Klein College’s 28th Annual Graduate Research Forum is a competitive research forum open to all graduate students at Klein. The day will include four separate panels featuring presentations of research and creative work by Klein graduate students. Hear our graduate students’ work through panels on the intersection of media and communication with artificial intelligence, politics, identity, digital culture, public life and more. 

The day is also a time to recognize and honor Klein’s graduate alumni through the Klein-Carnell Awards. The event will include a lunchtime Q&A with the Klein-Carnell Rising Scholar awardee Jaehyeon Jeong, KLN ’18, assistant professor at the Graduate School of Communication and Arts at Yonsei University and conclude with a keynote address from the Klein-Carnell Distinguished Fellow Award recipient, Jessica Katz Jameson, KLN ’96, professor and head of the Department of Communication at North Carolina State University. 

Schedule 

8:45-9 a.m. Arrival and Welcome 

9-10:15 a.m. Panel 1: Artificial Intelligence, Data, and Responsibility 

Moderator: Gaby Santos 

1. “Allocating Responsibility in Corporate Responsible AI: A Computational Framing Analysis” - Peace Onebunne 

2. “The Mediating Role of AI Trust in the Relationship Between AI Use and Source Attribution Attitudes” - Doh-Yeon Kim 

3. “Digital Ghostwriting: AI’s Reconfiguration of Academic Authorship” - Colin Cooper 

4. “Modeling Cognitive, Behavioral, and Emotional Predictors of Perceived Control Over Personal Data Under Digital Surveillance” - Peace Onebunne 

10:15-10:30 a.m. Break 

10:30-11:45 a.m. Panel 2: Media, Politics, and Persuasion 

Moderator: Peace Onebunne 

1. “Distance at the Gate: A Construal Level Theory Extension of the Gateway Belief Model” - Penghui Tao 

2. “News Consumption and its Influence on Civic Engagement” - Sydney Boeger 

3. “Partisan Identity, Media Influence, and Political Motivation in the 2024 Election: Examining the Limits of Persuasion in a Polarized Media Environment” - Gaby Santos 

4. “The Trump Effect: An Application of Psychological Reactance & Parasociality to Donald Trump’s Political Career” - Ronnie Yeakel  

11:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Lunch Served and Top Paper Award Announcements 

12:15-1:15 p.m. Klein-Carnell Rising Scholar Award and Q&A 

Jaehyeon Jeong, Graduate School of Communication and Arts, Yonsei University 

1:15-2:30 p.m. Panel 3: Identity, Belonging, and Digital Culture 

Moderator: Sydney Boeger 

1. “Belonging in the Digital Age: A Mixed-Methods Approach Towards Developing a Scale of Digital Belongingness” - Keyu Chen & Anu Olagunju 

2. “Mix It Up!: Transgender Moments in Cyberpunk 2077” - Viola Glubok 

3. “A Fan-Adjacent Virtual Ethnography of Global K-Pop Fandom” - Marian G. Braccia 

4. “Claiming the ‘K-Culture City’: Institutional Messages and Spatial Communication in South Korea’s K-Culture Square Project” - Doh-Yeon Kim 

2:30-2:45 p.m. Break  

2:45-4 p.m. Panel 4: Media, Institutions, and Public Life 

Moderator: Viola Glubok 

1. “Explaining the Digital Divide in News: An Explanatory Sequential Mixed-Methods Study in Philadelphia” - Yujie Zhong 

2. “From Headlines to Perceptions: A Mixed-Methods Study of Media, Safety, and Institutional Reputation at U.S. Universities” - Yelena Dzhanova & Cleves Mongo 

3. “From One-Piece to Inflatable Costumes: The Climate Protests in the Global South and North” - Julia De Andrade Longo 

4. “A Political Economy of Cultural Production: A Case Study of the VITA SHORTS International Film Festival through the Lens of Media Ethnography” - Julian Wang 

4-4:15 p.m. Break 

4:15-5:15 p.m. Klein-Carnell Distinguished Fellow Award and Closing Keynote 

Jessica Katz Jameson, Department of Communication, North Carolina State University