Todd P Newman
Biographic Data
| ID | 4257777 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Todd P Newman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Todd P |
| FAMILY NAME | Newman |
| SIGNATURE | NEWMAN T P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9767-958X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 23 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
“Misinformation is Layered, Multifaceted … and Attached to Access and Power”
Misinformation has been at the forefront of concerns for health communication scholars. Scholarship on misinformation, however, has focused on defining misinformation for research purposes and examining misinformation among the general public or ideological and religious subsets of the population. Black Americans have historical and present-day lived experiences that uniquely shape their experiences with misinformation. We conducted a thematic an…
The human factor in AI governance
In AI We Trust
Using data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults, this study explores how trust in key actors to responsibly manage artificial intelligence (AI) develops among members of the U.S. population and how trust, along with other key factors, shapes public attitudes toward AI. Greater trust is linked to stronger support for AI, both directly and indirectly (through risk and benefit perceptions). Furthermore, the strength or direction of…
Connecting Social Media Use With Education- and Race-Based Gaps in Factual and Perceived Knowledge Across Wicked Science Issues
Using three U.S. public opinion survey datasets, this study examines whether use of specific social media platforms affects the gaps in factual and perceived knowledge of three wicked science issues among Americans with different racial and socioeconomic makeup. Less-educated Americans are less likely to gain factual knowledge but more likely to gain perceived knowledge from increased social media use than more-educated Americans. Racial minoriti…
Lived Experience, Shared Knowledge
This essay advocates for a transformative, community-centric approach to science communication, promoting inclusivity and recognizing the impact of lived experiences. We challenge the prevalent population-centric approach and underscore the importance of engaging persistently marginalized communities, notably Black Americans. Drawing from health communication literature, we unveil a comprehensive project aimed at understanding Black Americans’ ex…
Whose AI? How different publics think about AI and its social impacts
Effect of Context on Scientists’ Normative Beliefs
Past research on the relationship between scientists’ normative beliefs about public engagement in the context of willingness to engage could prove misleading if respondents do not consider the impacts of engagement activities when responding to survey questions. This study asks scientists to report normative beliefs in the context of engagement impacts and explores correlations between these responses and engagement willingness. Results suggest …
Polarized platforms? How partisanship shapes perceptions of “algorithmic news bias”
The use of artificial intelligence-based algorithms for the curation of news content by social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter has upended the gatekeeping role long held by traditional news outlets. This has caused some US policymakers to argue that platforms are skewing news diets against them, and such claims are beginning to take hold among some voters. In a nationally representative survey experiment, we explore whether traditional …
American Scientists’ Willingness to Use Different Communication Tactics
The careful choice of tactics—such as specific messages, styles, channels, or sources—is how strategic science communicators ensure that the time and money going into communication results in intended changes to chosen audiences’ beliefs, feelings, and frames, as well as associated behaviors. Using a sample of scientists from American research universities ( N = 516), we assess scientists’ willingness to use 11 different communication tactics and…
Exploring scholars’ public engagement goals in Canada and the United States
We have little systematic knowledge about scholars’ goals for public engagement in the academic literature. This study therefore provides a secondary analysis of two surveys of scholars that included closed-ended questions about goals. One survey from 2017 was from a sample of Canadian grant recipients from a federal science funding agency, while the second survey from 2018 comes from a sample of professors at top American research universities. …
Contribution of Training to Scientists’ Public Engagement Intentions
This article investigates the impact science communication training has on engagement intentions through a parallel multiple mediation model. Theory of planned behavior variables for internal efficacy, response efficacy, norms, and attitudes are examined as potential mediators. Based on a survey of randomly selected scientists from universities in the Association of American Universities, results indicate indirect effects for internal efficacy an…
Theory and Best Practices in Science Communication Training
The Emergence of Science as a Political Brand
This article seeks to explain how science has emerged as political brand. While science and politics have intersected for centuries, more recent social, cultural, and political events led to increased attention to the role of science in everyday life and how science is used in policy decision-making. This led to a tipping point in 2017 when the March for Science was formed, following what many in the U.S. and countries around the world viewed as …
Climate change, cultural cognition, and media effects
According to cultural cognition theory, individuals hold opinions about politically contested issues like climate change that are consistent with their “cultural way of life,” conforming their opinions to how they think society should be organized and to what they perceive are the attitudes of their cultural peers. Yet despite dozens of cultural cognition studies, none have directly examined the role of the news media in facilitating these differ…
Tracking the release of IPCC AR5 on Twitter
Using the immediate release of the Working Group 1 Summary for Policymakers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report as a case study, this article seeks to describe what type of actors were most active during the summary release, the substance of the most propagated tweets during the summary release, and the media sources that attracted the most attention during the summary release. The results from the study sugge…
A re-assessment of factors associated with environmental concern and behavior using the 2010 General Social Survey
The associations between social and psychological influences and environmental attitudes, intentions and behavior have generated considerable interest, both in the fields of environmental behavior and of environmental education. We use the 2010 General Social Survey (GSS) to study these associations and expand the scope of earlier studies by including additional measures across social demographic, social psychological and behavioral blocks. The f…
Polarized platforms? How partisanship shapes perceptions of “algorithmic news bias”
The use of artificial intelligence-based algorithms for the curation of news content by social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter has upended the gatekeeping role long held by traditional news outlets. This has caused some US policymakers to argue that platforms are skewing news diets against them, and such claims are beginning to take hold among some voters. In a nationally representative survey experiment, we explore whether traditional …
A re-assessment of factors associated with environmental concern and behavior using the 2010 General Social Survey
The associations between social and psychological influences and environmental attitudes, intentions and behavior have generated considerable interest, both in the fields of environmental behavior and of environmental education. We use the 2010 General Social Survey (GSS) to study these associations and expand the scope of earlier studies by including additional measures across social demographic, social psychological and behavioral blocks. The f…
Contribution of Training to Scientists’ Public Engagement Intentions
This article investigates the impact science communication training has on engagement intentions through a parallel multiple mediation model. Theory of planned behavior variables for internal efficacy, response efficacy, norms, and attitudes are examined as potential mediators. Based on a survey of randomly selected scientists from universities in the Association of American Universities, results indicate indirect effects for internal efficacy an…
The Emergence of Science as a Political Brand
This article seeks to explain how science has emerged as political brand. While science and politics have intersected for centuries, more recent social, cultural, and political events led to increased attention to the role of science in everyday life and how science is used in policy decision-making. This led to a tipping point in 2017 when the March for Science was formed, following what many in the U.S. and countries around the world viewed as …
Effect of Context on Scientists’ Normative Beliefs
Past research on the relationship between scientists’ normative beliefs about public engagement in the context of willingness to engage could prove misleading if respondents do not consider the impacts of engagement activities when responding to survey questions. This study asks scientists to report normative beliefs in the context of engagement impacts and explores correlations between these responses and engagement willingness. Results suggest …
American Scientists’ Willingness to Use Different Communication Tactics
The careful choice of tactics—such as specific messages, styles, channels, or sources—is how strategic science communicators ensure that the time and money going into communication results in intended changes to chosen audiences’ beliefs, feelings, and frames, as well as associated behaviors. Using a sample of scientists from American research universities ( N = 516), we assess scientists’ willingness to use 11 different communication tactics and…
A re-assessment of factors associated with environmental concern and behavior using the 2010 General Social Survey
The associations between social and psychological influences and environmental attitudes, intentions and behavior have generated considerable interest, both in the fields of environmental behavior and of environmental education. We use the 2010 General Social Survey (GSS) to study these associations and expand the scope of earlier studies by including additional measures across social demographic, social psychological and behavioral blocks. The f…
Tracking the release of IPCC AR5 on Twitter
Using the immediate release of the Working Group 1 Summary for Policymakers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report as a case study, this article seeks to describe what type of actors were most active during the summary release, the substance of the most propagated tweets during the summary release, and the media sources that attracted the most attention during the summary release. The results from the study sugge…
Climate change, cultural cognition, and media effects
According to cultural cognition theory, individuals hold opinions about politically contested issues like climate change that are consistent with their “cultural way of life,” conforming their opinions to how they think society should be organized and to what they perceive are the attitudes of their cultural peers. Yet despite dozens of cultural cognition studies, none have directly examined the role of the news media in facilitating these differ…
Theory and Best Practices in Science Communication Training
The Emergence of Science as a Political Brand
This article seeks to explain how science has emerged as political brand. While science and politics have intersected for centuries, more recent social, cultural, and political events led to increased attention to the role of science in everyday life and how science is used in policy decision-making. This led to a tipping point in 2017 when the March for Science was formed, following what many in the U.S. and countries around the world viewed as …
Exploring scholars’ public engagement goals in Canada and the United States
We have little systematic knowledge about scholars’ goals for public engagement in the academic literature. This study therefore provides a secondary analysis of two surveys of scholars that included closed-ended questions about goals. One survey from 2017 was from a sample of Canadian grant recipients from a federal science funding agency, while the second survey from 2018 comes from a sample of professors at top American research universities. …
Contribution of Training to Scientists’ Public Engagement Intentions
This article investigates the impact science communication training has on engagement intentions through a parallel multiple mediation model. Theory of planned behavior variables for internal efficacy, response efficacy, norms, and attitudes are examined as potential mediators. Based on a survey of randomly selected scientists from universities in the Association of American Universities, results indicate indirect effects for internal efficacy an…
Polarized platforms? How partisanship shapes perceptions of “algorithmic news bias”
The use of artificial intelligence-based algorithms for the curation of news content by social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter has upended the gatekeeping role long held by traditional news outlets. This has caused some US policymakers to argue that platforms are skewing news diets against them, and such claims are beginning to take hold among some voters. In a nationally representative survey experiment, we explore whether traditional …
American Scientists’ Willingness to Use Different Communication Tactics
The careful choice of tactics—such as specific messages, styles, channels, or sources—is how strategic science communicators ensure that the time and money going into communication results in intended changes to chosen audiences’ beliefs, feelings, and frames, as well as associated behaviors. Using a sample of scientists from American research universities ( N = 516), we assess scientists’ willingness to use 11 different communication tactics and…
Whose AI? How different publics think about AI and its social impacts
Effect of Context on Scientists’ Normative Beliefs
Past research on the relationship between scientists’ normative beliefs about public engagement in the context of willingness to engage could prove misleading if respondents do not consider the impacts of engagement activities when responding to survey questions. This study asks scientists to report normative beliefs in the context of engagement impacts and explores correlations between these responses and engagement willingness. Results suggest …
Lived Experience, Shared Knowledge
This essay advocates for a transformative, community-centric approach to science communication, promoting inclusivity and recognizing the impact of lived experiences. We challenge the prevalent population-centric approach and underscore the importance of engaging persistently marginalized communities, notably Black Americans. Drawing from health communication literature, we unveil a comprehensive project aimed at understanding Black Americans’ ex…
In AI We Trust
Using data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults, this study explores how trust in key actors to responsibly manage artificial intelligence (AI) develops among members of the U.S. population and how trust, along with other key factors, shapes public attitudes toward AI. Greater trust is linked to stronger support for AI, both directly and indirectly (through risk and benefit perceptions). Furthermore, the strength or direction of…
Connecting Social Media Use With Education- and Race-Based Gaps in Factual and Perceived Knowledge Across Wicked Science Issues
Using three U.S. public opinion survey datasets, this study examines whether use of specific social media platforms affects the gaps in factual and perceived knowledge of three wicked science issues among Americans with different racial and socioeconomic makeup. Less-educated Americans are less likely to gain factual knowledge but more likely to gain perceived knowledge from increased social media use than more-educated Americans. Racial minoriti…
“Misinformation is Layered, Multifaceted … and Attached to Access and Power”
Misinformation has been at the forefront of concerns for health communication scholars. Scholarship on misinformation, however, has focused on defining misinformation for research purposes and examining misinformation among the general public or ideological and religious subsets of the population. Black Americans have historical and present-day lived experiences that uniquely shape their experiences with misinformation. We conducted a thematic an…
The human factor in AI governance
Psychology (13 works) · Climate Change Communication and Perception (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Public relations (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Misinformation and Its Impacts (7 works) · Politics (6 works) · Social Media and Politics (5 works)