Research

Peer-reviewed Publications

Authoritarian Information Control in the Digital Age

Lu, Y., Pan, J., Xu, X., & Xu, Y. (2025). Decentralized Propaganda in the Era of Digital Media: The Massive Presence of the Chinese State on Douyin. American Journal of Political Science. Online First in May 2025. (DOI, Replication)

Hanley, H., Lu, Y., & Pan, J. (2025). Across the Firewall: Foreign Media’s Role in Shaping Chinese Social Media Narratives on the Russo-Ukrainian War. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(1), e2420607122. (DOI, Replication)

Lu, Y., Schaefer, J., Park, K., Joo, J., & Pan, J. (2024). How Information Flows from the World to China. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 29(2), 305-327. (DOI, Replication)

Chen, A., Lu, Y., Chen, K., & Ng, A. (2024). Pandemic Nationalism: Use of Government Social Media for Political Information and Belief in COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories in China. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 29(3), 710-732. (DOI)

Lu, Y., & Pan J. (2022). The Pervasive Presence of Chinese Government Content on Douyin Trending Videos. Computational Communication Research. 4(1). 68-97. (DOI, Replication)

Lu, Y., Pan J., & Xu Y. (2021). Public Sentiment on Chinese Social Media during the Emergence of COVID-19. Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media. 1, 2021, 1-47. (DOI, Replication)

Lu, Y., & Pan J. (2021). Capturing Clicks: How the Chinese Government Uses Clickbait to Compete for Visiblity. Political Communication. 38(1-2), 23-54. (DOI, Appendix, Replication)

Multimodal Communication and Misinformation

Dahlke, R., Tu, F., Wang, Y.C., Lu, Y., Engeda, B.W. & Hancock, J. (Forthcoming). Contextualizing Misinformation: A User-Centric Approach to Linguistic and Topical Patterns in News Consumption. The 28th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW 2025). [Manuscript available upon request].

Lu, Y., & Peng, Y. (2024). The Mobilizing Power of Visual Media Across Stages of Social-Mediated Protests. Political Communication, 41(4), 531-558. (DOI)

Qian, S., Lu, Y., & Peng, Y., Shen, C. & Xu, H. (2024). Convergence or divergence? A cross-platform analysis of climate change visual categories, features, and user engagement on Twitter and Instagram. Public Relations Review, 50(2), 102454. (DOI)

Christin, A., & Lu, Y. (2024). The Influencer Pay Gap: Platform Labor Meets Racial Capitalism. New Media & Society, 26(12), 7212-7235. (DOI)

Lu, Y., & Shen, C. (2023). Unpacking Multimodal Fact-checking: Features and Engagement of Fact-checking Videos on Chinese TikTok (Douyin). Social Media + Society, 9(1), 20563051221150406. (DOI)

Peng, Y., Lu, Y., & Shen, C. (2023). An Agenda for Studying Credibility Perceptions of Visual Misinformation. Political Communication, 40(2), 225-237. (DOI)

Muise, D., Lu, Y., Pan J., & Reeves, B. (2022). Selectively Localized: Temporal and Visual Structure of Smartphone Screen Activity across Media Environments. Mobile Media & Communication. 10(3), 487–509. (DOI)

Reeves, B., Ram N., Robinson T. N., Cummings J. J., Giles L., Pan J., Chiatti A., Cho M., Roehrick K., Yang X., Gagneja A., Brinberg M., Muise D., Lu Y., Luo M., Fitzgerald A., Yeykelis L. (2021). Screenomics: A Framework to Capture and Analyze Personal Life Experiences and the Ways that Technology Shapes Them. Human-Computer Interaction. 36(2), 150-201. (DOI. New York Times report)

Advancing Computational Social Science Research

Kim, S., Lu Y., & Peng, Y. (2025). Unmasking Deception: How Computer Vision Could Empower Visual Journalism in Unveiling Visual Misinformation. In Thompson, T. J., and Dahmen N. S. (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Visual Journalism. 39: 471-482. (Book chapter link)

Chen, K., Lu, Y., & Wang, Y. (2024). Unraveling China’s digital traces: evaluating communication scholarship through a sociotechnical lens. Chinese Journal of Communication. 17(2), 127-150. (DOI)

Peng, Y., & Lu, Y. (2023). Computational Visual Analysis in Political Communication. In D. Lilleker & A. Veneti (eds.), Research Handbook on Visual Politics (pp. 42-54). Edward Elgar Publishing. (Book chapter link)

Dissertation

Lu, Y. Performative Propaganda Engagement: How Online Celebrity Fandom Engages with State Propaganda in China.

Abstract: Established research on authoritarian information control has extensively examined the top-down dissemination of political propaganda and its impact on public attitudes and behaviors. This research introduces a novel theory, performative propaganda engagement, which focuses on individuals who engage with state propaganda in a performative manner to benefit an individual or a group they align with, rather than genuinely endorsing or promoting propaganda. Through mixed methods research approaches, this research empirically investigates performative propaganda engagement within the realm of Chinese online celebrity fandom, a rising cultural force on Chinese social media. The findings reveal that celebrity fans in China actively incorporate the promotion of state propaganda into their daily activities, aiming to enhance the visibility and reputation of their celebrities. I find that celebrity fans performatively engage with state propaganda through three mechanisms — celebrity mobilization, direct state mobilization, and algorithmic visibility manipulation. By exploring the manifestations of performative propaganda engagement, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the downstream effects of authoritarian information control, contemporary fandom culture in China, the metrics-driven nature of social media ecosystem, and authoritarian resilience in the digital age.