Communication

How do people respond to advice? How do their responses vary when that advice comes from cyberspace? Associate Professor of Communication Bo Feng explores what factors improve the effectiveness of supportive cyber-messaging.

Communication varies across contexts. Figuring out effective, as well as ineffective, ways of communication requires a scientific approach.  

April 7, 2016 — Games that people play in the virtual world give Cuihua “Cindy” Shen a unique—and very big—window into human behavior.

Shen, an assistant professor of communication, sifts through terabytes of data from “massively multiplayer online games” like EverQuest II to study a wide range of social interactions, including networking, team performance, trust-building and economic transactions, and their real-world effects on people’s lives.

Jorge Peña, an assistant professor of communication, has recently been teaming up with researchers across disciplines to observe the impact that virtual experiences, which includes playing video games, can have on people in the real world.

Here is Peña discussing some of his recent work and what they tell us about opportunities for the future.