RESEARCH
I use computational methods to investigate how audiences take shape in Internet and mobile media environment.
digital media audience
Most recent studies of digital media audience have tended to analyze the effects of use intensity using self-reported data (e.g., survey and experiment). My research draws upon social network analysis and media sociology and typically involves the analysis of data from audience measurement services, including comScore and App Annie. My approach to measuring digital media use relies on passively measured behavioral data for a more accurate picture of media consumption and includes an expansive range of media products to construct a holistic account of the digital media environment.
mobile app consumption
I am currently leading a study that examines mobile app consumption on a global scale in the Peoples’ Internet project (PIN) funded by the University of Copenhagen. I employ network analysis, with a focus on aggregate audience behavior. My sample consists of the 2000 most popular apps from 155 countries. I examine the traffic among these regional app markets based on passively metered behavioral data. To complement these data, I am also running a web crawl to unearth the network of productions among these app producers digging from their archived advertising documentation. I explore how the mobile platform space creates specific conditions for the emergence of app ecologies and app infrastructures which are dependent on diverse social industries, differentiated across economic, political, and cultural levels.
MEDIA EFFECTS
The above research builds on previous work that examines the diverse effects of media affordance, with respect to the relationship between social media use and political behaviors. In a co-authored article in Journal of Communication, I examine networked agenda-setting in a local political context. Specifically, focusing on a local issue, we assessed the role of selective exposure in agenda-setting effects to understand how individual media consumption affects the way people process an issue from their own opinion repertoire and from oppositional repertoire in a network-like structure. In another co-authored article published in Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, I address the relationships between social media use, nationalism, and political behaviors. I utilized computational methods, including web scraping, text mining, and supervised machine learning, to develop an analytical framework that differentiated user accounts’ genres on Chinese social media (Weibo) from the subsequent censorship strategies used with respect to online political expressions.
You can download my complete CV here or see my studies listed below.
Chen, H.T., Guo, L., Su, C.C. (2020). Network agenda setting, partisan selective exposure, and opinion repertoire: An analysis of partisan media effects on Hongkongers’ perception of Hong Kong-Mainland China relationship. Journal of Communication, 70(1), 35-59. PDF
Su, C.C. & Zhang, X. (2019). Circulating mobile apps in Greater China: Examining the cross-regional degree in App markets. International Journal of Communication, 13, 2355–2375. PDF
Chen, Z., Su, C.C., & Chen, A. (2019). Top-down or bottom-up? A network agenda-setting study of Chinese nationalism on social media. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 63(3), 512-533. PDF
Guo, L., Su, C.C., & Li, H. (2018). Effects of issue involvement, news attention, knowledge, and perceived influence of anti-corruption news on Chinese students’ political participation. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 92(2), 452-472. PDF
Su, C.C. & Chan, N.K. (2017). Predicting social capital on Facebook: The implications of use intensity, perceived content desirability, and Facebook-enabled communication practices. Computers in Human Behavior, 72, 259–268. PDF
Su, C.C., Lee, F.L.F, & Lin, G.C. (2016). Does site architecture matter? The political implications of public- vs. private-oriented social network sites in China. Asian Journal of Communication, 27(2), 134-153. PDF
Su, C.C. & Huang, Q. (2016). How Apple geniuses perform? Interactive performativity and professional performativity among service employees in new technology industry. Chinese Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 9, 246-262.
Guo, L., Su, C.C., & Li, H. (2016). The attitudes of Chinese students toward anti-corruption movement and reporting in Mainland. Twenty-First Century, 158, 67-85.