Bingbing Zhang
Biographic Data
| ID | 6271015 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bingbing Zhang |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bingbing |
| FAMILY NAME | Zhang |
| SIGNATURE | ZHANG B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Iowa |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8356-456X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
“Proper and Mindful Use of GenAI Should be a Shared Goal”
Despite the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in newsrooms worldwide, public perceptions of its application in journalism, particularly in the Global South, remain underexplored. This study uses in-depth interviews with Kenyan audiences to examine their views on its implementation in Kenyan newsrooms and their attitudes toward government regulations governing its use in newsrooms. The findings reveal a double-edged perception: w…
When Social Media Memes Become Mean to Peers
Effects of Immersive Experience in the Branded Metaverse
With the growing number of brands entering the metaverse, the influence of consumer interactions on brand-related attitudes and behaviors remains understudied. To address this gap, we conducted an experiment involving participants who used the Meta Quest 2 headset to interact with objects or products in a branded metaverse. Our findings revealed that presence positively impacted brand attitudes and enjoyment, whereas cybersickness had a negative …
Communicating the Impact of Climate Change on Health
While the health effects of climate change are well-documented, the effectiveness of emphasizing these impacts in climate communication remains underexplored. Additionally, these health impacts are often depicted in distant scenarios, such as those affecting communities in developing countries or in psychologically closer contexts, such as threats to local neighborhoods where the health risks are immediate and tangible. Based on construal level t…
What Is Ethical AI Use in Journalism? Stakeholders’ Perceptions of Ethical Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) Usage in Kenyan Newsrooms
The integration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in newsrooms has prompted scholarly examination of its ethical use. While research has examined journalists’ ethical practices and news audiences’ perceptions, few studies have examined the perceptions of other key stakeholders (e.g., journalism educators, policymakers, influencers, and information technology experts) whose perceptions may influence ethical adoption. Rooted in folk the…
Examining generative artificial intelligence integration in journalism education
Scholarship on the adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in higher education has raised questions about its pedagogical value, ethical implications, and institutional integration. While this is the case, most of this scholarship is concentrated in the Global North, limiting scholarly comprehension of its impacts in the South. To fill this gap, we draw on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and 15 semi-s…
Seeking With Sentiment
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is rapidly emerging as a powerful intermediary for information access, reshaping how individuals seek and evaluate knowledge. While prior research has examined how people use conversational GenAI to find specific types of information and how dialogue-based search compares with traditional, non-dialogue search engines such as Google, less is known about the psychological and perceptual antecedents of this…
Tax incentives and firm outward foreign direct investment
Coupling coordination between higher education and high-quality urbanization development in China
Introduction to the Special Issue
Only recently have terms like deepfakes, cheapfakes, generative adversarial networks, and synthetic media become common in the vernacular of visual communication scholars. Although this technology
When everyone is laughing at anti-Asian meme
Minority groups are often subjected to disparagement and blame for various societal issues including unemployment, health crises, and terrorism. This disparagement is sometimes conveyed not through overt hate speech but through humor, particularly in memes, which serve to demean, humiliate, or mock others. Guided by prejudiced norm theory and affective disposition theory of humor, this study examined the effects of exposure to disparaging memes t…
Immunizing the Public Against AI-Generated Disinformation
Political deepfakes are considered detrimental to democracy by eroding public trust and distorting communication. Scholars have advocated for inoculation strategies to counter deepfakes, yet they have found that individuals’ partisan attitudes can undermine the effects of inoculation. Guided by inoculation theory and motivated reasoning theory, we conducted a 3 (Inoculation Mode: Passive vs. Active vs. No Inoculation) × 2 (Deepfake Attack: Pro-At…
“It’s My Moral Responsibility to Protect Others!” Examining the Effects of Moral Framing and Message Format on Influenza Vaccination Attitude and Intention
Vaccinations serve a dual purpose: safeguarding the vaccinated individuals while also preventing potential transmission to others. However, the pro-vaccine message has primarily emphasized the personal health risks and harms of not getting vaccinated, while rarely highlighting the moral responsibility of getting vaccinated to protect others. Guided by the Model of Intuitive Morality and Exemplars (MIME) along with the narrative persuasion framewo…
Digital economy agglomeration and energy efficiency gain
This study develops a stylized theoretical model to analyze how digital economy agglomeration affects energy efficiency. Then, we employ a two-way fixed effect model to identify the impact of digital economy agglomeration on energy efficiency. We find that a higher degree of digital economy agglomeration significantly increases a city’s energy efficiency. This result is robust when we address endogeneity concerns by exploiting a policy shock, geo…
Inclusion in action
This study investigates how brand commitment statements influence consumer responses to activist advertising, focusing on transgender inclusion—a highly divisive sociopolitical issue. Drawing on Source Credibility Theory and research on perceived authenticity, we examine how message concreteness (concrete vs. vague) and brand familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar) affect advertising outcomes. A 2 (message type) × 2 (brand familiarity) between-subj…
Climate Information Exposure on Social Media and Climate-Related Political Participation
Social media has emerged as a key platform for governments, organizations, scientific institutions, and individuals to disseminate information about climate change. Nowadays it is common for people to come across climate change information on social media. Prior research suggests that exposure to information on social media can enhance knowledge acquisition and political participation. However, these effects have not been tested in the context of…
Effects of state-sponsored political posts on perceived credibility and persuasion
The Signaling Paradox
With the widespread popularization of higher education, the increased supply of knowledge laborers has heightened the risk of overeducation, posing a significant threat to employment quality. Utilizing data from the CGSS2015 survey, this study controls for selection bias by matching employed and self-employed individuals using Propensity Score Matching (PSM) to distinguish and estimate the signaling and productivity effects of overeducation in Ch…
Cable News Use and Conspiracy Theories
Research on the origin, dissemination, and support of conspiracy theories has skyrocketed. Studies reveal how individual antecedents such as people’s personality traits, intrinsic motivations, and broad social-psychological processes explain this phenomenon. Fewer studies, however, explored the role of cable news exposure. This study casts a new light on how exposure to Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC relate to people’s levels of general conspiracy ment…
Navigating Political Disagreement on Social Media
While recent research has demonstrated how exposure to cross-cutting political opinions intensifies politically motivated disconnectivity on social media, there has been a notable gap in examining the influence of emotions and psychological traits in this process. Guided by the theories of selective avoidance and affective intelligence, our study employed a survey through Qualtrics panel drawn from a population-matching sample ( N = 498) of the U…
Biased processing of political fact-checks on social media
Purpose Social media platforms offer users the opportunity to engage with fact-checking posts aimed at countering misinformation surrounding political figures. However, limited research considers how the efficacy of fact-checking messages hinges on individuals’ perceptions and acceptance of the information, with user comments and individuals’ pre-existing partisan viewpoints both presenting possible barriers to positive reception of fact-checking…
Facing the Strain
This study examined two-sided conversion messages in relation to one-sided advocacy messages in reducing vaccine hesitancy related to COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Results demonstrated that, for vaccine-hesitant participants, conversion messages increased pro-COVID-19 vaccination attitudes and behavioral intentions. For high vaccine-hesitant participants, the relationship between conversion messages and attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccinations was media…
How does urban innovation affect haze pollution? Evidence from 270 cities in China
Amplify or suppress the inspiration? Comment valence influences the reception of inspirational Covid-19 videos
While previous research showed the impact of fear-inducing COVID-19 information, the present study intends to explore the bright side of popular media. Can inspirational COVID-19 online videos exert any positive effects? If yes, will such beneficial effects be further amplified by the accompanied positive comments? To explore these interested questions, a survey experiment with a 2 (video type: inspirational vs. non-inspirational) X 3 (comment ty…
Inspired to mask up
Although mask-wearing can curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and protect others, the attitudes and behaviors regarding wearing a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic appear to differ between partisan groups. This study aimed to investigate whether wearing a mask in public can be elicited by uplifting media messages through increasing universal orientation and prosocial motivation. In addition, we tested whether uplifting videos focusing on pat…
How do financing constraints enhance pollutant emissions intensity at enterprises? Evidence from microscopic data at the enterprise level in China
Antecedents of Political Consumerism
According to lifestyle politics theory, social media platforms introduce new ways for people to engage in civic life. Based on the communication mediation model, prior scholarship laid out theoretical and empirical foundations for how media exposure to the news positively influences people’s political participatory behavior through supplemental communicative processes. Building on this line of research, we rely on a two-wave panel survey of U.S. …
Avoiding online censorship through ‘fatty’ memes
Memes are humorous images, often featuring captions with superimposed text, that are shared online. To avoid censorship, Chinese netizens strategically use memes to discuss political issues. This study content analyses memes that feature an image or likeness of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un posted by Chinese social media users on the Weibo platform. Results highlight how politically astute, tech-savvy publics can express political opinions and …
Hostile media bias on social media
News outlets use social media, especially Facebook, for content distribution and engagement. This exposes consumers to user comments before reading a news article, creating an environment where audiences judge content prior to reading the story. In response to Perloff's (2015) call for research exploring how social media cultivate hostile media effects, this work examines the effects of viewing comments prior to reading a news story on perception…
Changing the World One Meme at a Time
The risks that animals and humans face from climate change are frequently featured in climate change memes. Although memes may appear to some as silly jokes, little is known of the impact they may have in the formation and spread of individuals’ perceived risk of climate change and intention to participate in climate change campaigns. This study tests the effect of climate change memes on the perceived risk of climate change and the intention of …
Online cultural backlash? sexism and political user-generated content
Prior research highlights substantial beneficial effects of political user-generated content (UGC) in society, such as diversifying political viewpoints, mobilizing the electorate, and fostering citizens’ civic engagement. However, important user asymmetries exist when creating political content. Gender, age, media uses, and skills gaps have been identified as key variables predicting UGC. This study addressed the political UGC gender gap from a …
Amplify or suppress the inspiration? Comment valence influences the reception of inspirational Covid-19 videos
While previous research showed the impact of fear-inducing COVID-19 information, the present study intends to explore the bright side of popular media. Can inspirational COVID-19 online videos exert any positive effects? If yes, will such beneficial effects be further amplified by the accompanied positive comments? To explore these interested questions, a survey experiment with a 2 (video type: inspirational vs. non-inspirational) X 3 (comment ty…
Inspired to mask up
Although mask-wearing can curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and protect others, the attitudes and behaviors regarding wearing a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic appear to differ between partisan groups. This study aimed to investigate whether wearing a mask in public can be elicited by uplifting media messages through increasing universal orientation and prosocial motivation. In addition, we tested whether uplifting videos focusing on pat…
Examining the Role of Online Uncivil Discussion and Ideological Extremity on Illegal Protest
In recent years, there has been an increased academic interest revolving around the beneficial or pernicious effects of ideological extremity and (uncivil) political discussion over democracy. For instance, citizens’ ideological predispositions and higher levels of political discussion have been linked with a more active and vibrant political life. In fact, ideological extremity and uncivil discussion foster institutionalized political engagement…
Antecedents of Political Consumerism
According to lifestyle politics theory, social media platforms introduce new ways for people to engage in civic life. Based on the communication mediation model, prior scholarship laid out theoretical and empirical foundations for how media exposure to the news positively influences people’s political participatory behavior through supplemental communicative processes. Building on this line of research, we rely on a two-wave panel survey of U.S. …
Avoiding online censorship through ‘fatty’ memes
Memes are humorous images, often featuring captions with superimposed text, that are shared online. To avoid censorship, Chinese netizens strategically use memes to discuss political issues. This study content analyses memes that feature an image or likeness of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un posted by Chinese social media users on the Weibo platform. Results highlight how politically astute, tech-savvy publics can express political opinions and …
How do financing constraints enhance pollutant emissions intensity at enterprises? Evidence from microscopic data at the enterprise level in China
Facing the Strain
This study examined two-sided conversion messages in relation to one-sided advocacy messages in reducing vaccine hesitancy related to COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Results demonstrated that, for vaccine-hesitant participants, conversion messages increased pro-COVID-19 vaccination attitudes and behavioral intentions. For high vaccine-hesitant participants, the relationship between conversion messages and attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccinations was media…
How does urban innovation affect haze pollution? Evidence from 270 cities in China
The Signaling Paradox
With the widespread popularization of higher education, the increased supply of knowledge laborers has heightened the risk of overeducation, posing a significant threat to employment quality. Utilizing data from the CGSS2015 survey, this study controls for selection bias by matching employed and self-employed individuals using Propensity Score Matching (PSM) to distinguish and estimate the signaling and productivity effects of overeducation in Ch…
Cable News Use and Conspiracy Theories
Research on the origin, dissemination, and support of conspiracy theories has skyrocketed. Studies reveal how individual antecedents such as people’s personality traits, intrinsic motivations, and broad social-psychological processes explain this phenomenon. Fewer studies, however, explored the role of cable news exposure. This study casts a new light on how exposure to Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC relate to people’s levels of general conspiracy ment…
Navigating Political Disagreement on Social Media
While recent research has demonstrated how exposure to cross-cutting political opinions intensifies politically motivated disconnectivity on social media, there has been a notable gap in examining the influence of emotions and psychological traits in this process. Guided by the theories of selective avoidance and affective intelligence, our study employed a survey through Qualtrics panel drawn from a population-matching sample ( N = 498) of the U…
Biased processing of political fact-checks on social media
Purpose Social media platforms offer users the opportunity to engage with fact-checking posts aimed at countering misinformation surrounding political figures. However, limited research considers how the efficacy of fact-checking messages hinges on individuals’ perceptions and acceptance of the information, with user comments and individuals’ pre-existing partisan viewpoints both presenting possible barriers to positive reception of fact-checking…
Introduction to the Special Issue
Only recently have terms like deepfakes, cheapfakes, generative adversarial networks, and synthetic media become common in the vernacular of visual communication scholars. Although this technology
When everyone is laughing at anti-Asian meme
Minority groups are often subjected to disparagement and blame for various societal issues including unemployment, health crises, and terrorism. This disparagement is sometimes conveyed not through overt hate speech but through humor, particularly in memes, which serve to demean, humiliate, or mock others. Guided by prejudiced norm theory and affective disposition theory of humor, this study examined the effects of exposure to disparaging memes t…
Immunizing the Public Against AI-Generated Disinformation
Political deepfakes are considered detrimental to democracy by eroding public trust and distorting communication. Scholars have advocated for inoculation strategies to counter deepfakes, yet they have found that individuals’ partisan attitudes can undermine the effects of inoculation. Guided by inoculation theory and motivated reasoning theory, we conducted a 3 (Inoculation Mode: Passive vs. Active vs. No Inoculation) × 2 (Deepfake Attack: Pro-At…
“It’s My Moral Responsibility to Protect Others!” Examining the Effects of Moral Framing and Message Format on Influenza Vaccination Attitude and Intention
Vaccinations serve a dual purpose: safeguarding the vaccinated individuals while also preventing potential transmission to others. However, the pro-vaccine message has primarily emphasized the personal health risks and harms of not getting vaccinated, while rarely highlighting the moral responsibility of getting vaccinated to protect others. Guided by the Model of Intuitive Morality and Exemplars (MIME) along with the narrative persuasion framewo…
Digital economy agglomeration and energy efficiency gain
This study develops a stylized theoretical model to analyze how digital economy agglomeration affects energy efficiency. Then, we employ a two-way fixed effect model to identify the impact of digital economy agglomeration on energy efficiency. We find that a higher degree of digital economy agglomeration significantly increases a city’s energy efficiency. This result is robust when we address endogeneity concerns by exploiting a policy shock, geo…
Inclusion in action
This study investigates how brand commitment statements influence consumer responses to activist advertising, focusing on transgender inclusion—a highly divisive sociopolitical issue. Drawing on Source Credibility Theory and research on perceived authenticity, we examine how message concreteness (concrete vs. vague) and brand familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar) affect advertising outcomes. A 2 (message type) × 2 (brand familiarity) between-subj…
Climate Information Exposure on Social Media and Climate-Related Political Participation
Social media has emerged as a key platform for governments, organizations, scientific institutions, and individuals to disseminate information about climate change. Nowadays it is common for people to come across climate change information on social media. Prior research suggests that exposure to information on social media can enhance knowledge acquisition and political participation. However, these effects have not been tested in the context of…
Effects of state-sponsored political posts on perceived credibility and persuasion
“Proper and Mindful Use of GenAI Should be a Shared Goal”
Despite the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in newsrooms worldwide, public perceptions of its application in journalism, particularly in the Global South, remain underexplored. This study uses in-depth interviews with Kenyan audiences to examine their views on its implementation in Kenyan newsrooms and their attitudes toward government regulations governing its use in newsrooms. The findings reveal a double-edged perception: w…
When Social Media Memes Become Mean to Peers
Psychology (16 works) · Political science (13 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Politics (10 works) · Social Media and Politics (10 works) · Perception (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Social media (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works)