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 AIGC, human-computer interaction, and broader media effects from social and political perspectives. 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 70 live music shows. Tanya Chua is my favorite singer from Singapore, which is also the origin of my English name.
Education
- M.A. in Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, 2023-2026
- B.A. in Journalism, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, 2019-2023
Research Interest
My research focuses on three keywords: Politics, Technology, and Information Behavior. These lead to my main research themes:
Topics
Specifically, the research topics I am interested in include:
- AI’s role in political communication;
- Information seeking, consumption and processing influenced by digital technology;
- Public politicized understanding of science and technology.
More about me
I grew up with endless tests under the Chinese college entrance exam system and gained admission to Nanjing University. There, I was immersed in a rich intellectual atmosphere of literature, history, and philosophy, in which humanistic ethos has profoundly shaped my research sensibilities. On the other hand, I have been extensively involved in the practical training aspects of journalism. I served as the Editor-in-Chief of NJU FactCheck, which was repeatedly recognized as an Outstanding Data Content Creator by The Paper. More importantly, I was fortunate to benefit from these practical experiences, cultivating an empirically oriented mindset within a humanistic academic environment as well.
Through subsequent processes of academic trial and error, I was privileged to participate in an exchange program at Stanford Social Media Lab (online due to lockdown), further completed my undergraduate thesis at Computational Communication Collaboratory, and finally secured direct admission to the graduate program at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
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. As a result, I keep interested in public understanding of science and technology, especially from social, political, and cultural perspectives.
Just as I began working on my undergraduate thesis, ChatGPT burst onto the scene. As an AI immigrant, I believe that I am witnessing a profound techno-social transformation. As a researcher deeply grounded in the discipline of journalism and communication studies, I am curious about precisely how people establish, or choose not to establish, relationships with AI, and the underlying psychological mechanisms at play. Furthermore, I am equally interested in the societal factors underpinning this “AI communication”, such as the digital divide, opinion polarization, and the like.
- 在我建立三观的成年之初，新冠肺炎病毒爆发了。在隔离期间，我目睹了社交媒体上的科学、健康、社会、国际政治信息相互交织。由此，我对“公众对科学、技术的理解”抱有浓厚的兴趣，尤其是从社会、政治的角度加以考察。
- 在我开始学习写本科毕业论文的时候，ChatGPT横空出世。作为一名“AI时代”的移民，我相信自己正亲身经历着一场重大的技术-社会变革。对于我，一个深受新闻传播学学科培养的研究者而言，我好奇人们具体如何和AI建立（或不建立）关系，背后存在何种心理机制。并且同样的，我关注“AI传播”背后的社会因素，例如数字鸿沟、观点极化，等等。