Research

The Center for Media Engagement conducted in-depth interviews with 19 journalists to explore the experiences and challenges of reporting on science in the current media environment. Read More

The Center for Media Engagement interviewed 56 people who believed that Donald Trump most likely won the 2020 presidential election to talk about their political outlooks, how they constructed their picture of what happened in the election, and what sources they trusted to tell them the truth. Read More

Previous research by the Center for Media Engagement found that a sense of common humanity – where people recognize that their own failings are common human experiences – can help bring people together. Now we examine whether this feeling can be fostered with something as simple as a meme. Read More

Testimony of Samuel Woolley, Ph.D. for Congressional hearing "A Growing Threat: The Impact of Disinformation Targeted at Communities of Color." Read More

This report builds the foundation of our future research on diaspora communities, false information, and EMAs with regard to the 2022 mid-term elections and provides an assessment useful for the design of community-centric counter programs. Read More

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, television news served as a crucial source of information for the public. But our past research showed that coverage of the virus was politicized in ways that seemed to put profit and partisanship above public health, particularly on Fox News and MSNBC. Now our research turns to the advertisers that support this programming. Read More

The Center for Media Engagement tested a tool that makes digital conversations across divides easier: expressing humility when sharing a political opinion. The results showed that writing online posts with humility can help bridge divides. Read More

The Propaganda Lab at the Center for Media Engagement created an overview on location-based targeting, including its history, the technologies behind it, and its usage over the years. The report also includes recommendations addressing some key concerns. Read More

The Propaganda Lab at the Center for Media Engagement expanded its research into the use of encrypted messaging apps (EMAs) for political talk, analyzing both how EMAs are used by people for everyday political talk and how EMA technology is being used for coordinated manipulation campaigns in Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Ukraine. Read More

Protest coverage often casts protesters and their causes in a negative light, particularly when covering underrepresented groups. To help journalists frame stories in ways that do not harm these groups, the Center for Media Engagement examined two story areas of particular concern. Read More

To help understand the impact and effectiveness of science engagement training in the UK, and what trainers and funders in the United States could learn from it, the Center for Media Engagement interviewed science engagement trainers about their approaches, content, goals, trainees, evaluation, and best practices.  Read More

The Center for Media Engagement investigated how certain socio-political differences — including where people get their news, time spent online, political views, and age — relate to people’s views about anonymity. Read More

Stopping the spread of misinformation on Facebook is a difficult proposition. One of the reasons it is so difficult, particularly in the United States, is high levels of political polarization. Center for Media Engagement research shows that Democrats and Republicans are susceptible to believing misinformation about candidates from the opposing party and that Democrats and Republicans respond differently to fact checks. Read More

The Center for Media Engagement partnered with Trusting News and 27 local newsrooms to investigate how news organizations can help bridge the divide between the media and American conservative and right-leaning audiences. Read More

The Center for Media Engagement asked U.S. citizens about their expectations related to how scientists communicate with them. Read More

The COVID-19 pandemic upended many people’s day-to-day lives, and moved more interactions online. In this report, we analyze how the pandemic affected people’s use of search, social, and messaging platforms as well as their thoughts about the platforms. Read More

The Center for Media Engagement partnered with the Dallas Free Press to explore how Dallas residents perceive local media and how they think that media can better serve their communities. Read More

The Center for Media Engagement teamed up with researchers in three countries to examine how the public perceives comment deletion and the moderators who do it. Read More

We asked adults about a range of hot-button issues to find out how much the American public knows about contentious political issues. Read More

We tested journalist responses to Facebook comments on news stories in order to find out which responses led to more positive perceptions regarding the news outlets and its comment moderation. The messages were tested in the U.S. and Germany to see how well they worked across different cultures. Read More

The Center for Media Engagement asked American adults to answer questions about how platforms like Facebook and Google operate. The answers we received revealed important gaps in what the American public knows about how these platforms work. Read More

The disclosures by NYPD – the first required by the POST Act – raise substantial questions about how police in New York acquire and maintain data across dozens of surveillance systems, how NYPD thinks about safety and possible harms to society, and reveal new details about the suite of technologies enabling covert police activities on social media networks.  Read More

The Center for Media Engagement tested several versions of a Knowledge Panel — a search sidebar that provided information about a news outlet — to see which elements affected trust. Read More

Discussions of digital space often focus on eliminating troubling content or improving the user-friendliness of the design. We’re proposing that digital spaces, like the physical spaces we inhabit, should use public-friendly design. Read More

The public frequently turns to television news for updates on the coronavirus pandemic — but not all viewers are getting the same story. Our report shows stark coverage differences across networks, revealing a troubling trend of politicized coverage of the virus. Read More

The Center for Media Engagement examined how Chicago newsrooms covered coronavirus on Facebook. Read More

The Center for Media Engagement partnered with Vox and Spaceship Media to explore whether the design of online discussion groups can affect conversation quality and if Facebook Messenger can be used as an engagement tool. Read More

The Center for Media Engagement asked Black Americans how news organizations can better cover their communities to help bridge the divide between them and the media. Read More

New forms of direct communication, such as campaign apps and digital wallet passes on smartphones, are poised to bring political messaging to even higher levels of intimacy and efficacy, and, disturbingly, render them factually impossible to audit by outsiders. Read More

The Center for Media Engagement propaganda research team spent the past year studying political manipulation on encrypted messaging applications (EMAs) in the U.S., India, and Mexico. Read More