About the Abstract

Episode 9: Seeking With Sentiment: Emotional Attachment and the Use of Generative AI ft. Bingbing Zhang

This week host Jacy West talks to SJMC Assistant Professor Bingbing Zhang about how generative AI is reshaping the psychology behind why we turn to it. The new study from Dr. Zhang reveals that people who feel emotionally attached to GenAI tend to trust it more and use it more often for information.   Her research shows how our feelings toward AI shape the way we seek knowledge in a rapidly changing digital world.

Episode 8: Quality of Local TV News at Sinclair-Owned Stations ft. Kylah Hedding

This week, host Jacy West and SJMC Assistant Professor of Instruction Kylah Hedding talk about her new study examining the quality of local TV news at Sinclair-owned stations.  Dr. Hedding’s research analyzes 2,300 stories across 40 US markets, offering the first large-scale, human-coded look at how corporate ownership shapes local news.   If you care about local journalism, media consolidation, or how newsrooms serve their communities, this conversation is for you!

Episode 7: Visual Framing at Scale ft. Sang Jung Kim

This week, Jacy talks to SJMC’s very own Sang Jung Kim about generative AI and the Black Lives Matter movement. This research introduces a scalable, theory-driven framework for analyzing protest imagery using computer vision and generative AI.   Jacy and Dr. Kim talk about how visual cues shape public understanding of protest movements and what happens when human coders and machine models work together.

Episode 6: Theorizing Podcast Journalism: Toward a Medium-Specific Framework for Audio Reporting”

On this episode of About the Abstract, host Jacy West sits down with Dr. David Dowling, professor at SJMC, to talk about his article, “Theorizing Podcast Journalism: Toward a Medium-Specific Framework for Audio Reporting.”

Episode 5: "You Are Not Fat”: The Postfeminist Contradiction in hashtag #RejectBodyAnxiety

On this episode of About The Abstract, we sit down with Dr. Sang Jung Kim, Assistant Professor at SJMC, to explore her research on body-image discourse and the contradictions at the heart of postfeminist messaging online.