Principle Investigator

Elliot Panek, Ph.D.

Elliot Panek studies the uses and effects of digital media from sociological and psychological perspectives. He is the author of Understanding Reddit ​(Routledge, 2022), and has published research in top-tier academic journals on the topics of social media and narcissism, texting while driving, media addiction, and media use and political polarization.

Group Members

Gulmira Amangalieva is a graduate student in the College of Communication and Information Sciences. She is interested in online communities, misinformation, and news verification.

Former Group Members

Rebecca K Britt, Ph.D.

Rebecca Britt focuses on the use of large scale web data in the context of health communication scholarship, where she studies online communities, campaign development, and public health discourse.

Naiyan Jones

Naiyan Jones is a graduate from the University of Birmingham, UK. He uses mixed methods approaches to investigate online political communications, social media platforms and online communities.

Courtny Franco

Courtny Franco is a doctoral student at the University of Alabama. She studies social factors and media effects that influence how we construct and perceive emotional experiences across a multitude of situations and mediated-interpersonal contexts. 

Khadiza T Jannat

Khadiza Jannat is a doctoral student in the College of Communication and Information Sciences, specializing in health and organizational communication, and public health. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, her research focuses on face-to-face and virtual provider-patient communication, media representation of health information and subordinate groups, online communities, online health information seeking, and conflict resolution strategies among healthcare professionals.

Suyu Chou

Suyu Chou is a graduate student in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at The University of Alabama. Her research interests lie in the intersection of public anxiety on social media, risk perception, and crisis management. Her current study includes observing the dynamics on subreddit related to losing weight topics during Covid-19. This is her website: https://schou.people.ua.edu/

Matthew Gaines

Matthew Gaines is a graduate of the University of Alabama where he studied finance & economics.