Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University. Her dissertation examines how to inoculate individuals against health and science misinformation through incorporating narrative and news literacy messages in the inoculation process.
Her current research areas include media effects, political communication, health, and science communication. The primary goal of her research is to explore how strategic media messages bolster healthy social practices in the following four aspects: encouraging prosocial behaviors, promoting healthy practice, increasing public understanding of science, and fostering democratic engagement.
In addition to messaging factors, her research focuses on how individuals use media messages to engage in public affairs, what factors impact such behavior, and the consequences to which it will lead.
Zhang's research has led to 14 published peer-reviewed journal articles. Among these, 13 have appeared as articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Environmental Communication, Health Communication, Information, Communication & Society, The International Journal of Press/Politics, and Psychology of Popular Media. One has been published as a book chapter in the Handbook of Visual Communication. She has presented her research at the International Communication Assocation, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and the National Communication Association. Her research has also garnered three top paper awards at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
She will be teaching undergraduate courses in strategic communication and media effects and graduate courses in social scientific approaches. At Penn State, she taught Research Methods in Advertising and Public Relations, Media and the Public, and Digital Media Metrics.
Zhang earned her master's degree in Mass Communications from Texas Tech University. Before her academic journey in the U.S., Zhang earned a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications from South China Normal University and a master’s degree in Radio and Television News from Jinan University in China.
She first developed her passion for understanding the impacts of media messages on individual’s beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions during a summer research program while attending graduate school in Jinan University. The goal of the summer research program was to find out how people in rural China were exposed to messages from social media and traditional media and how that impacted their perception of citizenship.
Zhang is excited to bring her knowledge and experience to the University of Iowa. “The University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication has long been a national leader in journalism and mass communication education. I am so honored that I would start my academic career at such a prestigious school. I am impressed by the collaborative research in SJMC, and I am very excited to work with the strong SJMC research team and produce great research together,” said Zhang.