Xuzhen Yang

Xuzhen Yang

Ph.D. Student

Department
  • Communication
yangxuzh@msu.edu

Bio

Xuzhen Yang is a second-year Ph.D. student in Department of Communication, Michigan State University. Before pursuing her academic career, she worked as a data journalist and analyst focusing on public opinion. She holds a Master of Science degree in AI and Digital Media and a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology.

Self-website: https://xuzhen-yang.github.io/ 

 

 

Research and Teaching

Her research area mainly revolves around computational social science, LLM as methods, and quantitative methods. Thematically, her work focuses on how digital technologies shape human and political communication (but not inherently partisan). Specifically, her research follows two main lines: (1) investigating how technologies influence individuals’ online attention, engagement, and information diffusion behaviors; and (2) examining how digital platforms enable malicious actors to thrive on social media.

Teaching assistant experience: COM100 Human Communication

Related Work

Conferences

Yang, T., Yang, X., Peng, Y., & Mukerjee, S. (2025). Are partisan, unreliable, digital-born, and mass-oriented media more likely to thrive on social media? Comparing four information ecosystems. Journal of Communication, jqaf035. 

Yang, T., Yang, X., Peng, Y. & Mukerjee, S., (2024, July). Partisan, Unreliable, Digital-Born, and Mass-Oriented Media are More Likely to Thrive on Social Media: A Comparison between Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and the Web. Paper presented at 74th Annual ICA Conference, Gold Coast, Australia. Political Communication Division. * Top Faculty Paper Award

Yang, X. (2023, July) The objectifying fitspiration on YouTube: an analysis of audience duplication networks and audience comments. Paper presented at the annual conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR, 2023), Lyon, Paris (Virtual). Analysing Audiences, Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence Division.

Yang, X. (2022, November) The Objectified Fitspiration: Evidence from the Content and Audience Duplication Networks of Fitspiration Channels on YouTube. Paper presented at the Computational Communication Research Association 2022 Annual Conference, Nanjing, China. Social and Semantic Network Division. * Third Prize of Student Paper

Contact Information

404 Wilson Road, Room 552

https://xuzhen-yang.github.io/