Announcements

We are happy to announce that Dr. Gina Masullo Chen has been appointed Assistant Director of the Center for Media Engagement. Gina is a former journalist and an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. She is co-editor of Scandal in a Digital… Read More

Meet Morgan Malouf, a Media Ethics Initiative Citizen Scholar for Spring 2018. Read More

Meet Sabrina Stoffels, a Media Ethics Initiative Citizen Scholar for Spring 2018. Read More

Meet Haley Turner, a Media Ethics Initiative Citizen Scholar for Spring 2018. Read More

James Jackson Hayden is a third year student at the University of Texas at Austin majoring in both Communication Studies and Government. He plans to attend law school after completing his undergraduate studies. Jackson is the president of his fraternity and conducts marketing operations for an Austin startup called Loftsmart. Read More

Meet Anna Rose Isbell, a Media Ethics Initiative Citizen Scholar for Spring 2018. Read More

UT Austin Students: Are you interested in an internship in media ethics? Check out the Media Ethics Citizen Scholars Program! Read More

Dr. Talia Stroud, director of the Center for Media Engagement, has been named to the advisory board for SciLine, a new service from the American Association for the Advancement of Science that will provide journalists with high-quality scientific expertise and context. In addition to connecting reporters and editors with… Read More

The Engaging News Project – a news media research and outreach initiative in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin – is expanding and renaming itself the Center for Media Engagement. With additional funding provided by Moody College, the Center for Media Engagement will expand… Read More

Photo courtesy of New Politics Forum. Dr. Talia Stroud, director of the Center for Media Engagement, had the opportunity to lead a talk with Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner David Fahrenthold when he visited the University of Texas at Austin on September 23. The… Read More

Want to learn how to make political content go viral? Then vote for our proposal in the SXSW PanelPicker! Click here to vote for our session, titled “Making Politics Popular (Like Puppies).” Voting is open through Friday, August 25.

How do you measure the success of a news site homepage? And what makes for a good news homepage in 2017? Researchers from the Center for Media Engagement will be answering these questions and more during a #MetricShift Twitter chat on Friday, August 11, at 1 p.m. ET. The chat,… Read More

Dr. Talia Stroud, director of the Center for Media Engagement, recently led a webinar on audience engagement for the Local Media Association (LMA). Slides and video of the presentation, “Top 5 Audience Challenges,” are available on the LMA website.

CME Director Talia Stroud speaks during the ISOJ breakfast panel. Center for Media Engagement Director Dr. Talia Stroud was one of five researchers to participate in a breakfast panel during the 18th annual International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ), hosted by the Knight Center for Journalism in… Read More

Center for Media Engagement collaborators at the Chattanooga Times Free Press were recently named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Journalists at the newspaper were recognized for their series “The Poverty Puzzle.” We worked with the journalists to measure the Chattanooga community’s response to the series. We found that the… Read More

The Center for Media Engagement conducted a webinar for the Institute for Nonprofit News on best practices for engaging digital audiences. During the webinar, Director Dr. Talia Stroud discussed: Proven techniques for improving engagement How to use them in your newsroom Outcomes of using key engagement tools such as… Read More

Faculty Research Associate Dr. Josh Scacco recently presented Center for Media Engagement’s research on clickbait headlines at the American Copy Editors Society’s national conference. In his research with Dr. Ashley Muddiman, Scacco found that question-based headlines lead to more negative attitudes about the headline and more negative expectation for… Read More

2016 was filled with major news stories, including unprecedented elections, interesting political moves and events that brought the world together. As the year comes to a close, we’ve created an 8-question quiz that will test your audience’s news knowledge. To add this quiz to your website,… Read More

On Friday, November 11, the Center for Media Engagement hosted their first Social Media Summit in partnership with the UT School of Journalism. During the summit, digital news leaders and scholars shared their experiences and lessons from using social media.  The summit’s keynote panel included… Read More

Congratulations to the CME team members who won the Applied Communication Division’s 2016 Bill Eadie Distinguished Award for a Scholarly Article from the National Communication Association! The team received their award at the association’s annual conference in early November. Team members Talia Stroud, Josh Scacco, Ashley Muddiman and Alex Curry… Read More

Research Associate Shannon McGregor presented Center for Media Engagement research at the Online News Association’s annual conference in Denver. Shannon was joined by Scott Smallwood of The Chronicle of Higher Education for the session “What We Really Mean When We Talk About Empathy and Analytics.” For her presentation, Shannon shared… Read More

  There’s no question that social media has forever changed the way news organizations connect with their audiences. But has that change helped or harmed news organizations? And what’s in it for social media companies to get involved with news organizations, such as through Facebook’s Instant Articles or Snapchat… Read More

Research Associate Emily Van Duyn presents CME research. Research Associate Emily Van Duyn recently presented Center for Media Engagement research at the 2016 American Political Science Association Political Communication Preconference in Philadelphia. Van Duyn shared results from our survey of commenters and comment readers, which we released… Read More

This post first appeared on the Center for Media Engagement’s Medium page In what can feel like a never-ending list of issues facing the news industry, one issue seems to divide news organizations more than others: What do we do about Millennials?… Read More

The Center for Media Engagement recently joined Gatehouse Media and Viafoura on a webinar to share what it takes to increase engagement, build a civil community and win in the battle against trolls. Some of the topics discussed during the webinar include: How to leverage the supporting research to… Read More

Photo: Girl waiting for the train by Toshihiro Gamo on Flickr. This post was written by CME Director Dr. Talia Stroud and first appeared on the Knight Foundation’s blog.  Many findings about the political and news habits of women… Read More

The Center for Media Engagement’s paper, “Like, recommend, or respect? Altering political behavior in news comment sections,” has been published in the latest edition of the New Media & Society academic journal. In the paper, researchers Talia Stroud, Ashley Muddiman and Josh Scacco share their research… Read More

Josh Scacco shares CME research at the pre-ISOJ workshop. Photo courtesy of the Knight Center. The Center for Media Engagement’s Josh Scacco and Katie Steiner, along with ProPublica’s Amanda Zamora, led a workshop on audience engagement as part of the 17th annual International Symposium on Online… Read More

Dr. Talia Stroud discusses our latest report on commenters and comment readers at the SXSW Interactive Festival. CME Director Dr. Talia Stroud was part of a panel on improving comment sections at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. The other panelists were… Read More

Participants listen to one another at the News Tools Workshop in Austin, TX. In February, the Center for Media Engagement hosted its third workshop – the first to focus on news tools. Topics ranged from what audience engagement tools worked and didn’t work for news organizations,… Read More