Drop-in Hours

Spring 2026: Tuesdays 12:00-1:30 pm, Thursdays 12:30-2:30 pm, or by appointment

What is Bingbing’s Story? 

Bingbing's research areas include media effects, political communication, health/science communication, and emerging technologies. Her research focuses on how people process (mis)information, particularly regarding controversial health, science, and political issues, as well as the effects of various strategic media messages, such as narrative messages, on changing people’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. 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.

Her current research examines how emerging technologies—particularly artificial intelligence—shape journalistic practices and news consumption, as well as the effects of AI-generated content (e.g., deepfakes) on people’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, along with potential interventions (e.g., inoculation messages and AI-driven fact-checking) to address misinformation. Her methodological expertise spans both quantitative and qualitative methods. Her work relies mainly on surveys, experiments, and content analysis, and she has added interviews and focus groups to her repertoire.

Her work has appeared in prestigious journals such as Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, International Journal of Communication, Health Communication, The International Journal of Press/Politics, and Environmental Communication. She has also garnered many top paper awards across divisions at ICA, AEJMC, and NCA. She also received several prestigious awards and external research grants, highlighting her intellectual rigor and reputation. For example, she was awarded an Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication grant and selected as a Page/Johnson Legacy Scholar in 2025 to examine transparency’s role in combating AI-generated misinformation. Her paper examining cable news use and conspiracy mentality won the 2025 Outstanding Article published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. She also received the Benjamin Bankson Fellowship in Multimedia Journalism to support her research on exploring the influence of emerging technology, specifically artificial intelligence on the journalism industry in the Global South. Additionally, she is currently a Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) on an NSF-funded project exploring ways to improve weather intelligence and localized climate change assessment and resilience in ag-based communities. 

Courses 

• JMC:3530 - Social Media Marketing
• JMC:1100 - Introduction to Media Effects
• JMC:6300 – Social Scientific Approaches to Media Communication 

Recent Publications

• Zhang, B., Mudavadi, K., Matanji, F., & Lomoywara, D. (2025). Examining News Media Use and Trust in Public Institutions in Kenya: The Moderating Role of Perceived Corruption and Political Freedom. International Journal of Communication, 19, 23. Retrieved from https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/24872/5086
• Zhang, B. and Schmierbach, M. (2025). Comparing the efficacy of narrative and didactic inoculation in combating climate change misinformation: impact on misbeliefs and intention to share misinformation JCOM 24(4), A02. https://doi.org/10.22323/JCOM.1502
• Shoenberger, H., Zhang, B., Peng, R., & Shen, F. (2025). Inclusion in action: how brand commitment impacts perception of transgender-inclusive activist ads. International Journal of Advertising. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2025.2526311
• Zhang, B., Pinto, J. (2025). Does the Source of Inoculation Matter? Testing the Effects of Inoculation Source on Resistance to Climate Misinformation on Social Media. Communication Reports, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/08934215.2025.2465306
• Zhang, B. (2025). Climate Information Exposure on Social Media and Climate-Related Political Participation: The Mediating Roles of Environmental Discussion and Risk Perception. Environmental Communication, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2025.2464150
• Gearhart, S., Zhang, B., Adegbola, O. (2024). Tweeting, talking, or doing politics? Testing the influence of communication on democratic engagement. Telematics and Informatics Reports. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teler.2024.100167
• Zhang, B. (2024). “It’s My Moral Responsibility to Protect Others!” Examining the Effects of Moral Framing and Message Format on Influenza Vaccination Attitude and Intention. Health Communication, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2024.2348236
• Zhang, B., Holton, A. E., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2024). Finding “fake” in the news: the relationship between social media use, political knowledge, epistemic political efficacy and fake news literacy. Online Information Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-03-2024-0140
• Gil de Zúñiga, H., Scheffauer, R., & Zhang, B. (2023). Cable news use and conspiracy theories: Exploring Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC effects on people’s conspiracy mentality. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1177/10776990231171929
• Zhang, B., Inguanzo, I., & Gil de Zúñiga, H (2022). Examining the Role of Online Uncivil Discussion and Ideological Extremity on Illegal Protest. Media and Communication, 10(4), 94-104. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i4.5694

Google Scholar Page 

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MLij0NcAAAAJ&hl=en