COM Faculty and Students Publish New Studies in Leading Communication Journals
02 Sep 2026 (Wed)
Faculty members, students, and alumni from the Department of Media and Communication (COM) at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) have recently contributed new research to leading communication journals, including
Communication Research, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and New Media & Society. The studies address timely questions in online intergroup contact, transparency, human-AI interaction, and digital migration.
Profile photos can facilitate positive intergroup impressions when they signal relevant group identities
Prof. Yue (Nancy) Dai, together with Dr. Lunrui Fu from Tsinghua University and Dr. Wufan Jia from Nanyang Technological University, both COM PhD alumni, published “Do profile photos enhance vicarious intergroup contact? Testing theoretical perspectives from social identity, the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE), and social presence” in
Communication Research. Using a 2 × 2 experiment with 1,661 participants, the study found that profile photos can facilitate more positive responses toward outgroup members, but only when the photos clearly communicate the group distinction relevant to the interaction. In such cases, profile photos heightened awareness of group differences and strengthened observers’ identification with the ingroup commenter, which subsequently improved their responses toward the outgroup. The findings highlight cue diagnosticity, rather than visual richness alone, as a key condition determining whether visual identity cues can enhance vicarious intergroup contact.
A scoping review reframes transparency as a multidimensional communication phenomenon
Published in
Communication Research, “What do we mean by transparency? Conceptualizing and operationalizing transparency in communication” by Dr. Wenjia Yan, Prof. Li Crystal Jiang, PhD Candidate Yiqian Gao, and Dr. Pingping Jia, systematically reviews how transparency has been studied in communication research. Through a scoping review of 164 articles using content, thematic, and meaning analyses, the researchers identified three dimensions of transparency, namely information, relations, and values and norms, while revealing that existing empirical measures remain heavily concentrated on the informational dimension. The study develops a communicative analytical framework that broadens transparency beyond information disclosure and provides a more integrated basis for its conceptualization and measurement across communication contexts.
A three-phase framework explains how people attribute agency to AI
Dr. Yuheng Wu and Prof. Chris Fei Shen published “Machine agency attribution in human–AI interaction: developing and validating an analytical framework” in the
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. The study proposes a three-phase framework for understanding how people perceive agency in machines: a perceptual phase focused on independent and goal-directed behavior, an inferential phase involving human-like mental states, and an evaluative phase concerning whether machines can exert meaningful influence. Across three studies, the findings support a layered attribution process. Perceiving machines as independent and goal-oriented was directly associated with stronger judgments of their influence, while mental-state inference further strengthened these judgments. The framework situates divergent conceptualizations of machine agency within a shared psychological process, offering a more precise basis for understanding and studying how people make sense of increasingly agentic AI systems.
China’s parallel digital ecosystem reshapes migrant students’ integration in Hong Kong
In
New Media & Society, Dr. Wei Huang and Prof. Marko Skoric published “Birds of a feather flock even closer together in the digital era: the role of China’s parallel digital realm in the lives of migrant students in Hong Kong.” Based on in-depth interviews with 25 mainland Chinese students who moved to Hong Kong between 1998 and 2024, the study shows that sustained engagement with mainland Chinese digital platforms can foster self-sufficient, homophilous networks that provide strong social support while reducing incentives to engage with Hong Kong’s local digital and social environments. By conceptualizing this pattern as “digitally mediated structural non-assimilation,” the research demonstrates how geopolitical platform boundaries and digital infrastructures can shape migrant integration beyond individual choices about technology use.
These publications reflect COM’s strong research capacity and continued engagement with critical developments in communication research, from digital identity and transparency to artificial intelligence and platform-mediated social life.
References
Dai, Y., Fu, L., & Jia, W. (2026). Do profile photos enhance vicarious intergroup contact? Testing theoretical perspectives from social identity, the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE), and social presence.
Communication Research, 00936502261466759.
https://doi.org/10.1177/00936502261466759
Yan, W., Jiang, L. C., Gao, Y., & Jia, P. (2026). What do we mean by transparency? Conceptualizing and operationalizing transparency in communication.
Communication Research, 00936502261470088.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650226147008
Wu, Y., & Shen, F. (2026). Machine agency attribution in human–AI interaction: developing and validating an analytical framework.
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 31(3), zmag009.
https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmag009
Huang, W., & Skoric, M. (2026). Birds of a feather flock even closer together in the digital era: The role of China’s parallel digital realm in the lives of migrant students in Hong Kong.
New Media & Society, 14614448261420798.
https://doi.org/10.1177/146144482614207
