Paper on mobile health apps published
The article, entitled “Who is tracking health on mobile devices: A behavioral logfile analysis in Hong Kong”, has been published on JMIR mHealth and uHealth by Lu Guan, Tai-quan Peng, and Jonathan Zhu. In their article, they analyzed users’ mHealth app activities from a representative panel of about 2500 users in Hong Kong. Their findings suggest the use of mHealth apps demonstrates a significant temporal pattern and such temporal pattern is moderated by individuals’ demographic characteristics.
Lingfei Wu accepts faculty position at University of Pittsburgh
Congratulations to Dr. Lingfei Wu, who has accepted a faculty position in the School of Computing and Information at the University of Pittsburgh.
After graduation from the Web Mining Lab in 2013, Lingfei worked at Baidu, Arizona State University and University of Chicago, respectively. He has published dozens of articles in top-tier journals, including Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Scientific Reports, Physica A, and Physical Review E. His work has been supported by Tencent Research Institute, National Science Foundation, and Kaifeng Foundation.
The School of Computing and Information at the University of Pittsburgh is ranked 10th in the list of Best Library and Information Studies Programs by US News & World Report. Lingfei will start as an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) in the fall semester of 2019.
Special issue on computational social science (CSS) published at Asian Journal of Communication
Asian Journal of Communication, an SSCI journal with a dedicated focus on Asian communication research, has published a special issue co-edited by three members of the lab, Dr. Jonathan Zhu, Dr. Winson Peng, and Dr. Hai Liang. The full volume can be accessed at https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rajc20/29/3?nav=tocList.
The theme of the special issue is “Introducing Computational Social Science for Asia-Pacific Communication Research”. A community of active researchers from Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States outlines major computational methods closely related to communication research, including user analytics, online experiments, and text mining. They demonstrate how these computational methods can be applied to address theoretical and practical research questions in Asia-Pacific societies.
In the editorial of the special issue, the three co-editors highlight that computational social science (CSS) is not a mechanical piece-together of social science and computer science. CSS represents a paradigm shift in social science that pose equally, if not more, rigorous demands for theorization, research design, statistical analysis, and results presentation. Computational thinking and methods can offer communication researchers enriched opportunities to explore and can stimulate communication researchers to think outside the box. It is not beyond the reach of communication researchers to incorporate computational thinking and methods in their own research. They argue that some old-school principles in social science research (e.g. measurement validity, causal inference, unit of analysis) still rule in the age of CSS.
Dr. Jonathan Zhu is the Founding Director of the Web Mining Lab and the Chair Professor of Computational Social Science with a joint appointment at the Department of Media and Communication and School of Data Science at the City University of Hong Kong. Drs. Winson Peng and Hai Liang are Ph.D. graduates of the Web Mining Lab, who are now faculty members at Michigan State University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, respectively.
Paper on user analytics method goes online
The article, entitled “Applying user analytics to uses and effects of social media in China”, has been published in the special issue of Asian Journal of Communication on applying computational methods to communication research in Asia- Pacific, by Jonathan Zhu, Yixin Zhou, Lu Guan, Lei Hou, Anqi Shen and Heng Lu. In the article, they introduced what is user analytics method and illustrate how to do user analytics research. Finally, they presented an application study of Chinese bloggers to demonstrate how to employ user analytics methods to study the production, consumption, and effects of user-generated content.
Kevin Han of ISU visited Web Lab
Dr. Kevin Gang Han, an associate professor of Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University (USA), visited the Lab today. An active scholar on mediated health communication, strategic communication, and news framing analysis, Dr. Han exchanged with Prof. Jonathan Zhu and other members of the Lab on opportunities and challenges in research and education of the big data era.
News and Events
- May 25, Paper on mobile health apps published
- May 07, Lingfei Wu accepts faculty position at University of Pittsburgh
- Apr 17, Special issue on computational social science (CSS) published at Asian Journal of Communication
- Apr 09, Paper on user analytics method goes online
- Feb 28, Kevin Han of ISU visited Web Lab
- Feb 20, Dr. Toriumi of Tokyo visited the Lab
- Jan 19, Six papers accepted for ICA 2019
- Jan 08, One paper accepted by PacificVis 2019
- Jan 05, Retooling Workshop for MACNM Alumni kicked off
- Dec 19, Lu and Yixin each received a grant from S-tech Research Assistance Plan
- Nov 08, Lab alumni won outstanding alumni awards from the department
- Sep 27, Lab members at front stages of CCRA2018
- Aug 24, CCF-BDCI awards covered by College Magazine
- Jul 04, International educators visited the Lab
- Jul 04, Two teams won three awards in 3rd China Data Journalism Competition
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