social media to tell their stories and spread rumors, with implications for countering terrorism via the management of strategic communication.
Dr. Cheong employs both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to understand the processes of innovation and social change. Given the facilitation of globalization processes by communication technologies, she is engaged in comparative and transnational research in North America, Southeast Asia and Europe.
Her award-winning research and top papers have been published in more than 30 flagship communication and interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journals including New Media and Society, Information, Communication and Society, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, The Information Society, Journal of Media and Religion, Health communication, Journal of Health Communication and Journal of Communication. She has been invited to present keynote lectures and papers at more than 60 international and national conferences. View a list of publications.
She is currently completing several book projects. She is co-editing new media and intercultural communication, and digital religion and culture, and is co-authoring a book on rumors and strategic communication. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Communication.
She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in new media and computer-mediated communication, viral culture, intercultural communication and globalization. She serves as graduate faculty at the School of Justice and Social Inquiry, and Women and Gender studies. She is also affiliate faculty at the Department of Film and Media Studies,The Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, and the Consortium of Strategic Communication.
For access to publications, web articles and media stories, visit: www.paulinehopecheong.com
