Faculty Feature of the Month

April 2, 2021 - Ireland Ingram

Dr. Molina studies online persuasion in the context of digital health, fake news, and online privacy using a combination of experimental and computational approaches. Her research explores the social and psychological implications of sharing online, focusing on how technology shapes what we share on social media, and how we respond to Artificial Intelligence tools that curate user-generated content.

Her research lies at the intersection of communication technology, media effects, and computational social science. Her research has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation, and Facebook, Inc. Maria’s professional experience includes working as content developer for online education and instructor of theory and research methods courses. She has also served as reviewer for Health Communication and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.

 

Recent Publications:

Molina, M. D., Sundar, S. S., Le, T., & Lee, D. (2021). “Fake news” is not simply false information: A concept explication and taxonomy of online content. American Behavioral Scientist, 65(2), 180-212. doi:10.1177/0002764219878224

Sundar, S. S., Kim, J., Rosson, M. B., & Molina, M. D. (2020). Online privacy heuristics that predict information disclosure. Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘20), Paper 725. doi:10.1145/3313831.3376854

Molina, M. D. & Myrick, J.G. (2020) The ‘how’ and ‘why’ of fitness app use: Investigating user motivation to gain insight into the nexus of technology and fitness. Sport in Society, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2020.1744570

Wang, J., Molina, M. D., & Sundar, S.S. (2020). When expert recommendation contradicts peer opinion: Relative social influence of valence, group identity and artificial intelligence. Computers in Human Behavior, 107, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106278

Molina, M. D. (2020). What makes an internet meme a meme? Five essential characteristics. In S. Josephson, K. Smith, & J. Kelly (Eds.)., Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods, and Media (2nd., ed.). Routledge.