MIDaS Lab

The Media Information, Data, and Society (MIDaS) Lab at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication is an interdisciplinary lab that explores how the public navigates and makes sense of social, political, and global issues in a contemporary data and information-rich media environment. The lab produces socially impactful studies through data-intensive as well as theory-driven media research projects.

News

• MIDaS Lab partnered with Factchequeado to promote an academic-media collaboration in countering misinformation. Factchequeado is the largest Spanish fact-checking organization in Latin and North Americas; MIDaS Lab is its only academic partner in the American Southwest.    
• The World Press Institute and its 10 global journalists visited MIDaS Lab in October 2024 to learn more about the Lab’s research. 
• MIDaS Lab faculty affiliate Dr. Asheley Landrum partnered with CNN to explore the impact of political polarization on kids. Read the full story.
• Dr. K. Hazel Kwon co-authored with current and former research fellows Amanda Kehrberg and Chun Shao, about TikTok political influencers, receiving the Top Second Faculty Article Award from the Communication Technology Division at the 2024 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference. 
• MIDaS Lab members including Dr. K. Hazel Kwon, Kristyb Vera-Phillips, Dr. Young Eun Moon and Dr. Chun Shao published an article titled “Credible, but Not for Me: Immigrant Folk Theories of News Trust in Chinese, Korean, and Filipino Communities in the US,” in Journalism Practice (2024).
• MIDaS Lab released a report “Blurred Lines: When Immigrants Conflate News Stories and Propaganda.”
• MIDaS Lab has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Responsible AI group in the Department of Communication at Seoul National University, South Korea, for research collaboration and friendship.
• Dr. K. Hazel Kwon did an interview with ABC news about misinformation concerns about the upcoming election.
• MIDaS Lab graduate fellows Qian Li and Chun Shao published with Dr. K. Hazel Kwon a new article in a high-impact journal “Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly” about gun control agenda-setting. 
• MIDaS Graduate fellow Moe Madouh published with Dr. K. Hazel Kwon a new article in Journal of Communication Inquiry about dark web media ecology.
• Chun Shao, a graduate student research fellow at the MIDaS Lab, successfully defended his dissertation defense. He will begin his new position as Assistant Professor at Marquette University in Fall 2023. 
• The journal “Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking” announced a press release on the recent article published by the MIDaS Lab, titled “A Dynamic Analysis of Conspiratorial Narratives on Twitter During the Pandemic”. 
• MIDaS Lab members Qian Li, Chun Shao, and K. Hazel Kwon co-authored a paper titled “Making Gun Control Agendas in Networked Digital Environment: An Intermedia Comparison between Activism Websites, News Outlets, and Ephemeral Media during the U.S. Gun Control Movement”. The paper was accepted as the Top Faculty Debut paper in the Interactive Media & Emerging Technologies division of the 2023 Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Conference.
• Chun Shao, a fellow at the MIDaS Lab, co-authored with colleagues at University of Florida a paper titled “Conceptualizing Trust: Causes, Components, and Consequences.” It was accepted as the second top paper in the Research division of the 2023 Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Conferences.
• Dr. Anatoliy Gruzd and Mr. Philip Mai (Directors at Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University) visited the MIDaS Lab in April 2023, and delivered a talk titled “The Battle for Truth: Examining the Spread of Disinformation in the Russia-Ukraine War.” 

Recent Projects

Learn more about the Lab’s research projects.

The MIDaS team

Faculty

Postdoctoral researcher

Student research fellows

Past research fellows

Chun Shao, assistant professor at Marquette University

Affiliated faculty