My current research focuses on information flow and public opinion dynamics in non-Western countries, especially China, covering topics such as foreign information, propaganda, and misinformation. These inquiries explore how information in various contexts influences public opinion and political behavior, using surveys, experiments, and/or formal modeling. While the exploding literature on political misinformation in recent years has focused on democracies, rumors and misinformation are more prevalent and influential in authoritarian countries without independent and credible media. I have studied the political effects of rumors and their rebuttals in the authoritarian context, and examined how citizens will react when a piece of information initially dismissed by the authorities as “fake news” turns out to be real. These studies have appeared in the British Journal of Political Sciences and Comparative Political Studies. Relatedly, I have studied how information and misperceptions about foreign countries such as foreign socioeconomic prosperity affect citizens’ domestic political support. This body of work has appeared in the American Political Science Review and British Journal of Political Science, among other journals.

College of Arts and Sciences profile