Tanya Junyi Chen 陈俊沂

Tanya Junyi Chen 陈俊沂

He/Him/His

Master’s student

Welcome!

My name is Junyi Chen. I am currently a third-year master’s student at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, affiliated with the Center for Future Media & Human-Machine Communication in the School of Media and Communication, and advised by Prof. Yi Mou. My research centers on human–machine communication and examines how do people make judgments about what is trustworthy, meaningful, and worth relying on in AI-mediated environments. My work has been published in leading SSCI journals such as Technology in Society and Journal of Information Technology & Politics.

Outside academia, I am an avid live music enthusiast. Since 2023, I have attended around 60 live music shows. Tanya Chua is my favorite singer from Singapore, which is also the origin of my English name.

Hi，我是上海交通大学媒体与传播学院的研三学生，导师是牟怡教授。我的研究聚焦于人机传播，试图探讨：在AI的环境下，人们如何判断什么是可信的、可依赖的、值得交付的。欢迎和我联系！

Education

  • M.A. in Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, 2023-2026
  • B.A. in Journalism, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, 2019-2023
  • Exchange Student, Institute of Communication Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Aug 2025 – Jan 2026
  • Exchange Student, Social Media Lab, Stanford University, Feb–Jul 2022 (online due to the pandemic)

Research Interest

My research interests are broad, focusing primarily on human-machine communication and socio-political factors in SHER issues. These two seemingly distant fields of study are inextricably linked to my learning and growing experience.

Topics

Specifically, the research topics I am interested in include:

  • AIGC and media effects
  • The intersection of technology and sociopolitics
  • Media psychology in human-machine interaction
  • Misinformation, conspiracy theories and fact-checking

More about me

I grew up with endless tests under the Chinese college entrance exam system, was admitted to Nanjing University (NJU), and enrolled in the School of Journalism and Communication. For a while, I thought that my life would be spent as a conformist: reading the magnum opus of thinkers like Marx or Heidegger during schooling, actively engaging in various informal relationships, and finally graduating to a little reporter writing news about irrelevance and all the social hoopla all day long. But I kind of just felt meh. I yearned to something between macro-theory and news interviews and yearned to explore the empirical impact of digital media on human society.

And that’s when it happened; the spark I was missing ignited the instant I first conducted a preliminary survey about the role of digital platforms in the exacerbation of intergroup conflicts. Since then, I can’t get enough. I realized that my interests were more in technology frontiers and sought more research opportunities. Fortunately, I successfully applied for an exchange at Stanford’s Social Media Lab. It’s online due to the lockdown policy during COVID-19. Furthermore, I joined the Computational Communication Collaboratory, led by Prof. ChengJun-Wang, in the School of Journalism and Communication at Nanjing University. I completed my graduation thesis on social acceleration and time use there.

  • The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown policy coincided with a period of significant personal growth and development for me. This period also saw me becoming increasingly exposed to a vast amount of health, science, and policy-related information shared on social media. I observed that in a one-party society like China, public opinion is also highly polarized. While academic attention has shifted away from the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated policies, I remain interested in public understanding of science. I also focus on the sociopolitical and technological factors in health, science, and risk.
  • I am deeply impressed by the impact of AI technology on established societal norms. As an AI immigrant, I am witnessing its gradual integration into society. will result in a significant global social revolution. I aim to explore the socio-psychological impacts of human-AI communication, including intimacy, trust, and credibility at the individual level, and digital inequality and social polarization at the societal level.
  • I also possess extensive media experience. I served as the Editor-in-Chief of NJU FactCheck (核真录), which was repeatedly recognized as an Outstanding Data Content Creator by The Paper (澎湃新闻)